"Exactly," he said, "but you were the first in town to push those side lines, so you scooped up the new trade for that kind of goods; and, if any one gets after your scalp, you might dominate in those lines. Marcosson, our general sales manager, says that the first in the field can dominate it if he will vigorously push his advantage. Think of all the well-known advertised things—the people whose names are most familiar to you—those which practically dominate their field—are those which were there first."
After we had smoked another cigar, we parted, but all the way home, that one word, "domination," stuck in my mind. I had what I had thought were two profitable side lines; while other people—people who should know—looked upon them as something which was exclusively mine. Domination! I wondered if I could develop some special lines, such as electrical and toilet goods, which I could consistently and persistently push until every one in town would naturally connect my name with those goods whenever they wanted to buy them.
There's quite a fascination about the word "domination," isn't there? Everybody dominates in some way. There was Hardware Times! They dominated in the trade-journal field. Roosevelt dominates in aggressiveness. Edison dominates in electrical inventions. Burbank dominates in growing things. Jimmie—let's see what Jimmie dominated in—well, I guess Jimmie dominated in freckles. George Field, I should say, would dominate in good nature. I thought it would be interesting to have a little game with myself in looking at people and stores and places and find out in what way they dominated and see if from this kind of observation I could find out not only in what they dominated, but how and why they dominated!
When I got home I tried for an hour to write slogans, such as "If it's electrical you can get it at Black's;" "Go to Black's for a white deal;" "You naturally think of Black's when you think of toilet goods;" and such-like, but I didn't think much of them, when I got through.
There was one thing, however, that I decided on—and that was to increase my stock of those goods with which I meant to dominate the field. I would always have them on show and advertise them as consistently as my small advertising allowance would permit.
It surely had been a dreadful week with Larsen sick. I never knew how much I had been leaning on him. When he came back, I was resolved, to look after him better than I had done before. 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. I determined that, if ever I got a really big store with a lot of help, I would find some way of knowing what every one did, so that the fellow that did things would not be pushed to one side by the fellow who merely elevated himself with talk.
Just as I was going to bed I had an inspiration, and I found what I would try to dominate in—SERVICE!
CHAPTER XXXIII
A BUSINESS PROPOSITION
When the Mater got back, I felt more like a human being again. What a wonderful thing a mother is! A fellow doesn't realize how much his mother means to him until he wants her badly.