Part 40 (1/2)

I don't think the ”ad” had done us a great deal of good generally, but there were a few people, who used to buy from the mail-order houses, who had begun to buy from me.

Now, I'll tell you what happened between Peter and La.r.s.en.

”I want an ax like this 'ere one,” Peter said, displaying the picture of an ax in a mail-order catalog which he had with him. ”How much is it?”

”Seventy-five cents,” said La.r.s.en.

”A-ha!” snarled Peter, ”I'll give yer sixty-three cents for it. Yer say yer can sell it as cheap as a mail-order house--and that's their price!”

He put his finger on the catalog to verify his statement.

”All right,” said La.r.s.en. Whereupon Bender belligerently planted sixty-three cents on the counter.

”Hold hard,” continued La.r.s.en. ”Gimme three cents for the money order, a cent for yer letter paper, and two cents for the stamp. That's another six cents. That's fair, you know--you must pay us what it would have cost yer.”

Peter looked at me. ”Guess you're right,” he said, and threw the other six cents on the counter.

”Now,” said La.r.s.en, as he picked up the money, ”you come back in three weeks. You can then have the ax.”

”What do yer mean?” asked old Peter, with astonishment.

”You sent Chicago, that's how long you wait to get it.”

”Well, I want it _now_.”

”Yep, but not from a mail-order house,” said La.r.s.en.

”What will I have to pay to get it at once?”

”Six cents more--that's seventy-five cents. Otherwise yer can't have it fer three weeks. But yer can look at it now, if yer want ter, so yer'll see what yer will get!”

”Aw, cut out the funny stuff!” said Peter, putting his hand in his pocket, from which he produced another six cents. ”It's worth it to get it right away.”

La.r.s.en wrapped up the ax and pa.s.sed it over to him, and, to my surprise, old Bender said: ”I guess you're about right on this thing, after all.

You know I never sized it up like that 'til you pointed it out to me.

Here,” and he tossed the catalog on the counter, ”I guess I won't need this no more.”

La.r.s.en had handled several customers in the past in a similar way to this, and, in nearly every case, had won a friend for us and the mail-order houses had lost a customer.

You remember I had decided that I would dominate in _service_? Well, I got hold of Fellows of the Flaxon Advertising Company, and told him what I wanted and that I'd a hunch that if I had a little leaflet or something of that kind, telling people I wanted to give them service, and put the leaflet in all the packages that left the store, it would help out a lot. I gave him a few ideas I had on it and asked him to work up a little folder. When I received the layout of it I was tickled with it. It was so good that I ordered some at once. The beauty of the folder was that it didn't matter what you were selling or who you were selling to, it applied, because it was general, not specific.

Fellows told me I ought to copyright the idea and then sell it to other stores in other towns. I told him he could do that--I was in the hardware business--not the advertising business.

I give this little folder here, because I thought it was very good.

It had four pages and the size of it was about 4 7 inches.

WE ARE IN BUSINESS TO SELL GOODS THAT WON'T COME BACK TO FRIEND-CUSTOMERS WHO WILL

This one-minute sales talk tells how we try to do it