FullReads

“I immediately left, having a definite appointment. I went to my sample room and laid out in a line twelve different samples of hats, the prices of which ranged, in jumps of three dollars per dozen, from nine dollars to twenty-seven dollars. In the afternoon I went back to the store and got Williams and George. As we entered the sample room, I said: ‘Now, Williams, we are over here–you, George and myself–to see what you know about hats. If there is any line of goods in which you should know values, certainly it is the line you have been handling for six years. You have fingered them over every day and ought to know the prices of them. Here is a line of goods right out of the house from which you have been buying so long. The prices range from nine dollars to twenty-seven dollars a dozen. Will it not be a fair test of your judgment and George’s for you to examine these goods very carefully–everything but the brands–for these would indicate the price–and lay out this line so that the cheaper hats will be at one end of the bunch and the best ones at the other? Very well! Now just straighten out this line according to price.’

“‘Well, that looks fair to me,’ said Williams.

“He and George went to work to straighten out the goods according to price. They put a nine dollar hat where a twelve dollar hat should have been, and vice versa. They put a twenty-four dollar hat where a twenty-four dollar hat belonged, and an eighteen dollar hat right beside it, indicating that the two were of the same quality. The next hat I handed them was one worth sixteen dollars and a half a dozen. It contained considerable chalk that made it feel smooth. After examining the ‘sweat,’ name and everything they both agreed that this was a twenty-seven dollars a dozen hat. When they did this, I said:

“‘Gentlemen, I will torture you no longer. Let me preface a few remarks by saying that neither one of you knows a single, solitary, blooming thing about hats. Here is a hat that you say is worth twenty- four dollars a dozen. Look at the brand. You have it on your own shelves. You have been buying them of this quality for six years at eighteen dollars a dozen. And, what is worse still, here is a hat the price of which you see in plain figures is sixteen dollars and a half, and you say it is worth twenty-seven dollars a dozen.’

“The faces of Williams and George looked as blank as a freshly whitewashed fence. I saw that I had them. Then was the time for me to be bold. A good account was at stake, and at stake right then. Besides, my reputation was at stake. When a salesman loses a good account the news of it spreads all over his territory, and on account of losing one customer directly he will lose many more indirectly; for merchants will hear of it and on the strength of the information, lose confidence in the line itself. On the other hand, if you can knock your competitor out of a good account it is often equal to securing half a dozen more. I did not wish to lose out even for one season, so I said: ‘Now look here, Williams, you have bought this other line of goods, and perhaps you feel that you have enough for this season and that you will make the best of a bad bargain. You are satisfied in your own mind, and you have told me as plainly as you ever told me anything in your life, that my goods are better than those that you have bought. I am going to tell you one thing now that I would not say in the beginning: that you have bought from a line of samples the goods of which will not equal the samples you have looked at. It is not the samples that you buy but it is the goods that are delivered to you. Those which will be delivered will not be as good as those which you looked at. You know full well that my goods have always come up to samples. You know that they are reliable. Why do you wish to change? If you wish to change for the sake of making an additional twenty-five cents on each hat instead of giving it to my firm, why did you not take the hat which I have been selling you all the time for $18 a dozen and sell it for three dollars, the price you have always been getting for my twenty-four dollars a dozen hats? In that way you would make an additional twenty-five cents. Be logical! If that’s not profit enough, why not sell a $15 or a $12 a dozen hat for $3? Be logical! If that’s not enough, why not hire a big burly duffer to stand at your front door, knock down every man who comes in so that you can take all the money he has without giving him anything. You could bury him in the cellar. Be logical.’

“”Fraid they’d put me in the “pen”,’ said Williams.

“‘If I were a judge and you were brought before me charged with selling the twenty-one dollars a dozen hat that you have bought to take the place of mine (for which I charge you twenty-four dollars a dozen) I would give you a life sentence. Let me tell you, Williams, a man who is in business, if he expects to remain in the same place a long time, must give good values to his customers. In the course of time they will find out whether the stuff he gives them is good or poor. Go into a large establishment with a good reputation and you will find out that they give to the people who come to buy merchandise from them good values. Now, the goods I have sold you have always given your trade satisfaction. Your business in my department is increasing, so you say, and the reason is because you are giving to your customers good values. Why not continue to pursue this same policy? I am in town to do business and to do business today. I cannot and I will not take a turn down. If you want to continue to buy my goods you must buy them and buy them right now, even if you do have to take them right on top of the other stuff that you have bought. I shall make no compromise. My price is $1,000–more than you ever bought from me before.’

“‘George,’ said Williams, turning to his buyer, ‘I guess Dickie has us. Give him an order for $1,000 and don’t let’s go chasing the end of a rainbow in such a hurry any more.'”