Roscoe R. Rau

“ In all periods of high civilization men have felt a deep interest in the furniture woods. The sheer beauty of these woods, their association in sentiment and legend with the noble trees of many lands, their never-ending, never-repeating variations of figure and shading, the romantic stories of their journeyings by ship or caravan from the far ends of the earth—these things always have delighted men and women of taste. ”

“ If once, you, the salesman, have experienced the personal satisfactions of studying a room which has unmistakable distinction, which literally glows with the light of a personality reflected against a background of culture, understanding, and sympathy, you in turn will seek eagerly to share your adventures in color management with those who come to you seeking to express their desires and aspirations in terms of usable, lovely surroundings. ”

“ Tell them how the old craftsmen of Gothic Europe, hundreds of years ago, stained oak planks a beautiful rich brown by burying them for weeks or months under manure and you will interest them deeply. Tell them how American craftsmen, a generation ago, got the same results with the fumes of ammonia and a leaden vault and you will barely hold their interest. Tell them how other craftsmen today squirt a preparation of coal tar and water from one spray gun, and a preparation of wood pulp or old rags from another to finish fine furniture, and they will probably cancel the order. ”

“ Feeling the smooth pull of a drawer which slides properly on its guides, tracing the design of inlaid marquetry with the fingertips, searching for rough spots in drawer interiors with sensitive fingers and caressing soft-textured upholstery fabrics with the fingers all vividly bring to the attention of the customer the quality and true hidden beauty of the piece under consideration, which may not have been discernible to the naked eye. ”

“ This bulletin presents at once opportunity and challenge to those who sell home furnishings:
Opportunity to those who see furniture as a symbol of achievement and distinction. These hear the call to bring beauty out of drab surroundings, and to shape the visible garments of life, and even life itself, making it finer, richer, and a thing of greater worth. ”

“ A woman's statement that she is not yet ready to buy is in many cases merely a "defense mechanism"—a psychological device to serve as an excuse to leave if she senses that high-pressure selling effort is being applied. It is possible that if we answer, in effect, "Please don't think of yourself as a customer, but rather as a valued guest of the store. This is not a busy hour for me, and while you are here I hope you will let me show you some more of the new things, which are particularly interesting this season," we may be able to develop the confidence and desire necessary to effect a sale. ”

“ If you will set it off by itself you will see its extraordinary grace and harmony of line. In this piece we have Chippendale's conception of the ladder back—a very old form of chair expressed in flowing curves which descend rhythmically from top rail to floor. As a chair it is perfect—staunch, thoroughly comfortable, and enduring; it is even more desirable as a work of art. ”

“ Nothing will be accomplished by argument. But the one who scorns style probably does not carry that idea over into his purchase of clothing for himself or of the automobile he drives. In dealing with this type of customer it may be worth while to point out that the machine at least has enabled us to reproduce the truly beautiful pieces of the old masters with their full beauty preserved and to make them available to people of ordinary means. Certainly society could not support the immense number of craftsmen that would be necessary to make good furniture by hand. ”

“ Some salesmen are so anxious to tell all they know about their product that unquestionably they develop a habit of interrupting a prospect every time he speaks. This reflects adversely on the salesman; often it prevents the prospect from telling of the features particularly liked or the real objection to the proposition. When your prospective customer starts to speak, listen, and above all, when answering a question, don't exaggerate. Many a sad failure in selling has resulted from an exaggeration of facts to the point where the prospect will not believe anything the salesman has said. ”

“ If this is true, those who sell home furnishings must have a sound knowledge not only of their merchandise but also of the art of arranging and combining that merchandise to insure comfort and beauty in completely furnished rooms.
This specialized selling of home furnishings as a career, therefore, means mastery of the art of interior decoration. If interior decoration be defined as the sum of the processes by which a home is made beautiful to look at and comfortable to live in, then all who sell home furnishings must understand style, design, materials, and construction. ”

“ Today's emphasis upon service for specific needs rather than upon low price to build sales volume has given us an ever-increasing number of salespersons who understand that it is foolish to start a sale from the bottom, foolish to assume that no one desires or can afford to buy good things, and not only foolish but dishonest to discuss furniture of poor quality and low price in terms which fairly could be applied only to better quality and higher price. ”

“ To call it a mahogany table will lose the sale immediately, if the customer knows woods. To say that it has a mahogany-veneer top and mahogany finish gum legs may suggest to the buyer that a veneer is a poor substitute for solid wood, and that gum cannot be desirable if it must be finished to look like something else. To ignore the whole matter of materials and construction and to try to sell the table on its beauty and fitness alone may cause the customer to wonder just what you are trying to conceal, which will mean loss of confidence in yourself and your merchandise. ”

“ There are those who appear to believe that selling is a game in which the object is to beat down the customer's opposition and make her buy. In dealing with customers of any type above the most unenlightened, this idea always has proved a boomerang.
In talking materials and construction, preserve a sense of relative values.—When we say about a $35 chair everything that properly could be said about one priced at $65, our customer either believes or disbelieves us. If she disbelieves, the sale is lost. If she believes, our chance to get more than $35 of her money is lost. ”

“ Knowing that it is impossible to oppose successfully the self-interest of the buyer, they can think of nothing else to do. In point of fact there is nothing else to do in a great many cases, except to make every possible effort to create an impression sufficiently powerful to bring the buyer back after her shopping tour is over. In many other cases, however, there is a way to meet competition, if you can develop the ability to use it.
The woman who wants an easy chair, a sofa, a rug, or a desk, also wants something else which is far more important to her, namely, a more satisfying room. ”

