The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-11-27
"A WW JOTllNGS.
BY SIDNEY F. LAZARUS.

The Saturday Evening Post of Novem-
 Der 12, contains an article by Charles
 N. crewdson entitled Tales of the
 Road" The article is devoted to the
 travelling fraterninty and Mr Crewdson
 has done the travelling salesman justice
 in every particular. He lauds the pro-
 fesslon and places 1t where it belongs, at
 the head He also tells some very good
 stories which show conclusively that the
 man on the road" and not the house"
 or the goods" is responsible for the bus
 mess obtained. MT. Crewdson said, q
 saw in print, the other day, the statement
 that salesmanship is the fourth pro-
 fession." It is not; 1t is the first. The
 salesman, when he starts out to "get
 there," must turn more sharp corners,
 duck through more alleys and face more
 cold, stiff winds than any other worker
 l know of He must think quickly, yet
 use judgment; he must work hard and
 often long. He must coax one minute
 and ''stanu out the next He must per
 suade-persuade the man he approached
 that he needs his goods, and make him buy them-yes make him. He is mes senger boy, train despatcher, department buyer, credit man, actor, lawyer, poli- tician-all under one hat.
 By salesman, I do not mean the man who stands behind the counter and lets the customer who comes to him to buy a neckte slip away because the spots on the silk are blue instead of green; nor do I mean the man who wraps up a collar. size 16, and calls cash mean the man who takes his grip or samplecase and goes to hunt his GUS toner, the travelling salesman Were
 many professional men to try the road they would go back to their first occu- patton because they were forced to. A travelling man can tell you why. Every
 man who goes on the road does not sue ceed, not by any means. The road is no place for drones, there are great many drops of the honey of commerce wait ing in the apple blossoms along the road,
 but It takss the busy worker to get it. The capable salesman may achieve
 great success not only on the road but in any kind of activity. Alderman Milton Freeman, chairman of the transportation committee in the Chicago city council, only a few years ago was a drummer.
 Marshall Field was once travelling man;
 John W. Gates sold barbed wire before
 he became steel king. These men are
 merely types of successful travelling
 men,"
 Mir Crewdson In the course of his paper
 gives the travelling man and the bus
 mess man as well a good piece of ad-
 vice in the following:
 Say what you will, a square deal Is the only thing to give a customer. You can do a little scaly work and win out at 1t for a while. but when you get into the stretch, unless you have played fair, the
 short horses will beat you under the
 wire. Work and be square, never come
 down on a price; make the price right in
 the beginning"
 fo nj fo hn nr and his friends (and who are not the
 drummers friends) to have a publica- tion like the Saturday Evening Post de- vote several pages to an article in which he is done justice and all the good points about him told. The true salesman, the
 successful traveller is very conservative. He Is not the one who sits around the
 hotel 1obbies and tells the amount of
 goods he has sold and the large salary
 his house pays him. The man who does this is the starter on the road some times, and the liar most of the time. It Is gratifying to the members of the pro- fesson to see themselves at last appre- ciated and their true worth and value told | to the world in the publications who have regulations to sustain and will not make statements which are not true. One of the members of Post B. who l travels for a large northern dress goods house tells the following of himself He | Is too modest, however, to allow his name | to appear In print
 You know the president of our firm l is very, very good church member, and when he engages a salesman he always | nstructs him to make no sale which can
 not be supported by the Holy Writ Well, I called on a man the other day
 who had just started in business. He
 was crank, and knew nothing about | silks and would not allow me to help him l by even making suggestions. A GUS l toner of his wanted very fine silk dress. and I showed him a nice dress pattern at | one dollar a yard. He rejected this scornfully as not good enough He want | ed better goods So I laid it aside and showed him another, and another, and all were rejected. Finally I told him that I had one very high-class piece of silk, but I was afraid 1t would be too ex- pensve for him, but if he wanted to see | 1t l would be glad to show it to him. l then showed it to him, and he was very much pleased with it and gave me the order When l sent in my order I | received a call down from the boss and
 the question, How can you support by
 quotation from Scripture the sale of a dollar piece of silk for three dollars, know
 ing full well that the piece is not worth that much money? I at once wrote to the
 boss as follows: I carried out your in-
 structions. He was a stranger, and I
 took him in
 'I am still holding my iob."