“‘Say,’ said he, ’young fellow,
I’ve never done any business with you, but,
by Heavens! I like your pluck, and I’m going
right over to your sample room whether you ask me
to or not and give you an order. This is the
best time for me to buy goods. All these other
fellows around here are croaking about the election
and they’re not going to have anything to sell
these people. Shoes are going to wear out and
the sun is going to fade calico, Bryan or no Bryan!
I want some goods on my shelves. Come on, let’s
go now before it gets dark!’
“I never sold a bill so easy in my life.
The old man would pick up a bundle of sample cards
and say, ’Here, you send me about what you think
I ought to have out of this lot,’ and while I
was writing down the items, he would talk politics.
I sold him a nailer.”
“Well, you had pretty good luck in that town,”
spoke up one of the boys, “to get a good bill
and also win five hundred dollars.”
“Didn’t win it, though,” said the
dry goods man.
“Well, how’s that? Didn’t McKinley
win the election? You were betting on him.”
“Yes, but I got back to Chicago about the time
that Bryan struck there. I went down to the old
shack on the lake front where the Post Office now
is, and heard Bryan speak to the business men.
It looked to me like the whole house was with him.
I heard a dozen men around where I sat say, after
the speech was over, that they had intended to vote
against him, but that they were sure going to vote
for Bryan. That same day I hedged on my five
hundred.”
“Well, you got a good customer out of the deal
anyhow.”
“Yes, I did; but I thought I’d lost him.
After the election he sent me the thousand and I went
down to see him. You know I voted for Bryan.”
“Changed your mind, did you?”
“Change? Did you ever hear Bryan speak?
When I met the old man I made a clean breast of it,
and said, ’I’m mighty sorry to tell you,
but I voted for Bryan.’
“‘Well, that’s all right,’
he said. ‘So did I.’”
TACTICS IN SELLING—III.
GETTING A MERCHANT’S ATTENTION.
“Seven and nine,” said the porter, poking
his head into the Pullman smoker, “are all made
down.”
With this, a couple of the boys bade us goodnight
and turned in, but soon two more drifted in and took
their places.
“Getting a merchant’s attention,”
said the furnishing goods man, “is the main
thing. You may get a man to answer your questions
in a sort of a way but you really do not have his
attention always when he talks to you. You would
better not call on a man at all than go at him in a
listless sort of a way. This is where the old
timer has the bulge over the new man. I once
knew a man who had been a successful clerk for many
years who started on the road with a line of pants.
He had worked for one of my old customers. I
chanced to meet him, when I was starting on my trip,
at the very time when he was making his maiden effort
at selling a bill to the man for whom he had been working.
Of course this was a push-over for him because his
old employer gave him an order as a compliment.
