Dawson Black: Retail Merchant Part 38

"Why not put a big sign in the window offering a ten per cent.

reduction?"

"That's a silly idea. Why should we do that?"

"You don't get me, Boss," he said. "Here!" and he handed me a brick.

"What am I to do with this?" I asked in surprise. "Hit people on the head as they go by the store, grab their money and give them a dishpan in its place?"

I feared Jimmie would burst if I didn't let him finish his story.

"Put the brick in the window, Boss," he said excitedly, "then stick a sign on it saying, 'Who threw this brick through our window, and knocked ten per cent. off the price of everything?'"

It sounded silly; but, somehow, it interested me. I think the thing that interested me most was that Jimmie should be looking for some way to turn misfortune into profit. At any rate, I put that sign in the window just as Jimmie suggested, with the added line that, as soon as the window was repaired, prices would go back to normal.

I believe that Jimmie spent every minute of his spare time out of the store telling people to come and see his big selling idea, for numbers of people said to me, "Yes, I heard about your window with the brick from your errand boy--smart kid that!" and then they would grin. It got me some business, and started a lot of talking. I remembered what Barlow had once said: "Keep them talking about you; and be thankful when people pitch into you. n.o.body ever bothers to kick a dead dog." I was mighty glad it had not been our other window, though, for that had contained a splendid show of electrical household goods.

Wednesday I had dinner again with Roger Burns. He told me that the chain store for which he was manager had opened in good shape, and that on the opening day they had given a clock calendar to the visitors as a souvenir. It had been a cheap clock in a metal frame, so made that it would either hang on the wall or stand on a shelf, while attached to it below was a year's calendar. Above the clock had been written the slogan:

"All the time is the right time to buy kitchen goods from the New England Hardware Company."

Below the face of the clock was the address and Roger Burns' name as manager.

Roger said something, that night, that interested me mightily.

"One reason why chain stores make a success is that they try to dominate the field in one direction. For example, look at the five-and-ten-cent stores. Notice how they all dominate any other store of their kind. They have something distinctive and unusual about them. Notice the places of the big drug and tobacco chain-store systems. They dominate in some particular way!"

That word "dominate" stuck in my mind. "How do you purpose to dominate?"

I asked of Roger.

"Well, in one way we are dominating in the brush field now. At our new store here, I have a bigger variety of household brushes than all the other stores put together. We have anything in the way of a brush that you want; and they're all good ones, too. . . . Most people dominate in some way," he continued. "Mr. Barlow dominates for miles around in agricultural implements."

"And I?" I said.

"Well, you are hardly dominating _yet_, but you could, if you wanted to, in electrical domestic goods and men's toilet goods."

"Good Heavens," I said, "they're both side lines!"

"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 La.r.s.en 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 un.o.btrusive 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 x.x.xIII

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.

Barrington's demand that I pay off the mortgage on the farm had been worrying me, so I went to the bank and saw Mr. Blickens to find out if I could get the bank to lend me the necessary $1,250.00. Blickens said the bank couldn't possibly do it, but that he knew a private individual who could perhaps be induced to take over the mortgage. I asked him to look into it and let me know.

A couple of days afterward he telephoned me to call and see him, and then he told me that he could raise the $1,250.00, to be covered by a first mortgage on the farm; but that, on account of the unsalability of the property at a forced sale, his friend would have to have ten per cent. interest.

I whistled at this.

"Well, take it or leave it, my young friend," he said. "If you can do better, why do it; but remember that Barrington will foreclose, unless you raise that money for him by the first of February."

Blickens had a note all made out, and I noticed his name appeared on it.

"I--I thought it was--some one you knew who was going to--"

"A mere formality; I am just doing it for a friend."

I knew at once that Blickens was his own friend in this case. I noticed also that I had to reduce the loan at the rate of $50.00 a month.

"That may seem a high rate of interest to you," said Blickens, smoothly; "but really I am doing it for your good."

That was what Dad had always said when he spanked me, but I never could see it his way!

There was nothing else to do, so I closed the deal with him and the mortgage was transferred from Barrington to Blickens, who, I guess, borrowed the money himself from the bank at three or four per cent., and pocketed the difference for his trouble. It seemed to me that there were more ways than one of making money in a bank.

That day I lunched at the elite Restaurant, where I met old Barlow. To my surprise he asked me to go around to his house to dinner that night.

I told him that I couldn't do that very well, because the Mater had just come home.

"Bring her with you," he said; so the Mater and I went to Barlow's house, where, for the first time, I met Mrs. Barlow.

Mrs. Barlow had been an invalid for a number of years and consequently had not been a factor in such social life as Farmdale boasted of. I was surprised to see how different Mr. Barlow was while with his wife--as sweet and kindly and gentle as a woman. I couldn't help comparing the difference between him at his home and at his business. There, while always courteous, he was considered cold and hard and exacting. When I came to think of it, however, I was not surprised at finding him so kindly, considerate and full of love for his wife, because I remembered the many kindnesses and quiet help that he had given me.

After dinner Mrs. Barlow and the Mater went up to the little sitting-room, while he and I stayed behind to smoke a cigar. We smoked in silence for a while. Then Barlow said abruptly, "By the way, Dawson, do you know how many automobiles went through Farmdale last summer?"

"No," I said, "I haven't the least idea--nor frankly any interest, either. I don't own a car."