Harold Whitehead

“ I wondered if I was just an average store clerk?
What a different view you take of things when you become a boss yourself! Already I felt that the people working for me should consider my interests, and not hesitate to work hard for me; and yet when I was a clerk only two weeks before I used to begrudge doing the least thing more than my bare duties called for, and I had always felt I ought to get an immediate cash return for anything extra I did. ”

“ Now, while in trading stamps there is no apparent difference, with advertising one can express one's personality and character, which trading stamps never do. There are so many ways in which one may advertise: newspapers, billboards, booklets, form letters, street car signs; and you can make your advertising such that it will be better than your competitors'. But trading stamps are trading stamps and nothing more. The story of advertising is as varied as language itself. With advertising you can vary the appeal so that it always has a freshness which trading stamps must soon lose. ”

“ Black," said Bulder with a smile, "wants me to talk over with you both the splendid possibilities of his store through the Garter Trading Stamps. Good idea. It shows he is cautious and has good judgment."
"Mr. Black is quite a busy man, you know, Mr. Bulder," Fellows replied, "and perhaps don't have time enough always to think over every angle of a proposition; so he very wisely believes in talking things over and getting an outside viewpoint. Mr. Black can analyze these problems himself just as well as you or I can; but he believes in conserving his time and energies as much as he can." ”

“ When he had gone, Barlow put his hand on my shoulder.
"Dawson," he said, "Stigler has lived in this town for many years, trading on the reputation of his father, who was a fine gentleman. But he's been losing the better-class trade rapidly, and is only holding up business by cutting prices right and left. That policy can't win in the end."
"For heaven's sake! Mr. Barlow," I cried, "why did you ask him here? If there is one man I detest more than another, it's Stigler!" ”

“ It's easy to say "what's the use of losing sleep over a thing," but, when a man finds the bottom knocked out of his business because of competition, plans a big sale and it starts off as a hopeless fizzle, after an outlay of over a hundred dollars for advertising, he can't help but worry! The man isn't born that can find things slipping away as I had and not worry over it! ”

“ I asked.
"I've just rented old Dorman's store. You know, I think there's room in this town for a good five-and-ten-cent store, specializing on kitchen goods. This looked like a good location to me, so I'm just going to try it out. Open up the first of the month."
"Fine," I said. "Good luck to you!" putting as much heartiness into my tone as I could. And then I went into the store before my rage, and let me say, anxiety, should show themselves to Stigler.
"Gee whitakins!" I thought. "A five-and-ten-cent store, next door to me, specializing in kitchen goods, and run by Stigler!" ”

“ When I told Betty about it after getting home, she said:
"Well, Stigler didn't waste any time getting after you, did he?"
"No," I said with a grin.
"And do you know that he says now that your sale has proved a fizzle and that practically all your goods have been put back in stock again? . . . Quiet," she said, putting her hand on my shoulder, for I was about to explode with temper. "I suppose no man can be successful without having a lot of people throw mud at him." ”

“ Going down to the store, I glanced at it, and realized then, that my methods had all been wrong, and that probably I had been to blame for my failure the day before.
For instance, it said: "The name of the firm and of yourself are of secondary importance in selling the Cincinnati pencil sharpener. It is what it will do that counts. When calling on a prospect, don't say, 'Can I sell you a pencil sharpener?' but ask him to lend you a pencil and tell him you will show him how he can keep it pointed easily and make it last longer." ”

“ I believe one of the earmarks of a true executive is his ability to slam down the lid of his desk—that is, assuming he is so old-fashioned as to have a roll-top desk—beastly things, they are. I think a roll-top desk is an invention of the devil to induce lazy people to shove work into pigeon holes instead of doing it! Roll-top desks are one of my pet aversions. As I was saying, I think one of the earmarks of a real executive is his ability to leave his business at any time and know that it will run safely. An executive must reduce work to routine as much as possible. ”

“ Well, after we had disposed of the fire sale question, we brought up the matter of whether we should, or should not, sell toys at Christmas time. Larsen was strongly in favor of it, but I was rather against it.
"We've a hardware store," I argued, "and that's a men's shop. Toys are kids' business."
"You say we have a men's store, eh," was Larsen's rejoinder. "More women than men come into the store. Women buy ninety per cent. of all retail goods sold in the country. Why not we get women's and children's trade? Get youngsters coming into the store. When they grow up they come for tools." ”

