Nella Braddy Henney

“ There are not many salesmen who have not had this experience and who have not, upon hearing that a prospect they dreaded was out, turned away from the door with a prayer of deep thanksgiving. All of which is by way of saying that selling is not an easy job.
The salesman whose career we are following for a short time always has that little feeling of nervousness before an interview. It is deeper than ever when he approaches the “hard customer,” and it is not lessened in the least degree when he finds a painted and marceled flapper at the door who looks at him without a word. ”

“ If a woman wants a policeman to get some burglars out of the house, she sends her one; if some one telephones that a house is burning, she calls out the fire department—and goes straight on with her work. Now and then something spectacular happens to bring the splendid courage of the girls at the switchboards to the attention of the public, such as the magnificent service they gave from the exchange located a few feet from Wall Street on the day of the explosion, but ordinarily it passes, like most of the other good things in life, without comment. ”

“ And the salesman went.
Salesmanship is service, and the man who persuades another to buy something he knows he does not want, does not need, and cannot use, is a scoundrel. “Good salesmanship,” and this is the only sort that any self-respecting man will engage in, “is selling goods that won't come back to customers that will.” It is cumulative in its effect, and the man who sells another something that really fills a want wins his eternal gratitude and friendship. ”

“ More sharp than the distinction between labor and capital or between socialism and despotism is that between the people who bathe daily and those who go to the tub only on Saturday night or less often. The people with whom personal cleanliness is a habit find dirt, grime, and sweat revolting. To them “the great unwashed” are repulsive.
“When you teach a man to bathe,” says John Leitch in his book on “Industrial Democracy,” “you do more than merely teach him to cleanse his body. You introduce him to a new kind of life and create in him a desire for better living.” ”

“ McAdoo is a man with whom courtesy is not merely a policy: it is a habit as well. He places it next to integrity of character as a qualification for a business man, and he carries it into every part of his personal activity, as the statesmen and elevator boys, waiters and financiers, politicians and stenographers with whom he has come into contact can testify. “I never have a secretary,” he says, “who is not courteous, no matter what his other qualifications may be.” ”

“ The law of business courtesy—no matter how far away from this a discussion goes it always swings back—is the Golden Rule. The subordinate who feels himself neglected by the men in positions above him might check himself by honestly asking himself how he appears to those beneath him. It is interesting to know that the one who complains most is usually the one who is haughtiest when he enters into conversation with the employees, who, he thinks, are not quite worth his notice. ”

“ In the modern world of business there are only two. Others may follow, but these two must come first. Justice, we mean, and kindness. No man was ever really a gentleman who was not just and kind, and we think it would be almost impossible for one who is, whatever his minor shortcomings may be, not to be a gentleman. Just to his employees (or to his employer) , to his customers, to his friends, to himself, and this justice always tempered with kindness, the one quality giving the firmness necessary in dealing with people, the other the gentleness which is no less necessary. ”

“ There is a certain rough type of salesman (we use the word salesman here in the broadest sense, as the salesmen themselves use it, to cover all the people who are trying to convince some one else that what they have is worth while whether it is an idea or a washing machine or a packet of drawings) —there is a certain rough type of salesman who tries to bluster his way through. He never lasts long as a salesman, though unfortunately he survives a good many years in various kinds of business. ”

“ A man who is interested heart and soul in one thing will think in terms of it, will have it constantly in his mind and on the tip of his tongue. But the man of one subject, whatever that subject may be, is a bore. It is right that a man should live in his work, but he must also live outside of it. One of the most tragic chapters in the history of American life is the one which tells of the millions and millions of men who became so immersed in business affairs that they lost sight of everything else. ”

“ It is a nuisance to be without one.
Imagination is indispensable to good letter writing, but it is going rather far when one sends thanks in advance for a favor which he expects to be conferred. Even those who take pleasure in granting favors like to feel that they do so of their own free will. It takes away the pleasure of doing it when some one asks a favor and then assumes the thing done. Royalty alone are so highly privileged as to have simply to voice their wishes to have them complied with, and royalty has gone out of fashion. ”

“ Listening on a wire passes over from the field of courtesy into that of ethics. On party lines in the country it is not considered a heinous offense to eavesdrop over the telephone, but the conversation there is for the most part harmless neighborhood gossip and it does not matter greatly who hears it. In business it is different. But it is practically impossible for any one except the operator to overhear a conversation except by accident, and it is a misdemeanor punishable by law for her to give a message to any one other than the person for whom it was intended. ”

“ It is impossible now to separate courtesy and character. Politeness is a fundamental, not a superficial, thing. It is the golden rule translated into terms of conduct. It is not a white- [Pg 14] wash which, if laid on thick enough, will cover every defect. It is a clear varnish which shows the texture and grain of the wood beneath. In the ideal democracy the ideal citizen is the man who is not only incapable of doing an ungallant or an ungracious thing, but is equally incapable of doing an unmanly one. There is no use lamenting the spacious days of long ago. ”

“ He simply ushers his guest into the dining room as cordially and with as little affectation as if he were the paying teller of the Smithville bank. No one need ever apologize when he has done or given his best.
It is interesting to know that the standard of our young banker is growing higher and higher all the time. He likes to know how the people who have had time to make an art of dining do it and to adapt his ways to theirs whenever he can.
It is a grave mistake for a business man to feel that he must entertain another to the standard to which the second is accustomed. ”

“ After he has greeted the elevator boy with a smile (it may be a very crooked one) and the hotel clerk and the waitress and the bootblack and the paper boy he is likely to find that the smile has straightened out into a genuine one. It does not always work—it is like counting to a hundred when one is angry—but it is worth trying.
Salesmen find their greatest difficulties among people of little education. It is the people with fewest ideas that cling to them most tenaciously. ”

