Sam Lambert and the New Way Store | Page 2

of the store's help when a customer is present. In nearly every case the man becomes sensitive or resentful and thinks he is being ridiculed.
"Try it yourself sometime by going into a strange store in another line of business in a distant city: when you hear a laugh or a remark passed among the clerks, see if you don't wonder if there isn't something wrong with your clothes or feel sure that comment is being made on your appearance or behavior.
"There is another form of impatience or self-consciousness on the part of a customer who is more or less acquainted with the store. He hurries past everyone in front, headed for the part of the store where he thinks the goods he wants are kept.
"It is bad policy to step in front of him or otherwise impede his progress. If there is no one to wait on him follow quietly and be on hand when he lands at his destination.
"A clerk often wonders why customers persist in doing this.
"It is because they have an idea of the location of what they want and blindly strike out for it with a certain nervous desire to cover the intermediate ground as quickly as possible.
"Remember that while you feel perfectly at home in the store, few customers do. It is your business to put them at ease and certainly to do nothing to make them uncomfortable.
"When a man comes in for a suit of clothes he usually has some sort of a mental picture of the thing he desires. An idea, clearly defined or hazy, is in his mind as to the general color and effect of the suit he wants.
"It is something he has noticed worn by someone else--looked at in a show window, or seen in an illustration.
"In most cases it will not be the thing he finally buys. It may be a chalk-line stripe or a Shepherd's Plaid worn by a drummer who boarded the 6.30 Lightning Express. In the glow of the lamps and the bustle and excitement of the Station platform the thing looked possible: but confronted in the store with the very style and pattern he backs away from it, though 'it looked good on the other man.'
"Find out what he has in mind; meet it as nearly as you can and get it out of the way. Otherwise he will not concentrate on other goods. He will hold to this mental picture and measure everything you show him by it--much to your disadvantage.
"One of the worst possible things is to ask a man about what price suit he wants.
"Keep price in the background. Time enough to feel him out on that subject. No man likes to have you take the measure of his pocket-book.
"You must use your judgment in gauging him as to what to show him.
"The important thing is to get at the picture he has in mind, and the price too, if you can do so without asking him to name the figure.
"Never ask a customer how he liked the last suit you sold him. Let by-gones be by-gones. This is a new deal. Whether he was entirely satisfied is not the point now. Don't raise dangerous questions.
"There are a dozen reasons why his last purchase may not be remembered with pleasure--reasons that have nothing to do with the value he received or the actual merit of the clothes.
"If he voluntarily mentions the last suit with praise take it as a natural occurrence and pass it over; you will try to do even better by him this time.
"If he complains of his last purchase don't argue. Leave the subject as soon as possible and get down to the question in hand.
"Have confidence in your goods, in your prices and in yourself as a salesman.
"There are more sales lost for lack of firmness and decision at the right time than for any other cause.
"Among the clerks in the best and biggest of stores there are ten good openers of a sale to one good closer.
"Be a closer.
"It requires judgment and decision of character, but you can learn to do it.
"When a woman goes into a cloak and suit department, she is not satisfied to buy until she has been made to feel that she has pretty well canvassed the assortment, seen practically everything in the stock at the range and along the line she is seeking.
"She has merchandise imagination and thinks of the possible garments back there in the stock that she might have liked better.
"In this regard a man is somewhat easier to handle.
"It is a fact often demonstrated that clerks can close a sale more quickly where the stock is kept on hangers instead of piled on tables.
"The preliminaries are more quickly covered. Having walked down the line the customer is better satisfied