Tales of the Road

by Charles N. Crewdson

"Now, you know, boys, it is the salesmen that make the house. The house may have a line of goods that is strictly it, but unless they have good salesmen on the road they might as well shut up shop. A salesman, of course, gets along a great deal better with a good line than he does with a poor one, but a wholesale house without a line of first-class representatives cannot possibly succeed. And the house knows this, you bet.

"Well, sir, I was the first salesman the old man struck to make a contract with for the next year. I, had been doing first rate, making a good salary and everything of that kind, and when the old man called me into the sweat-box, he said to me:

"'Well, I suppose we haven't very much to talk over. What you have done has been satisfactory to us, and I hope we've been satisfactory to you. If it suits you we will just continue your old contract.'

"'There will have to be one condition to it,' said I to the old man. 'Well, what's that?' 'I simply will not work for this establishment if the fool credit man that you have here is to continue. He has taken hundreds of dollars out of my pocket this year by turning down orders on good people who are worthy of credit. Now, it doesn't make any difference as to his salary if he turns down good people; in fact, if he is in doubt about any man at all, or even the least bit skittish, what does he do but turn him down? This is nothing out of his jeans, but it's taking shoes away from my babies, and I simply won't stand for it.'

"The long and short of it was that I didn't sign with the old man that day but he soon 'caved' after he had talked with a few more of the boys—one of whom told him point blank that we would all quit unless he gave the credit man his walking papers. And, you bet your life, the credit man went and today he is where he ought to be—keeping books at a hundred a month!"

"It is not alone against the credit man who turns down orders that I have a grudge," said the furnishing goods man, "but also against the fellow who monkeys with old customers. If there is anything that makes a customer sour it is to be drawn on by a firm that he has dealt with for a long time. Some of the merchants out in the country, you know, get themselves into the notion of thinking that the house they deal with really loves them. They don't know what a cold-blooded lot our houses really are. What they're all looking for is the coin and they don't care very much for a man when they believe he can't pay his bills. I know I never felt cheaper in my life than I did last trip. I went into an old customer's store and what should I see upon his shelves but another man's goods. I felt as if somebody had hit me between the eyes with a mallet, for he was a man I had nursed for four or five years and brought him up to be a good customer. He had a sort of a racket store when I started with him—groceries, tin pans, eggs, brooms, a bucket of raw oysters, and all that sort of stuff. One day I said to him, 'Why don't you throw out this junk and go more into the clothing and furnishing goods business? Lots cleaner business and pays a great deal more profit. Furthermore, this line of goods is sold on long datings and you can stretch your capital much further than in handling other lines.'

"Well, sir, he talked with me seriously about the matter and from that time on he began to drop out the tin pan and grocery end of his line. When I saw he was doing this, I asked him to let me have the hook in the ceiling from which for so long had swung his bunch of blackening bananas, so I could have a souvenir of his past folly! I had worked him up until his account was strictly a good one.

"In fact, he prospered so well with this store that after a while he had started another one. When he did this he, of course, stretched his capital a little and depended upon his old houses to take care of him. He had always discounted his bills in full, sometimes even anticipating payments and making extra discounts.

"I was tickled to sell him about twice as much as usual, on one of my trips. It was just ninety days after this when I got around again and saw the other fellow's goods in the store. When I looked at the strange labels I felt like some fellow had landed me one on the jaw. You know it hurts to lose a customer, especially if he is one that you have fed on the bottle and thinks a great deal of you personally.

"Well, when I saw the other stuff, all I could do was to march right up and say, 'Well, Fred, the other fellow's been getting in his work, I see. What's the matter? The sooner we get through with the unpleasant part of it, the better.' 'Now, there isn't anything the matter with you, old man,' said my customer. 'Come up here in the office. I want to show you how your house treated me.'