Think of the wealthy customers that have been driven away from big concerns, by the lack of tact on the part of a salesman. A successful business man recently told me his experience in buying a suit of clothes at one of the leading clothiers in New York City. “The salesman who waited on me,” he said, “showed me various suits of all colors and styles. He did not interest me in any particular one. He distracted my attention, being plainly indifferent and showing that he did not care whether I bought or not. After spending an hour’s time, I left the place in disgust. I said to myself, ‘A house carrying thousands of suits, and a good salesman, should certainly sell me one suit.’ I went to another house. Then the purchase became to me more than anything else a study of salesmanship, how various salesmen handle customers. The salesman at this other place gained my confidence right at the start, showed me only three suits, interested me in a particular one, showed me why I should buy that one, and within eighteen minutes’ actual time I paid the price, and now I am enjoying the wearing of that suit.”
This shows how even the best quality of merchandise will go back to the shelf unless handled by a conscientious, tactful salesman.
It is true that there are always certain customers in every large establishment who are very hard to convince. They are suspicious, and often very disagreeable and difficult to get on with, but their patronage is valuable, and every employer prizes the salesman who can handle these difficult customers, who can please them and send them away friends instead of enemies of the house.
It must be remembered that the real test of salesmanship is the ability to handle difficult customers. Most people don’t realize what is best for them to buy; they can’t make up their minds without the salesman’s help, or they are peculiar in their nature and require tactful management.
Many women make a business of going about among the department stores, perhaps without the slightest idea of buying anything. It becomes a sort of fixed habit with them. Some of them have a chronic habit of indecision. They will run about the stores for weeks before they make up their minds to buy a thing that they need. They are so afraid that they will see something cheaper and much better suited to their needs after they have purchased that they postpone purchasing as long as possible. If they want a pair of shoes, a dress, a hat, or some other article, they will go round all the stores in town looking, or “shopping,” as they call it, before they buy.
I know of a very clever saleswoman in a big store who has marvelous skill and tact in approaching these “lookers” or “shoppers” and turning them into customers. She begins by asking if the lady has been waited upon, and if there is anything she can do for her? With a pleasant smile, in a very sweet voice, she gets into conversation with her, and before the habitual “looker” realizes it she has become a purchaser.
To know what to do, what to say, at just the right moment is capital a thousand times more valuable than money capital, for a man with rare tact will start in business without a dollar and make a greater success than the tactless man who starts with a fortune. How many people in this country to-day owe their success and fortune more to the possession of tact than to ability? Tact will distance ability without it every time.
A man who with a party of friends had been fishing a long time became quite disgusted because he did not get a bite when everybody else was pulling in the speckled trout. After awhile he discovered that he had no bait on his hook. He might have been fishing there yet and never have had a bite.
Everywhere in society and in the business world we find men fishing with baitless hooks. They have no use for people with fine manners. They are gruff, uncouth. They do not believe in catering to the feelings of others. They have never learned the art of baiting things. They call a spade a spade. They have no use for frills, for decorations. They believe in striking out straight from the shoulder every time, no matter what the conditions.
Many tactless people go through life trailing bare hooks and they wonder why the fish do not bite. They do not know how to adjust themselves to conditions. They are misfits. They appear to have been fitted for some rougher sphere and to have been dropped by accident to the earth amid conditions totally unsuited to them.