"What's the idea?"
"Well, we believe we have the best location, but we are not sure. Now, if we find in two or three years' time that we haven't got the location, we will get a better one. In that case, we are not going to make it possible for some one to take that same location and scoop up our business, because another hardware store, coming in there, would reap the benefit of all the publicity we gave to the store. Do you see the point?"
I saw the point all right. That conversation with Roger Burns was a revelation to me. If only I had given the same thought and care to getting a store how much better off I'd have been!
Another thing I realized from Roger's talk. They plugged ahead steadily. They didn't leave anything undone. They didn't make any false moves; while I—I was almost a joke!
CHAPTER XXXII
SOME IDEAS ON WINDOW TRIMMING
We had been increasing our sales on men's toilet articles, and were selling anywhere from $5.00 to $10.00 worth of those goods a week. Mind you, not razors, but soap, and talcum powder, and such-like.
Larsen had been studying a book on window trimming, and had learned that there were two ways of trimming windows. One way was to put in a lot of goods that were associated with each other, and another was to put in just one class of goods to make a forceful appeal. So, Larsen conceived the idea of a special window trim, using the second idea. We had been in the habit of mixing a number of different kinds of goods in our window. His idea was just the opposite.
The display was to be of the Middle's razor, which I sold exclusively in our town, and which I thought was the best of all the dollar razors. Well, Larsen started to tell me his idea; but I told him to go ahead and work it out in his own way.
He got some cheap, dark-blue cloth, and hung it in a semi-circle in the window from top to bottom. Then he covered the floor of the window with the same material. He then got a piece of cardboard and bent it into the shape of a cone about 2 ft. 6 in. at the base, and not above half an inch at the top. This he also covered with the same cloth, placing it in the center of the window. About a foot above the cone he hung a single electric bulb, with a shade over it made of cardboard, and again covered with the cloth. The light was therefore directed full on the top of the cone, and the bulb itself was out of sight. There was no other light in the window. On the apex of the cone he placed one Middle's razor—not in the box—oh, no. He took the razor out of the box, fitted a blade into it and rested it on the top of the cone. On the floor, resting against the cone, was a card which read as follows: