Part 38 (1/2)

”Why not put a big sign in the window offering a ten per cent.

reduction?”

”That's a silly idea. Why should we do that?”

”You don't get me, Boss,” he said. ”Here!” and he handed me a brick.

”What am I to do with this?” I asked in surprise. ”Hit people on the head as they go by the store, grab their money and give them a dishpan in its place?”

I feared Jimmie would burst if I didn't let him finish his story.

”Put the brick in the window, Boss,” he said excitedly, ”then stick a sign on it saying, 'Who threw this brick through our window, and knocked ten per cent. off the price of everything?'”

It sounded silly; but, somehow, it interested me. I think the thing that interested me most was that Jimmie should be looking for some way to turn misfortune into profit. At any rate, I put that sign in the window just as Jimmie suggested, with the added line that, as soon as the window was repaired, prices would go back to normal.

I believe that Jimmie spent every minute of his spare time out of the store telling people to come and see his big selling idea, for numbers of people said to me, ”Yes, I heard about your window with the brick from your errand boy--smart kid that!” and then they would grin. It got me some business, and started a lot of talking. I remembered what Barlow had once said: ”Keep them talking about you; and be thankful when people pitch into you. n.o.body ever bothers to kick a dead dog.” I was mighty glad it had not been our other window, though, for that had contained a splendid show of electrical household goods.

Wednesday I had dinner again with Roger Burns. He told me that the chain store for which he was manager had opened in good shape, and that on the opening day they had given a clock calendar to the visitors as a souvenir. It had been a cheap clock in a metal frame, so made that it would either hang on the wall or stand on a shelf, while attached to it below was a year's calendar. Above the clock had been written the slogan:

”All the time is the right time to buy kitchen goods from the New England Hardware Company.”

Below the face of the clock was the address and Roger Burns' name as manager.

Roger said something, that night, that interested me mightily.

”One reason why chain stores make a success is that they try to dominate the field in one direction. For example, look at the five-and-ten-cent stores. Notice how they all dominate any other store of their kind. They have something distinctive and unusual about them. Notice the places of the big drug and tobacco chain-store systems. They dominate in some particular way!”

That word ”dominate” stuck in my mind. ”How do you purpose to dominate?”

I asked of Roger.

”Well, in one way we are dominating in the brush field now. At our new store here, I have a bigger variety of household brushes than all the other stores put together. We have anything in the way of a brush that you want; and they're all good ones, too. . . . Most people dominate in some way,” he continued. ”Mr. Barlow dominates for miles around in agricultural implements.”

”And I?” I said.

”Well, you are hardly dominating _yet_, but you could, if you wanted to, in electrical domestic goods and men's toilet goods.”

”Good Heavens,” I said, ”they're both side lines!”

”Exactly,” he said, ”but you were the first in town to push those side lines, so you scooped up the new trade for that kind of goods; and, if any one gets after your scalp, you might dominate in those lines.

Marcosson, our general sales manager, says that the first in the field can dominate it if he will vigorously push his advantage. Think of all the well-known advertised things--the people whose names are most familiar to you--those which practically dominate their field--are those which were there first.”

After we had smoked another cigar, we parted, but all the way home, that one word, ”domination,” stuck in my mind. I had what I had thought were two profitable side lines; while other people--people who should know--looked upon them as something which was exclusively mine.

Domination! I wondered if I could develop some special lines, such as electrical and toilet goods, which I could consistently and persistently push until every one in town would naturally connect my name with those goods whenever they wanted to buy them.

There's quite a fascination about the word ”domination,” isn't there?

Everybody dominates in some way. There was _Hardware Times_! They dominated in the trade-journal field. Roosevelt dominates in aggressiveness. Edison dominates in electrical inventions. Burbank dominates in growing things. Jimmie--let's see what Jimmie dominated in--well, I guess Jimmie dominated in freckles. George Field, I should say, would dominate in good nature. I thought it would be interesting to have a little game with myself in looking at people and stores and places and find out in what way they dominated and see if from this kind of observation I could find out not only in what they dominated, but how and why they dominated!