“ When they look for a town in which to locate a store, they want to know a lot of facts about it. They want to know, for example, whether the town covers a large area or not. They find out if the houses are scattered, or if the dwellings are concentrated in a small area. They like a town that is a trading center for neighboring towns, because they can draw from all these neighboring towns as well as from their own local trade. If it's a manufacturing town, they want to know whether the factories make such goods as will tend to make the labor problem steady. ”

“ Think of the tremendous buying power that we have. It would be absolutely impossible for you to give trading stamps of your own and have any chance with competition. Now, I don't think for a moment that you are not as keen a business man as the next fellow, but the big concerns realize that it is specialization that means success, and we have simply specialized in this one branch of marketing to help you fellows do something which you could do yourselves, but not nearly so effectively or cheaply as we can. ”

“ Surely you are not going to stick to your foolish idea that trading stamps are something for nothing. All sensible people know that no one can give something for nothing and live, and I trust that the trading stamp concerns are sensible people. It is merely a cash discount. ”

“ When a clever salesman offers us some job goods at a long-profit price, we just can't hear him, but, when he offers us goods that will win us satisfied friend-customers, we can easily hear his faintest whisper. ”

“ I thought Betty was right in one thing, however, when she said to me:
"Did Mr. Barlow ever speak to you about knowing your place?"
"Why, no," I said.
"I'll tell you why, boy. You see, he knows he's boss, and everybody else knows it, and he knows that if he is to get the best out of his people he has got to get them to work with him and not for him. The way you treated Larsen will tend to make him merely work for you and not for the interests of the business. He will simply use you as a makeshift until he can get something else. ”

“ I had thought of a great idea to profit by agitation against the high cost of living. The idea had come to me when reading a story in a business paper which had said that it was not high cost of living we were suffering from, but cost of high living, and, instead of buying things in bulk as we used to do, we bought in packages and had to pay a whole lot of money for the package—and the advertising of them. ”

“ Most bosses, I guess, have that feeling of responsibility for the business and the employees that I always have had, and that keeps them working when they'd be at home if they didn't have that responsibility. I remember one of the fellows who worked with me at Barlow's used to complain that Barlow got all the profit, while we got all the work—and I agreed with him at the time, poor fool that I was. We never thought that Barlow had all his money invested in the business that was providing us with a certain living. ”

“ I have seen so many business men spoil themselves because they began to worry over competition, and, instead of just seeing how they could improve their methods of business they spent good time in seeing how they could fight one individual competitor. Success to-day isn't made by downing the other fellow, but by building up one's own efficiency in [Pg 215] business methods. There's room for you and Stigler and me in this town—in fact," he said with a smile, "we are going to have a little more competition yet."
"Where?" I asked, surprised.
"In Macey Street." ”

“ If a man has a break-down, why that's a job for the garage; but, if he wants only supplies, I don't see why he couldn't get them from a hardware store just as well as anywhere else. Now, Mr. Barlow, I'll gladly pay you that half a cent on the gas, and I'll push it for you all I can, but I feel that I would have to sell automobile accessories too. ”

“ There's real horse sense at the back of every move they take. They don't guess at things. They find out. If you were to ask me what accounts for the big success of chain-store organizations I should say that it is that the chain-store organization knows what it is doing, while the ordinary retailer guesses at what he is doing. ”

“ Make a big exhibition, and call it the domestic efficiency exhibition."
"That's not a bad idea at all," I replied. I thought a little while. "Not a bad idea at all." I thought a little bit longer. "It's a bully good idea!" And I ran right off to call up Mrs. Twombley.
"Mrs. Twombley," I cried, quite excited, "I'm going to do that thing up good and brown for you. I'm going to make it a household efficiency exhibition, and we'll have vacuum cleaners and carpet sweepers and washing machines and kitchen things—"
"Good heavens above!" her voice returned. ”

“ Bulder—is merely building up business for some outside organization. He is merely diverting some of his own profits into the pockets of the trading stamp concerns, which do not really build up any business at all; because, if the stamps prove successful for one merchant, it will not be long before other merchants take them up and then every one is giving profits to the trading stamp concerns without any of them getting any real benefit from it. I believe the use of trading stamps is more or less an admission of inability to think up plans of getting business for oneself. ”

“ It is a fallacy to believe that the larger store can operate for less expense. It cannot. The bigger business you have, the more money you have to pay the executives to control that business, and there is such a scramble for really big men that salaries of fifteen thousand dollars and twenty thousand dollars a year are not unusual. Our general manager makes eighteen thousand dollars a year! ”

