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Tactics In Selling
by
“With this, I tore a slit in the brim as easily as if it had been blotting paper. Then I gave the brim a few more turns, ripping it clear off the crown. In a minute or two I tore up the brim and made it look like black pasteboard checkers.
“‘The cigars are on me!’ said Andrews, as everybody around gave him the laugh.
“I went up to my room soon leaving Andrews that night to wear his brimless hat. But I knew then that I could get his attention when I wanted it, next morning, about nine o’clock,–for my train and his left at 11:30. This would give plenty of time to do business with him if we had any business to do, as he was a quick buyer when you got him interested. I went into his store with two hats in my hand. They were good clear Nutrias and just the size that Andrews wore. I’d found this out by looking at his hat the night before.
“‘I don’t want to do any business with you, Andrews,’ said I, ‘but I’m not such a bad fellow, you know, and I want to square up things with you a little. Take one of these.’
“The hats were ‘beauts.’ Andrews went to the mirror and put on one and then the other. He finally said, ‘I guess I’ll hang onto the brown one. By Jove, these are daisies, old man!’
“‘Yes,’ said I, striking as quickly as a rattlesnake, ‘and there are lots more where these came from! Now, look here, Andrews, you know mighty well that my line of stuff is a lot better than the one that you’re buying from. If you think more of the babies of the man you are buying your hats from than you do of your own, stay right here; but if you don’t, get Jack, your buyer, and come up with me right now. I’m going out on the 11:30 train.’ This line of talk will knock out the friendship argument when nothing else will.
“‘Guess I’ll go you one, old man,’ said Andrews.
“He bought a good sized bill and, as I left him on the train where I changed cars, he said, ‘Well, good luck to you. I guess you’d better just duplicate that order I gave you, for my other store.'”
“That,” spoke up one of the boys, “is what I call salesmanship. You landed the man that didn’t want to buy your goods. The new man let him slip off his hook when he really wanted to buy suspenders.”
“I once landed a $3,400 bill up in Wisconsin,” said a clothing man as we lighted fresh cigars, “in a funny way. I’d been calling on an old German clothing merchant for a good many years, but I could never get him interested. I went into his store one morning and got the usual stand-off. I asked him if he wouldn’t come over and just look at my goods, that I could save him money and give him a prettier line of patterns and neater made stuff than he was buying.
“‘Ach! Dat’s de sonk dey all sink,’ said the old German. ‘I’m sotisfite mit de line I haf. Sell ’em eesy und maig a goot brofit. Vat’s de use uf chanching anyvay, alretty?’
“I’d been up against this argument so many times with him that I knew there was no use of trying to buck up against it any more, so I started to leave the store. The old man, although he turned me down every time I went there, would always walk with me to the front door and give me a courteous farewell. In came a boy with a Chicago paper just as we were five steps from the door. What do you suppose stared me in the face? In big head lines I read: GREAT FIRE IN CHICAGO in big type. The paper also stated that flames were spreading toward my house. I at once excused myself and went down to the telegraph office to wire my house exactly where I was so that they could let me know what to do. As I passed to the operator the telegram I wrote, he said, ‘Why, Mr. Leonard, I’ve just sent a boy up to the hotel with a message for you. There he is! Call him back!’ The wire was from the house stating, ‘Fire did us only little damage. Keep right on as if nothing had happened.’