You should know how to conduct yourself at all times and in all kinds of conditions that you may be placed when making sales. You must be able to make your statements accurately, to speak in positive terms, to have perfect selfcontrol, to have self-confidence, to think clearly and quickly, to say the right thing at the right time, and in general to conduct yourself with due regard for good manners. You must act with the customer just as you would act with a guest at your own home. The customer is a guest of the store, you must afford him a guest's treatment. You wouldn't lean up against the wall in your home when entertaining a guest, you would stand up straight in front of him, and be all attention to his wants. Act the same way in your store. Stand up straight on both feet, don't lounge against a showcase; just give that customer all the attention you can; that will make him feel good and put him in the proper buying mood. If you can work your way into the good graces of the buying public in the section of the town served by your store, you have solved one of the biggest problems of commercial life. You can do this by earning the reputation of giving the proper attention to customers' wants, by knowing how to approach them, how to treat them, how to make their visit pleasant, and by being a good salesman yourself and having your clerks an efficient corps of salesmen. Whatever you do, be natural, be yourself, don't try to imitate somebody else's manner of walking or talking; if you cannot cultivate the ever-welcome smile, you can at least be pleasant and agreeable. You will impress people by your own individuality, which will be stronger if natural, weaker if forced. A forced smile appears like a sickly grin; if it isn't natural for you to smile, look pleasant, that will suffice. SELF-CONTROL.-It may seem hard to you, if you have a quick temper, to be obliged to curb it, when a customer says something which you feel like resenting. It is a good opportunity here to show your self-control. Not even by word or look should you notice a customer's attack on your feel ings. Here you have an advantage over your customer. He is cranky, fault-finding, treats you like an inferior, he has "shown himself up, "his weakness of character comes to the surface. The way for you to handle a man like that is to open your politeness valve and let all the reserve politeness in you steam out; you will win a victory over him in a short time. By redoubling your efforts to please him you will make him feel ashamed and he will turn the better side of his nature to you and try to make amends, to square himself with you. You will get his money, you will retain his patronage. If he had made you mad and you had spoken to him in a nasty, sarcastic tone, he would have gone out and probably have advertised you adversely all over the community. Of course he would blame you, he wouldn't blame himself. If you haven't self-control, it is a good thing to cultivate. A friend of the writer, at the head of the largest retail store in the world in his line, said: "I always count ten when a customer or a business man says anything that makes me mad, then I have a pleasant answer to make instead of a savage one. If I spoke right out the thoughts that came to me at first, I would put myself on a level with him, but by the time I have counted up to ten I have perfect control of myself." If this rule is good enough for one of the leading business men in the country it is good enough for any pharmacist. CHEERFULNESS.-Cheerfulness is contagious, it spreads rapidly, inoculates those with whom you come in contact, and is a winning card for the salesman. You can win your customer's confidence by your cheerful attitude quicker than by your selling talk. Everybody likes the person with a cheerful make-up, it gives him a distinct individuality, for everyone cannot possess this much-prized quality. A pharmacist's customers seem harder to handle than those of other retail businesses. So many of a pharmacist's customers are sickly, dyspeptic, nervous, irritable, suffering with some kind of pain about all the time. It is pretty hard to converse with some of them and keep a cheerful look on your face, especially some days that you have a bilious attack, or a nervous headache yourself. But you must gather all your reserve energy and make a good impression, for those kind of people just mentioned are the kind that buy medicines, and you have medicines to sell. A barefooted, poorly dressed little boy or girl should be greeted just as cheerfully, they appreciate it and there are from five to twelve people in the family, so if you hold all the family trade, even though the individual purchases are small, the yearly total is large. Those poorly-clad children grow up to be well-dressed young men and women, and in comfortable circumstances. The writer recalls a family, which had three little girls, about four, six, and eight years of age. They were always poorly dressed, barefooted, looked as though they spent most of their time playing in a coal yard near their house. Every time they came in the store they were given every attention, and sometimes more than other customers received. They grew up rapidly, and in ten or twelve years, they were good customers, buying toilet goods, headache remedies, general articles for the house, and although they had moved to another section of the city, they still patronized the writer's store, and often spoke of how often they came in there when small children. They remembered all the clerks and could recall many of the incidents of their early visits to the store. TREATMENT OF CHILDREN.-Always try to please the children. They have fathers and mothers whose trade you will get if you are kind to their little ones. If you have children of your own you can appreciate the importance of this rule, for you know that your little boy or girl can tell you all about the store where they buy an article and never hesitate to say: "Oh! they are awful nice to me in there," or "They are just as mean as they can be in that store, as the case may be. To this day you probably can remember some store where you traded when a little boy, or where you mailed a letter to Santa Claus, or saw him walking around the aisles. Keep in right with the children always, even though they test your patience to the very limit; the years go by swiftly, and they don't stay children very long. A pharmacist who has children of his own finds it a simple matter to get along with his little customers, but a pharmacist who is single loses patience with them and isn't far-sighted enough to look into the near future to appreciate their value to him. Be just as considerate of children's feelings when they are in your store as you would be if they were playing with your own children in the nursery or attic of your own home. They are your little guests at your store; treat them as you would if they were the guests of your own children. When the father or mother bring their children to your store, stroke this child's curls, pat this one on the shoulder, ask their ages, show an interest in them; you will make the biggest kind of an impression with their fond father or mother if you do that. One certain successful dry goods merchant made a specialty of kind treatment of children. Almost any time of the day he could be seen walking about among the children, patting this one on the head, asking this one questions, giving this one a picture card to take home, asking this one for a curl; he held the trade of their fond mama's and gained a wide reputation on account of his real or pretended fondness for children. CHARACTER, SYMPATHY AND POLITENESS.-To be a good salesman you must develop your character. You will find it to be a valuable asset. You can acquire it by training and the discipline of your faculties. Some one is responsible for saying that "It is three-tenths inherited and seven-tenths surroundings." Organization, education and environment contributes to the formation of character. If you are a man of good character you will receive and give many good impressions, thereby winning the respect of your customers, as well as exert a wide influence. Supposing a lady came into your store, picked up a rubber-lined sponge bag from a display on the show-case and said: "How much is this?" You looked at the display and saw the price ticket in the proper position and said: "The price ticket is right on it, can't you see it?" The lady might turn around and say: "Oh, I see it now, but I didn't when I came in." However, you haven't made a good impression, and the chances are the lady would walk out without buying. While it is aggravating to have anyone ask the price of articles displayed, which not only have a show-card with the price, but also several small price tickets, yet they will do it. It seems to be just as much a habit as when they say: "It's a nice day," when it is either raining or snowing. A polite reply should be given, it doesn't cost any more than a sharp reply. That very lady might have just passed through a deep sorrow, the loss of one of her family, or relatives, or she might have been on her way to the hospital to see a sick person; if such was the case the chances are that she never would enter your store again. It is natural for a lady to look for kind treatment and sympathy. They have lots of home troubles and seem to like to speak of them, especially to physicians and pharmacists. So when any of them tell you their troubles, which is a common occurrence in every pharmacy, listen to them with interest, and at least show some sympathy. It pays, for that lady will go home feeling better and you have gained her good will. It is wonderful what a big difference it makes in a woman after she has had a little talk with a man who is pleasant, smiling, optimistic, encouraging; that man has found a place in her good graces for all time, and is sure of holding her trade. She goes home and faces her troubles with renewed vigor. In this connection the writer is reminded of a few lines taken from the columns of the Baltimore American, which read like this: The thing that goes the farthest towards making life worth while, |