“ I'll bet every one of us here buys things out of our own towns. I know I buy my clothes in Boston, and my wife buys her shoes when she goes to New York to visit her sister. I can get better clothes and cheaper clothes in Boston than I can in my home town, and I should consider myself a poor business man if I put up with inferior clothes at a high price, just to support some local man who couldn't compete fairly with Boston merchants. ”

“ However, I think I know more about small-store conduct than I did before, now that I've had some experience. You see, I studied retail merchandising, but that was only half the battle, you know. All I learned there was no use whatever until I found whether I could actually apply it.
"As you know," he continued, "I went to Detroit and studied the automobile business—not from the manufacturing end, but from the distribution end—because Fred Barlow and I had a hunch that there was a big future in automobile selling, if we could discover it." ”

“ In Jacksonville, Fla., there are not less than six hardware stores located in one block. That town of sixty thousand people has several good business streets, but this group of stores has become known as 'The Hard [Pg 233] ware Center' and people gravitate there for anything they want in the hardware line. Those stores benefit by being together. The same thing applies in a smaller way to a street of stores. One store by itself doesn't impel the buying instinct, but a street of stores puts the thought of buying into the minds of people passing them. ”

“ Careful buying helps us to get goods that command a ready sale. They are fitted exactly to our friend-customers' needs.
[Pg 260]
This is why we have earned the confidence and good-will of so many people. They know they get what they need—and not just what a salesman wants to get rid of.
We sometimes refuse to sell to a customer because we know that he needs something different from what we have.
Sounds funny, doesn't it, to turn money away? But it pays us, because people know we consider their needs first—our welfare automatically follows. ”

“ You mustn't have the customer feel that he's been forced to buy something he doesn't want, but make him pleased with his new purchase. When you're asked for a safety razor, and have made this sale you should ask him what kind of shaving soap he uses, or tell him that you have some good shaving brushes which will help to make his shaving comfortable. If a man buys nails, suggest a hammer; if he buys screws, suggest a screw-driver. It doesn't matter what you're selling, there is always something you can suggest that will go with it, and which is quite natural to suggest. ”

“ In one respect it's a good time for you to take the store over, for you'll have time enough to get yourself fully familiar with the store."
"You know, Dawson," he went on, "if you were to take over this store about September or October, when you're simply rushed to death with business, it might easily put you on your back. You might lose a tremendous lot of business just because it came too quick for you to handle, whereas, buying the store when the business is quiet will give you a chance to learn how to handle it." ”

“ I get the benefit of the suggestions which occur to people as they pass your store."
I could hardly believe that. It sounded too much like—oh, quackery; and I told Roger so.
"All right, old man," he said with a smile. "But have you ever noticed when you go to a big city that you will find a man at one corner selling apples and then there is a man on the next corner doing the same thing. You will notice how people pass the first one, then take a few seconds to think it over, or the suggestion is just a little one, and it is strengthened when they come to the second stand. ”

“ You don't give any reason why they should buy bread mixers. The only reason you ask them to buy the mixers is to enter the contest. Now, the better-class women won't do it, and the poorer people have not money to buy mixers."
"I never thought of that," I said.
"Then, again," said Charlie, "you have, or had, quite a good customer for hardware in the Empire Bread Company. I wonder what they will think of you urging people to stop trading with them?" ”

“ I guess there are a lot of bosses, the same as I, who really don't realize how valuable their employees are to them until they have lost them. Some employees probably dominate—there's that word dominate again!—in some phase of the store's activities in such an unobtrusive way that their work is not appreciated as it should be. The trouble is that the good worker is usually a poor self-advertiser, while the clever self-advertiser often cannot deliver the goods that he is advertising. ”

“ You see, Barlow does twice as much trade as you and Stigler put together, and then some."
I had never realized before that Barlow was so much a bigger man than I was, but the more I thought of it the more I believed that the chain-store people had sized up the situation correctly.
"Then," continued Roger, "they find out where the people live; if they own their own houses, or if they rent them. Obviously, a town where people own their own homes is going to offer a more regular and permanent trade than one where every one lives in rented houses. ”

“ Some women are wonderful—aren't they? She said nothing of the sort, but patted my hand and said:
"Too bad, but never mind, dear, I'd much sooner you'd lose a few dollars because you've such a big heart, than have you make a lot of money by being like Blickens."
I realized that I would have to set to and save every penny I could to apply against that note when it came due. There was still a month to get together whatever money I could, but it was going to spoil some selling plans I had wanted to try for the store. Never again, would I endorse a note for any man! ”