The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-03-26

remark, since tooth brushes are made in three degrees of stiffness, Whe clerk has to say, How stiff a brush do you want, soft, medium or hard?' the customer nearly always says, medium" because when any article l is made in three types and we don't know the difference anyhow, we al ways chose the one Tn the middle | Qaughter); and then the salesman might say to the customer something | like this: When you start to use this brush you may notice the bristies I seem considerably stiffer than those of your old brush. You may even think I have made mistake and 1 have given you a stiff brush instead of a medium. The reason for that IS 1 that each time you use your brush, putting hot water and paste on It, ana rubbing it vigorously. you soften down the bristles, just as similar ! treatment softens the bristles of your beard before shaving. At the end Of A month, that brush will be just aeout as good for really cleaning your teeth as a soft wet rag. If you want clean teeth you should buy three or Tour brushes at once and use them alter natively, giving each brush chance 1 to dry out and stiffen again.
 Right there you see there is possi- bility of selling three or four tooth brushes instead of one which would be bought if the customer were lett to the dictates of his own conscience. l Taughter). Creative selling can be kapplied to anything.
 Let's apply it to garters. Down in Des Moines the other day l used the garter by chance as an fllustratloh l and it happened one man in the aual- ence had come from a little town SO miles outside of Des Moines. l went 1 there three days later to give an ad- l dress before the Advertising club and the first man. met on the platform was the owner of this little habef- dashery store who said, The other | day you suggested how to sell gar | ters. I have been trying that, ana, 1 do you know, l have sold 31 pairs or garters here in the last week in this little town of 1000 just by using that l suggestions" I said, How did you do it?' He said. '1 did just what you said. To everybody that came into my store this week, whatever they came for (they may have come in simply to pass the time of day or to Inquire how the crops were and how many gallons to the acre did l think l the corn would run), but after l mad 1 replied or given them what they wanted. l said to everyone of them l (this was in the middle of the sum mer), How about another pair of garters? Garters get very badly 1 sol1ed in this hot summer weather, don't they?" and because of that sug- gestion I have sold 37 pairs of gar l ters in a little over two daysw Con- l slider how most men wear garters. A man will put on a clean pair of socks and attach the garters to them. That night his wife or mother or somq other responsible party takes the socks away and throws them into l the laundry basket. The garters are carefully removed from those soiled socks and placed on B clean pair of socks. and the next night the socks | are changed again and again the garters removed and so on until will bet that every man in this room sometime in his career, has had a pair of garters rot off him. (Hard laugh l ter.) Now that will never happen again, since I have given you this suggestion that it isn't just the right way to wear garters. is it? You will start to buy a new pair of garters every two weeks, from now on, will you not, instead of wearing them constantly as you may have been do- ing in the past.
 Shoes as Example
 Apply the same thing to shoes. have bought shoes all over the United States of America and I don't think l ever had a shoe salesman try to sell me two pairs of shoes. Salesmanship
 in most shoe stores, consists in try ing to sell you higher priced pair than you came in to buy. Now of course what the salesman ought to do is to sell you two pairs of shoes and one pair of ventilated shoe trees and give you some advice on how to | wear shoes. because men wear them just as they do garters. At the be- ginning of the summer, man goes | into store to get a pair of OK lords and as general thing he wears those Oxfords day after day. Now he didn't really buy shoes any more than you bought overcoats. What we buy when we get a pair of shoes Is foot comfort and foot appearance and if we wear the same pair contin- uously, We soon lose both the things we paid for. The lining of the shoes begins to rot and crack and so we lose the comfort, and good appear ance goes even sooner. What the salesmen ought to suggest is that we buy two pairs of Oxfords, one black pair and one tan pair tso that every one may know that we have two pairs | Qaughter) and a pair of ventilated shoe trees. Then he will suggest that we wear the black pair one day. then put the shoes trees in them and give them a chance to dry out, wear ing the tan shoes in the meantime and repeating the process so that the tan shoes also wjll have a chance to dry out. Then we may retain the two things We bought--foot comfort
 and foot appearance--and we will ina also that two pairs of Oxfords worn in this way, will last as long as the other way.
 have heard merchant say For the love of heaven why should I urr,e the sale of two pairs to be worn in such way that they will last as long as three pairs?" The answer to that Is obvious The man who buys three lpairs, wearing them in the ordinary way. does so because he becomes mildly dissatisfied with each pair of shoes ne bought Does man go back to get the second and third pair or snoes rom man who has dis satisfied him with the firstp Of course, not. And so what the shoe dealer who sells shoes on the service basis is this; he not only clinches the sale Of two pairs of shoes and one Ipair of trees, but he makes certain that when that customer wants other shoes in the fall. he will come back to get more of the same sort of sery- ice. Business-successfu business IS based upon the real good will of the eutomer, The United States su- Ipreme court recently defined good Will as that which brings customers back to deal again with the same fNx,