Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1903-07-10
6be GOOD
DRUMMER
He Is the One Whose Letters Con-
tain Chiefly Orders For Goods
From Letters From q Self Made Mer-
chant to His Som" BY George
Horace Lorimcr

Dear Picrreront- When ! saw you
start off yesterday. | was Just little
uneasy, for you looked 50 blamed i'm
portant and chcsty that am inclined
to thuk you will tell the first customer
who says he doesn't like our sausage
that he knows what he can do about
it Repartee makes reading lively, but
business dull. And what the house
needs is more orders.
Sausage is the one subject Of all
others that a fellow in the packing
business ought to treat solemnly. Half
the people in the world take joke Sc.
riously from the start and the other
half If you repeat it often enough
Only last week the head of our sau-
sage department started to put out a
tin tag brand of frankfurts, but
made him take it off the market quick
er than lightning, because l knew that
the first fool who saw the tin tag
would ask if that was the license. And,
though people would grin a little at
first, they'd begin to look serious after
awhile, and whenever the butcher
agine they heard the bark and ask for
that real country sausage at twice
as much a pound.
4 real salesman is one part talk and
nine parts Judgment, and he uses the
nine parts of judgment to tell when
to use the one part of talk. Goods
amt sold under Marques of Queens
berry rules any more. and you'll find
that knowing how many rounds the
Old Tn can last against the Boiler
Maker wont really help you to load
up the Junior partner with our corn
fed brand hams.
A good many statesmen have an idea
that buyers are only interested in base
ball, funny stories and Tom Upton
and that business is a side line with
them, but as a matter of fact mighty
few men work up to the position of
buyer through giving up their office
hours to listening to anecdotes. l never
saw one that liked a drummer's jokes
more than an eighth Of cent pound
on q fierce of lard. What the house
really sends you out for is orders.
OF course you want to be nice and
mellow with the trade, but always re-
member that mellowness carried too
far becomes rottenness. You can buy
some fellows with cheap cigar and
some with cheap compliment but
there's no objection to giving q man
what he likes, though l never knew
smoking to do anything good except II
ham or hattery to help any one except
to make fool of himself.
Real buyers amt interested in much
besides your goods and your prices.
Never run down your competitors
brand to them. and never let them run
down yours. Don't get on your knees
for business but don't hold your nose
so high in the air that an order can
travel under it without your seeing It.
You'll meet a good many people on the
road that you won't like, but the house
needs their business.
For your own satisfaction | will say
right here that you may know you are
In a fair way of becoming q good drum
mer by three things
First.-When you send us orders.
Second-More orders.
Third.-Big orders.
If you do this you won't have a great
deal of time to write long letters, and
we won't have a great deal of time to
read them, for we will be very, very
busy here making and shipping the
goods. We aren't specially interested
in orders that the other fellow gets or
in knowing how it happened after it
has happened. If you like life on the
road, you simply won't let it happen.
So just send us your address every day
and your orders. They will tell us all
that we want to know about "the stu
] otiOp -