“ The season may be dull, the crops may be bad, there may be strikes, lockouts, depressions and deflations, unemployment—it makes no difference—he must keep cheerful. It is the courtesy of salesmanship, and it is this quality more than any other that makes selling a young man's job—we do not mean in years, but in spirit—an old one could not stand it. ”

“ Any intelligent person who knows the points covered by Herbert Pocket, who knows that one should not cut up all of his meat at the same time but mouthful by mouthful as he needs it, that it is not customary to butter a whole slice of bread at once nor to plaster cheese over the entire upper surface of a cracker, can by a dint of watching how other people do it find his way without embarrassment through even the most elaborate array of table implements. ”

“ If the salesman is a man of sense none of these devices will be necessary. He knows that a courteous and prompt departure helps his cause much more than an annoying persistence, and the man who stays after his prospect's mind has lost every interest except to get him out of the way is lacking in one of the fundamentals of social good manners as well as business good manners. Rarely, perhaps never, does he succeed. For the successful salesman is the one who can put himself into his prospect's place and let him know that he has made a study of his needs and is there to help him. ”

“ Salesmen are warned not to bother with the little fellow but to go straight to the head of a firm. Like most general advice, it is dangerous to put into universal practice. The heads of most firms have men to take care of visitors, and in a good many instances, the salesman helps his cause by going to the proper subordinate in the first place. It is all very well to go to the head of a firm but to do it at the expense of the dignity of one of the smaller executives is doubtful business policy and doubtful ethics. ”

“ It is true that an increasing number of wealthy girls who are under no necessity to work but who want a definite place in the economic life of the world are entering business every year, but the great army of workers is made up of those who enter business because they are driven into it (driven, many of them, while they are yet very young) , because it is the only way in which they can have their own money, or because it is the only way in which they can raise their standard of living. ”

“ The biggest hindrance to the establishment of good manners among business men is the everlasting hurry in which they (and all the rest of us) live. There must first of all be leisure, not [Pg 101] perhaps to the extent advocated by a delightful literary gentleman of having three hours for lunch every day, but time enough to sit down and relax. Thousands of business men dash out to lunch—bad manners are at their worst in the middle of the day—as if they were stopping off at a railroad junction with twenty minutes to catch a train and had used ten of them checking baggage. ”

“ We have said a good deal as we came along about courtesy toward oneself and other people, but perhaps the most valuable of all courtesies in business is politeness toward one's job. It is desirable for every woman to be pretty, well-dressed, and well-groomed, but it is much more desirable for the woman in business to be able to do capable and efficient work. She may be ornamental but she must be useful, and while she is at the office her chief concern should be with her job and not with herself. ”

“ All that we want is a spirit of fairness and coöperation which will give every man a chance to make good on his own account. This spirit inevitably flowers into courtesy. In every place courtesy should be, of course, so thoroughly a part of the surroundings that it is accepted like air or sunshine without comment. ”

“ The life of a young person is plastic, easy to take impressions, strong to retain them. And the “old man” or the “governor,” whether he is father, friend, or employer, or all three, has infinitely more influence than either he or the young man realizes. At the same time it is perfectly true that young people do not believe what older ones tell them about life. They have to try it out for themselves. One generation does not begin where the other left off. ”

“ When a man breaks his connection with a business house, whether he does so voluntarily or involuntarily, his departure should be pleasant, or at the least dignified. It is childish to take advantage of the fact that you are going away to tell all of the people you have grudges against how you feel about them, and it is worse than a mere breach of good manners to abuse the house that has asked you to leave. ”

“ No salesman can afford to stop and talk with everybody who can give him the inside story of why business is no good. This salesman always finds out as much as possible about a man before he goes to see him. He never leaps blindly ahead when there is any way to get a gleam of light first.
Once in South Carolina he was anxious to get a large order from a wealthy old man who, he felt sure, would be a regular customer if he could once be persuaded to buy. The old man paid no attention to what he was saying until he mentioned the picture of a hunting dog that hung above the desk. ”

“ THE AMERICAN BUSINESS MAN
The business man is the national hero of America, as native to the soil and as typical of the country as baseball or Broadway or big advertising. He is an interesting figure, picturesque and not unlovable, not so dashing perhaps as a knight in armor or a soldier in uniform, but he is not without the noble (and ignoble) qualities which have characterized the tribe of man since the world began. ”

“ We do not want our people to devote themselves entirely to the art of being agreeable. If we could conceive of a world where everybody was perfectly polite and smiling all the time we should hardly like to live in it. It is human nature not to like perfection, and most of us, if brought face to face with that model of behavior, Mr. Turveydrop, who spent his life serving as a pattern of deportment, would sympathize with [Pg 16] the delightful old lady who looked at him in the full flower of his glory and cried viciously (but under her breath) “I could bite you!” ”

“ There is no more sense in business proclaiming that the customer is always right than there would be in a customer declaring that business is always right, and no more truth.
No good business man will argue with a customer, or anybody else, not only because it is bad policy to do so, but because his self-respect will [Pg 37] not allow it. He will give and require from his employees courteous treatment toward his customers, and when doubt arises he will give them (the customers) the benefit of it. And he will always remember that he is dealing with an intelligent human being. ”

“ No man has ever yet become a perfect gentleman because as his mind has developed his conception of what a gentleman is has enlarged, just as no country has ever become a perfect democracy because each new idea of freedom has led to broader ideas of freedom. ”