Sam Lambert and the New Way Store

Sam Lambert and the New Way
Store, by Unknown

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by Unknown
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Title: Sam Lambert and the New Way Store A Book for Clothiers and
Their Clerks
Author: Unknown

Release Date: November 19, 2007 [eBook #23547]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAM
LAMBERT AND THE NEW WAY STORE***
E-text prepared by Barbara and Bill Tozier

SAM LAMBERT AND THE NEW WAY STORE
A Book for Clothiers and Their Clerks

Published by Grand Rapids Show Case Co. Grand Rapids: Michigan
Copyright, 1912, Grand Rapids Show Case Co. Grand Rapids, Mich.
CHAPTER I.
Sam Lambert had the best clothing store in Medeena County--a corner
store on the main street of Medeena opposite the Court House Square.
Medeena had four clothing stores, not counting The Blue Front, down
by the Depot, with its collection of cheap watches in the window, a
yellow guitar, two large accordions and a fiddle with a broken E string.
Everybody in the County knew Sam Lambert.
As a merchant and a citizen he was a whole bunch of live wires. A
big-boned, free-hearted fellow--lucky enough to just escape being run
for sheriff, as some thought he was too good natured, the "gang" was
afraid he was not pliant enough, and Sam didn't want to be away from
the store.
Sam took great pride in his clothing business and kept pace with the
most advanced ideas in the trade.
He was awake to the marvelous development of the ready-to-wear
business. He carried the best and took a positive delight in each
season's new models.
He recalled the old days of "hand-me-downs," and he had lived to see
the two best tailors in Medeena take to bushelling "ready" garments,
with less and less of that to be done--principally changing a button or
shortening a trouser's length.

Sam was broad-gauge in everything he did. He sold his goods at the
marked price, for cash only--got a decent profit and told you so.
Why shouldn't he? He had a sense of style. He was keenly alive to the
artistry of clothes and his enthusiasm was contagious.
Sam was firmly convinced that a man has to spend money to make
money in the clothing business.
He said that a part of the value you deliver to a customer consists in
giving him a better opinion of himself: making him feel like a king for
a day and that the best is none too good for him.
"A store," he would tell the boys, "cannot be run on the low gear. You
must keep her keyed up. Relax when the store is empty, but when you
go to meet a customer put on the tension--take a brace--get spring into
your step--learn to bunch your vitality and get it across. But keep your
energy inside.
"Don't bounce and don't talk too much. Keep yourself in hand. Be quiet
but alert.
"Concentrate! For the time being there is but one person in the world
and that is the customer, and the most interesting thing in life is the
thing he came in to see.
"You can size up your man while you are going forward to meet him.
But by all means take him easy. Undue interest might embarrass him.
Suppose he only wants a pair of 15c. socks; if he does, there is a test of
your ability that you may not realize.
"Many a clerk who can close a Twenty dollar transaction with tact and
dispatch never seems able to handle a Ten cent sale so that the
customer goes out feeling pleased with himself.
"Nine men out of ten who come into the store are self-conscious. The
thing to do is to make your man feel that his requirement is important
simply because it is his requirement.

"A good salesman keeps his own personality in the background: he
keeps the store and the sale in the background. He puts all the emphasis
on service to the customer, and to do this he must mentally put himself
in the customer's place.
"Try to be as interested in the customer's finding what he wants as if
the article was for yourself; but don't insist on his taking only the thing
that appeals to you.
"Quietly dominate the sale, but leave him plenty of room for the
exercise of his own taste and ideas.
"Most men, though they may not show it, are slightly on the defensive
when they come into a clothing