In a case of that kind I said, "Please do this, move that merchandise over to the right-hand side of the store, to the right-hand side of the door." And they did it; and it was the difference between failure and success. It is a rather wonderful thing that, when we go in a store, we turn to the right, and when we turn to the right we have got money; and when we turn to the left, it is when we are coming out, and they have taken the money away from us in the store. [Laughter.]

We found in our business that it was impossible to bring the people into the store. We knew they had the desire in their hearts, as every woman has, with a pocket-book with money in it, to spend, to buy; but, with all the pessimism so much expressed, she did not have the courage to leave her home and come down to the store and buy. Therefore it was necessary to take the store out to the people.

To give you a little insight into something that I happen to know about we took the store of a firm of music dealers out of their store, and onto an automobile truck, and to the homes of the people, adding a large monthly amount to the sales, during a period of four months, after every one had been saying that there was not any business. We did exactly as a man here in Boston is doing, who probably could not get the people to come down town to look in his windows. Having a special body built on a truck, he has filled it with trunks and bags and other articles that he sells, and is driving it all over the city of Boston and the suburbs, so that the people might see what he has to sell, and which they would not come down to his store to buy. I believe, and I say it without hesitation, that you will not have to go far to find people who have money; and when you find the money you can find the desire to buy.

I sent a salesman, who is now in this room, to Lawrence, Mass., which place I figured, with thirty thousand idle out of the American Woolen Company, was probably about the dullest place in the country. Something needed to be done, to turn the tide for the music company. That salesman was to go to Lawrence and stay, and he went and stayed until he had done the biggest thing in a music store that has ever been done in Lawrence. That man went to Lawrence and spent ten days, four days in looking and six days in acting. He closed, that week in the Lawrence music shop, with four hundred per cent increase in retail sales, over the biggest week, including Christmas, that that store had ever had. What did he do? Well, I almost hate to tell you, it is so simple. He hired a man and a girl to dance at certain hours in the window of that store dressed in perfectly proper clothes, at that [laughter]. He put up a sign that the people could come in at certain hours and learn the new dances, to the music of the Columbia Graphonola. Simple? That is the thing that wins; it is the simple thing, it is not the big thing, this massive-brain, eagle-eye stuff. It is simply an appeal, away down to the ground, so that the little child will understand what you are talking

about.

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What we have to do is to plan our work, and then work the plan. But there is a lot of difference, I think, in the way it is done. A lot of sales managers and operators of business form a plan and work the plan as far as the buyer, and there it stops. Up to the first of May the stock

"

in the hands of dealers was out of proportion to what they could sell; because it had simply been planned to unload on the dealer, and stop; there was nothing that went away over, to take the stock to where it would meet the public.

When we put over Rothier, the singer, we put him over on the basis that he knew how to sing the Marseillaise, and the further idea that he was at Verdun. Could you imagine anything that would put more life into the Marseillaise, the song of his country, than the singing of it by the man who had fought for his country at Verdun? The clerks over the United States told that little story to the people, and the people bought Rothier's Marseillaise, because they knew something of the history of the man behind it. Simply that, but it sells records.

A clerk in a store is very commonly looked upon as a dub. That goes in the city. But how about the clerk in the country? What has he got to say about it? He has this to say about it: "I will have you understand that I am a member of the Board of Selectmen. I will have you understand that my wife is chairman of the Charities Board; my daughter was valedictorian in her class at the high school." He is a member of society; and when your message does not go down to him, with the ring of truth, and as being of the sort that he can put over to his customers, he tells his own story, and his story goes a mighty lot further than your story, because he means something to the people he meets.

I am glad that that fellow was recognized, down in Richmond, Va., who refused to hire married men in his store; he said the women didn't want to talk to a married man [laughter]. He laid the success of his store to just that little thing. Simple, but scientifically simple [laughter]. By that I don't mean to say that such ideas do not exist in New York, and do not mean anything there [laughter]. However, in New York the clerk behind the counter is not known to anybody. Most of the people buy over the telephone, and he doesn't register as a personage in the city. The thing is true in Boston, probably, to a large extent. But we forget that fellow back in the country, though we should remember that about fifty per cent of our people are country people; and our message, many times, stops on paper, and if it does go through, it goes through with an argument that will fit a city store, and not a country store.