“ Those who buy furniture for satisfactions other than utility naturally buy—insofar as their means will permit—whatever pieces they believe to be necessary in order to insure those satisfactions. It is clear that salesmen in order to sell to this type of customer must be able to arouse the interest of these utility and price buyers in other satisfactions.
To do this, they must be able to sell something more than furniture. They must sell on the basis of the enticement of comfort and cushioned ease, the lure of beauty, the appeal of smartness and style. ”

“ Every salesperson has his own technique for closing a sale, but there are certain methods which seem to impress favorably the potential customer and others which react unfavorably.
Among the objectionable selling methods is that of making personal comparisons; for example, to tell a customer that you have a chair, a lamp, or a rug exactly like the one she is buying usually does not impress her. The average customer likes to feel her taste is superior to the salesperson's and that she can afford something beyond the price range of the person serving her. ”

“ The backbone of the home-furnishings industry is, however, the individuality of the American home and it has never succumbed to stereotyped style or [Pg 242] decoration. Almost every customer either consciously or unconsciously recognizes this and will be interested in furniture that sets her home apart from others and represents her individual taste and planning. The first time a customer may ask questions of a salesman; the second and third time, just return to look. Never make any customer feel that you are annoyed by her delayed purchase or that you recognize that she is still looking. ”

“ A well-furnished and decorated room will have colors, contours, and groupings that fit into the architectural background as though all were conceived and executed simultaneously. The salesperson should guard against the customer's rather natural feeling that there is inequity between cost and the characteristics and qualities which give harmony and beauty to home furnishings. In handling a sale at this point, the salesman will develop convincingly the idea that home decoration, although it is the distinguishing mark of all lovely homes, actually is not dependent on lavish expenditure. ”

“ FLOOR COVERINGS, DRAPERIES, FURNITURE
Here—as in the hall and the sunroom—imagination, familiarity with good current work, and energy will sell more goods in less time than the stodgy, conventional, lackadaisical methods which so many buyers meet when they undertake the furnishing of a breakfast room. In this field it is easier for a good man to trade up than down, no matter what class of customers he works with. ”

“ To overcome the inevitable competition of opposing desires, and to reduce or eliminate shopping for variety of selection or price, make your customer see the piece under consideration not as an individual unit, but as an integral part of her room. As long as she is permitted to think that she is buying a chair and nothing but a chair, she will be concerned with a multitude of details, most of which are of no real importance, [27] and will be strongly disposed to keep on looking until she has exhausted every possibility of finding something completely satisfactory in all of these details. ”

“ The first and inescapable form of competition is a competition among conflicting desires in the mind of the average buyer. In order to buy one thing, she must give up something else. Furniture dealers and salesmen habitually assume that the woman who enters a furniture store and asks, for example, for an easy chair, has already decided to buy one. The fact is that the customer is often merely weighing the satisfactions likely to come to her through possession of a chair against those offered by other articles or services also under consideration. ”

“ In every sale of sunroom merchandise, whether for a new house or an old, we must have the courage to point out that this room, potentially so large a factor in the comfort and enjoyment of the family, so much used by intimate guests, and so conspicuously placed as to be an open advertisement of the taste of its owners, should be furnished in a manner consistent with its proper importance. ”

“ The purpose of an inner-spring mattress is to supply maximum resilience and buoyancy, plus independence and freedom of action which will enable the mattress to adjust itself immediately to the varying weights of the different parts of the body. Learn why the coils in the springs will not turn, will not push through the upholstery, will not collapse and entangle themselves one with another, and why they will give service for many years. Having learned these things yourself, study the art of making that clear to your customer. ”

“ Furniture making employs many materials and many processes. In every one of these materials and processes there are wide differences in excellence between the worst and the best. All of these differences are accurately known only to the manufacturer because they are concealed in the finished product. Many of them are known to the expert salesman. Few are known to the consumer who buys furniture too infrequently to become informed on concealed values, and naturally is disposed to base a judgment of value on the two obvious factors—eye appeal and price. ”

“ Such actions reveal an awkwardness and lack of poise which one does not associate with good homes and their furnishings. Then, too, your customer, if she is seriously considering a purchase, thinks of you subconsciously as pounding her table or sitting on the arm of her sofa.
Similar care should be given to the language with which you characterize or describe your merchandise. Many an automobile salesman has lost a live prospect because he insisted on calling a beautiful car a "job." "This stuff," or even "these goods," may lose the sale of a fine damask. ”

“ Fashion ever has been a keynote in the purchase of home furnishings. The key, however, still remains in the custody of the owner. When she intends to buy a new gown, coat, or hat, she reads magazines and newspapers, shops around, studies styles and trends, thinks of uses and requirements for the gowns or coats under consideration. Probably she needs to understand that she may use as much conscious discrimination with furniture as with coats if only she will use the same sources of inspiration and information. She should try any one or all of these ”

“ Undoubtedly they who sell furniture know too little about the furniture woods, talk too little about them, make far too little use of their powerful appeal to the eye and the emotions. If they can learn to know them intimately, and to regard them, not as merchandise merely, but as something fine and nobly beautiful, they cannot fail to inspire widespread admiration and desire for ownership. ”

“ If you watch some salespersons at work, you will see that they move slowly and regularly down one aisle and back the next, taking each suite as it comes, however closely it may resemble the one before it. At best, this method wastes time, while with many customers it results in weariness, confusion, and a well-defined suspicion that the salesperson is only an order-taker. In general, move toward the sale by longer but fewer jumps, and show contrasting types in the effort to heighten the buyer's interest, and to arrive as quickly as possible at an understanding of her likes. ”