8. A pitfall to be avoided.—For the benefit of salesmen who still have their first trips to make, a prac tice not uncommon with more or less unscrupulous buyers might be illustrated here. A buyer of woolens for "cutting up" was looking over the line of a young salesman on his first selling trip. As he went thru the line, he set aside a number of samples with some commendatory remark that would seem to indicate that they impressed him favorably enough to prompt his buying. The young salesman naturally had visions of quite a large and satisfactory order.
When he had seen all the samples, the buyer selected a staple serge that is sold by all woolen houses on an extremely small margin of profit and at a practically uniform price. "What is your price on this?" he asked. When the salesman had given him a quota tion, the buyer threw up his hands, expressed surprise at the high price asked by the salesman's firm and stated that the salesman of a rival concern had offered him the same thing at a considerably lower price The young salesman, not to be outdone by an older rival in his territory, replied that if the other concern could afford to sell the goods at that price, his could, too. "All right," replied the buyer, "you may send me some at that figure," and he proceeded to order quite a large quantity.
The salesman, looking upon this particular item as a mere "bill starter," held his pencil poised above his order blank, while he suggested that the buyer select from the other samples set aside those from which he wished to order. "Oh, no," the buyer replied to this suggestion, "they are all fine, and your prices are about right on them, too, but I am pretty well stocked on all of the numbers represented. That serge is about the only thing I want to order today." All hope for the large and varied order vanished from the salesman's mind and in its place came the sickening realization that he had taken an order at a price that represented a heavy loss to his firm. He rightfully felt that he had been tricked.
This practice is indulged in, with variations, by buyers in many lines. In the case described, the sales man, after having spent a sleepless night, did the sensible thing. He went back to the buyer, explained that when he quoted the price, he knew he was taking a loss on the serge and did it only because he believed the buyer was going to place a large order in the other numbers picked out, in which case the profit on the other lines would have wiped out the loss on the serge.
Therefore, he explained, since the rest of the order had not been forthcoming, lie did not feel justified in accepting the order given.
9. Getting the price.—This brings us to the ques
tion of getting the price that shows a profit. In many lines the salesman is given wide discretion in the mak ing of prices. In the selling of special machinery, for example, it is impossible to provide the salesman with fixed prices. He is sometimes obliged to make his estimate and quote a price in the first interview. A great many wholesale dry goods and grocery salesmen are allowed to quote reduced prices, tho this prac tice is becoming less common. Some salesmen are price-getters ; they have no trouble in winning over lower priced competition. Howell von Blarcom, dis trict sales manager of the Westinghouse Machine Company, tells an amusing story of a salesman of his who always managed to get top price, and who one day added twenty-five dollars to the maximum price on a small machine order because the purchaser had kept him waiting. Other salesmen are confirmed price-cutters. They boast that they. can sell goods if the price is right. They are easily browbeaten into believing that their competitors are quoting prices lower than theirs. Trust them with the cost figures of their goods and they will sell on a margin too nar row to pay their traveling expenses.
The salesman should always remember that mer chandise that is worth anything always costs some thing to produce. It is only fair to assume that the house he is working for is producing economically and getting a fair margin of profit. If lie meets with the statement that his competitors are quoting lower prices for the same goods, he should have the moral courage to assert that the goods could not be the same at a price lower than the one he quotes. Nine times out of ten, this lower price is one of the little fictions of the purchasing agent.
10. Emphasize service and quality.—More and more, service and quality are overshadowing price. The salesman who can talk service and quality con vincingly when lower prices are mentioned will cause those lower prices to be forgotten. Some time ago a large printing order was to be given out by a firm in New York. A number of dummies were made up and sent to different printers for their estimates. A salesman from one of the printing houses came in to get a dummy. When he received his copy he turned to the man who was to place the order: "Mr. Buyer, if you are going to award this job to the lowest bidder, I'm beaten now and I won't start. As a mat ter of fact, however, it is not a low price that you're after. YOU think too much of quality for that. What you really want is a combination of high quality and reasonable price; and if you place this job on that basis I am going to win.