46

There is a lot in the hitting of the price channels. I remember when I was with the Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company, I went into one of their stores, where they were selling biscuits at 9 cents a pound. I walked up to the fellow in charge and said, "What do you mean? Don't you know that you are losing money? Yes," he said, "but we have got to have a leader, got to have something to bring the people in." I told him I would show him how to do that and not lose money. I said to him, You give me your window." He thought that was a cinch. I arranged it to suit me, and I told him to drive for business during the first week as hard as he could. I went in the next week and made a change in the selling of the product. All I did was to change the sign, and put II cents, instead of 9. Why? Nine cents is a cut of one cent from 10, and II cents is a cut of 4 from 15, in the minds of the average customer; and I sold four times as much merchandise, the second week. It was simply

the argument which Macey uses in New York, of pricing an article at 59 cents; there is something back, the customer says; 49 cents, something back from a one-coin price. When you have got something coming back to the customer, from a one-coin price, you have hit a price channel worth considering.

We must give careful consideration to having merchandise that the people want. You wouldn't care to attempt to sell oblong handkerchiefs. People are not accustomed to buying oblong handkerchiefs. We must recognize that. They don't look right, because the people are accustomed to using square handkerchiefs. We would have the same difficulty if we attempted to sell square towels. People are accustomed to using oblong towels and not square towels. It works both ways.

If I could get a salesman the night before he goes out on his territory, to visualize the article he is selling, the material; to visualize the stores he is going to visit; to take a vision, we will say, of just three stores, one at a time, and figure how each is arranged, what kind of clerks, how the shelves should be arranged for the kind of merchandise he is offering, how he would furnish out one of the windows; and then figure just the way he would approach the man; why, when he walked into that man's store, there would be a step of his foot on the ground, a way in which he turns the knob of the door, a look in his eye, which causes that man to say, "Here comes a man with a message to me." And it will double the sales of any salesman. If he does fail to make a sale and we do fail sometimes then, if he will lean up against the nearest lamp-post and review the experience, say to himself, "I said this"; "He said that "; "I said this"; "He said that "; and," By Jove, why didn't I say that?' That would be all sober second thought. Chalk it down on a piece of paper, and the next time start with that thought. Some of you may still be thinking that I am talking a whole lot of bunk. All right. How many of you go to bed with a problem on your minds and wake up with the answer in the morning? The subconscious mind has worked it out, and given you that answer, which you have failed to work out with your conscious mind and get the answer, during the day,-that is all. You don't have to take my word on any of this stuff. You try it and see it work.

Now, your selling has got to amount to a lot more than calling. I don't want to depreciate calling. I want to refer to the Remington typewriter. A man took up the task of selling for them; he figured that he wasn't a very good salesman, but they paid so much commission for this and that, and he thought he had a way of making some money. He took the biggest office buildings. He would open a door and ask, "Want to buy a Remington to-day?" No bang. Then he would go to the next door, "Want to buy a Remington to-day?" No- bang. He did that all day, keeping track of his calls. At the end of a month he drew down some salary. "All right, now," the sales manager said; "don't worry about it.' He started the second month, doing the same thing and kept it up, and he didn't go very far until it was found that there were so many people that he had called upon in that rough way who were asking about Remingtons that he made more sales in the second month than were ever made in the history of the office's business; and

he recognized that the sales came in direct ratio to the calls. This matter of making sales is like the measles, it is catching, if you expose yourself to it. There are a lot of salesmen who don't expose themselves to the disease, so I don't see how they can expect to catch the habit of making sales. [Applause and laughter.]

