“It is bad policy to step in front of him or otherwise impede his progress. If there is no one to wait on him follow quietly and be on hand when he lands at his destination.
“A clerk often wonders why customers persist in doing this.
“It is because they have an idea of the location of what they want and blindly strike out for it with a certain nervous desire to cover the intermediate ground as quickly as possible.
“Remember that while you feel perfectly at home in the store, few customers do. It is your business to put them at ease and certainly to do nothing to make them uncomfortable.
“When a man comes in for a suit of clothes he usually has some sort of a mental picture of the thing he desires. An idea, clearly defined or hazy, is in his mind as to the general color and effect of the suit he wants.
“It is something he has noticed worn by someone else—looked at in a show window, or seen in an illustration.
“In most cases it will not be the thing he finally buys. It may be a chalk-line stripe or a Shepherd’s Plaid worn by a drummer who boarded the 6.30 Lightning Express. In the glow of the lamps and the bustle and excitement of the Station platform the thing looked possible: but confronted in the store with the very style and pattern he backs away from it, though ‘it looked good on the other man.’
“Find out what he has in mind; meet it as nearly as you can and get it out of the way. Otherwise he will not concentrate on other goods. He will hold to this mental picture and measure everything you show him by it—much to your disadvantage.
“One of the worst possible things is to ask a man about what price suit he wants.
“Keep price in the background. Time enough to feel him out on that subject. No man likes to have you take the measure of his pocket-book.