Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-01-04

~HE NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
more and the deciding factor in the success
or failure of retail store. He is no longer
mere automaon who hands out goods and makes chase
but is the real personality of the business His calling
is being the fourth profession university
courses in craftsmanship are being established and
there is quite literature on the subject
This great importance of the modern salesman may
seem trifle nIusory to the who trying to live
on 50 a week that the rewards of salesman
ship are not hign They run from So to $40 a Week
the great majority of the profession gets less than Wv
and few of them achieve salary of more tnan
SIS But the conditions of their calling are steadily
improving BY national advertising and the wide dis
tribuon and Standardization Of products, the prices
and profits of retail business rapidly becoming
uniform All of the have goods of about the
same quality the price Hence the service
rendered a customer by the salesman has come 10 De
deciding factor in success 1t follows WIN lose
certainty that the salesman must become more Ell
ficient and better paid Individual and there is already
strong upward trend both in efficiency ana salaries
Scientific management is just beginning to be APP
plied to the retail it has been used in fac
tories years. it is being directed almost wholly
raising efficiency of the salesman ana putting
his pay on a logical basis The larger stores OF ohe
country giving examinations to test the ability
of their prospective employees holding classes and
lectures to train them, and testing the amount OF
work each do in a day in order to pay him exactly
his efficiency and the profits OF the business
permit
Schools and colleges aiding big stores in their
efforts to obtain trained employees. Not only public
schools in several cities but universty-that or
Wsconsinare giving regular courses in craftsmanship
The University Wisconsin has correspondence
course and a lecturer the subject, and has
obtained remarkable results. One advertising man in
a department store was advanced from salary of
81 500 s25O0 when he had completed the course His
resulted in the enrolment of the entire force
employees from that store Another enerprisng lad
took the course and went a shop In a small Wis
consn town to head of selling department in a
Chicago mail order house. man thirty-two years
mail o1nrN
all his life became of his firm after
studying the subject by mail $50 technical education
in his calling has opened new opportunities of ad-
vancement to the salesman.
When such training has become more general and
all of the stores examine their prospective en-
ployes with view determining their special fitness
for craftsmanship, the problem will solve ITSELF
For the principal cause of the low of payment is
that the stores are overrun with unsklled persons
chiefly who willing to work for less than
a living
study of the salesgrls in various cities shows
that most of them work in retail store as means
of tidng over period between leaving school and
getting married. of them live at home and
therefore willing work for less than a living wage.
Practically all Of them hope to get married and there
study craftsmanship permanent calling.
all of these reasons the majority of them Of
a low grade Of efficiency and worth to the employer
little than he pays them.
To the retail merchant the wages of his statesmen
his greatest selling cost This he calculates as
of his total sales and the
all the way from IL IL in different
About cent Of sales is considered fair expendi
for the service of statesmen. Now it is evident
the greatly percent
and still keep his business paying bass9c But
if has fewer and efficient statesmen. each of
them will receive
$500 tt-rslf ne
Thus in a certain department store careful tab
kept amount sold by each girl what per-
centage of her sales her salary represented In the
case of girl receiving IS a was found that
salary 10 per cent Of her sales, while
ceiving SIS a only per cent of her sales