I believe in selling at a profit. A good many sales managers do not look at anything more than the cost, and the amount of business, regardless of the profits that the sales bring in. The chief way is to take a list of salesmen, showing their work, and compare them by the amount of sales. Say, "Here is a good salesman, he put in so much time, and made so many sales." He gets a good recommendation. Now, we should recognize and consider the question whether that big fellow's sales are giving a fair amount of dollars and cents profit to the concern; there is a question about who is the best salesman. He may be selling a large amount, gross, but is he selling stuff that brings profit to you? That is the only basis for responsibility, not only the amount of cash that comes in. Is it volume, or is it profit, that that man has delivered to you? A good many of you are insisting that your salesmen keep going over the same route, over and over and over again, without caring much about how he manages that route. It is your fault if you recognize your salesmen on the volume of the returns, and not on the profits to you, the dollars and cents of profit to you. There is another point which we do not think as much of as we should, and that is how often it is turned over. You know, there is a lot of difference between making a sale once a year at one hundred per cent profit, and sales at forty per cent, turned over six times a year.

My office is on the twentieth floor of the Woolworth Building. That building is the most wonderful building that was ever constructed. It was not constructed on five- and ten-cent sales, but on the profits of five- and ten-cent sales. I never go into that building but I think what a lesson it gives us as to what can be done by frequent turning over of money in the sales, and not by the balances on the basis of initial paper profits. Very much is accomplished by prestige of name, which means a good deal in Boston, prestige in business, built up through hard knocks. It is something that must be done by hard work. You have got to continue that work, and keep everlastingly at it. The time is coming when a salesman will be just as busy at picking his boss as the boss is now in picking the salesman. You should keep in mind that you have a great responsibility in selecting men, and should be sure that you are a big enough man to lead them. It is not what you have done in the past, but what you are going to do in the future. Going back to golf again, if, just before the stroke, you raise your eyes, what do you do? You dub your shot, because you have taken your eye off the ball. That is exactly what it amounts to when a fellow becomes satisfied and says, "I have got all the business; I am sure now that you fellows will work for me.' I see that fellow skid; I see the fellows ready to float and pick another man to work for.

Invite the confidence of the men. Get them to come and tell you their story, their failures up the road, when they come back; when they

come back discouraged, they come back blue, they come back homeit should be home, should be the place where the salesman and the president of the company get together. Never be too busy to sit down with that man and let him pour his heart out. The man that simply calls for more sales, more sales, does not lead that salesman to tell his story. No matter if you know it, word for word, before he opens his mouth, let him get that bile off his system, and then his stomach will be in condition to take a strong diet. [Applause.]

There is a difference between a factory and an office, to this extent, and I think you will all recognize it. The factory man comes in to you, or the office man comes in to you, and gives you a statement that this thing cannot be done, or something else cannot be done; and everybody takes it as sure, that that is a condition. But when a salesman comes into the office, though he tells you that the whole territory he covers has been burned over by fire, still the question will be, "Where are your orders?" And no matter what the excuse, that excuse is simply an excuse. You know, fellows, that that is absolutely true in the sales end of the business. In the sales business, you never know what conditions you are going up against. You have got to get the business. That is what you draw your money for, not to make goods, not to keep books, but to sell goods. That is the thing that has got to be put into our salesmen in 1921, the feeling that you have got a job ahead of you, you have got to produce, you have got to come through with the business. The time has come when you have got to figure on four things. A man will tell you that he cannot see a certain man in regard to sales until after nine o'clock. He waits. About 11.30 he says the man will be going out to lunch now, and he will not come back till two, then he decides that the man has signed his mail and is going home, can't see him till morning. That same salesman gets off on Saturday for his usual half day, wants to go out for golf, so he says he will go in the office and write up a few orders, and then go on home. Four little devils are simply misleading that man, very persistent little devils.

The president of one of the biggest companies in New York walked into his office along about twenty minutes of nine; he wanted a question answered, and called man after man of his organization, and there wasn't a one there. He called up the president of the next biggest company, his competitor in the city of New York, finding him at this office at that time; he called up others, and talked with three other presidents, finding every one of them at their desks, ready for business before nine o'clock. It was a lesson to him and his organization; if that was the kind of competition he was up against, he was going to be on the job.

We

It is not a case of firing men. It is a very easy thing to hire and fire; but a good man is not to be fired and re-hired. Perhaps he was a good man, but conditions were against his putting the message over. don't want to build blindly, we want to build intelligently; we want to build a business that is out of the class of the mule, without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity; and that business must be built with a better thought back of it, a thought that comes when we realize that, anyway, we are in a class better than the mule.