Part 20 (1/2)
”Now, Herbert was a straight, steady boy. I recommended him to my house for credit. He didn't owe a dollar on earth. He bought about five thousand dollars' worth of goods and was able to discount his bills, right from the jump. Now, what do you suppose one of the commercial agencies said about him? Mind you, he had for four or five years run his uncle's store. The uncle was sick and left things really in the hands of Herbert. The agency said he was worth not over five hundred dollars and that he was no good for credit.
”I, of course, learned of this through our office and I told Herbert all about it and insisted that he ought to get that thing straightened out. He said, when I spoke to him of it, 'Why, I did fill out the blanks that they sent in to me--told them the straight of it, exactly what I had, $3,500, and they surely reported it as I gave it to them.'
'No, they haven't done any such thing, Herbert, because I looked into the matter myself when I was last in your office.'
”Well, Herbert had no trouble in getting goods from the houses whose salesmen he knew real well, but he had to suffer the inconvenience of having a great many orders turned down that he placed--either that or else he was written that he would have to pay cash in advance before s.h.i.+pping. It caused him a whole lot of worry. The boy--well, he wasn't such a boy after all, he was nearly thirty years old and strictly capable--was worried about all this, and I saw it. I told him, 'Look here, Herbert, you must get this thing straightened up. You write the agencies again and tell them just how you stand and that you want them to give you the proper sort of a report.'
”It wasn't a great while before the representative of this agency came around. Herbert went at him hammer and tongs for not doing him justice--then what do you think that fellow did? Nothing!
”In spite of all this Herbert paid up all his bills all right and soon established his credit by being able to give references to first-cla.s.s firms who stated that he paid them promptly. So, he became independent of the agencies altogether and when they asked him for any statement after that, he told them, 'Go to ----.' Now, of course, this wasn't the thing for him to do.
”A merchant should see that the commercial agencies give him a good report because, if he doesn't, he is simply cutting off his nose to spite his face. If he ever starts to open a new account with some house, the first thing the credit man of that concern will do, when he gets his order, will be to turn to his 'bibles' and see how the man is rated. These commercial agencies are going to say something about a man. That's the way they make their living. If they don't say something good, they will say something indifferent or positively bad.
So, what's the merchant to do but truckle to them and take chances on their telling the truth about him?”
”Yes, you're right,” chimed in the drygoods man, ”but even then, try as hard as he will, the merchant can't get justice, sometimes. One of my customers, who is one of the most systematic business men I know of, for years and years had no report. Half the goods he bought was turned down simply because the agent in his town for the commercial agency was a shyster lawyer who had it in for him. And he had all he could do to retain his credit. Just to show you how good the man was in the opinion of those with whom he did business, let me say that right after he had had a big fire and had suffered a big loss, one firm wired him: 'Your credit is good with us for any amount. Buy what you will, pay when you can.'
”Well, sir, this man was mad as fire at the agencies, and for years and years he would have absolutely nothing to do with them, but I finally told him: 'Look here, d.i.c.k; now this thing is all right but there's no use fighting those fellows. Why don't you get what's coming to you?' And I talked him into the idea of getting out after a right rating, and told him how to go about it.
”One day, in another town where he had started a branch store, he met one of the representatives of the agency that had done him dirt, and said to him: 'Now, Mr. Man, I sometimes have occasion to know how various firms that I do business with over the country stand, and if it doesn't cost too much to have your book, I'd like to subscribe.'
'Well, that won't cost you a great deal,' said the agent. My friend subscribed for the agency book, and in the next issue he was reported as being worth from ten to twenty thousand dollars. Another agency soon chimed in and had him listed as worth from five to ten thousand and with third-grade credit. Now, one or the other of these wrong--and the truth of the matter is that both of them had slandered him for years; he hadn't made ten to twenty thousand dollars in ninety days.
And just to show you how much good that rating did my friend, he soon began to receive circulars and catalogues galore from houses which, before that time, had turned him down.”
”The worst feature of turning down an order,” said the drygoods man, ”is that when you have an order turned down you also have a customer turned away. I was waiting on a man in the house. He was from out West. He was about half through buying his bill. The account was worth over twelve thousand a year to me. He thought so much of my firm that he had his letters sent in my care and made our store his headquarters while in the city. One morning when he came in to get his mail I saw him open one of his letters and, as he read it, a peculiar expression came over his face. When he had read his mail I asked him if he was ready to finish up. He said to me, 'No, Harry, I want to go over and see your credit man.'
[Ill.u.s.tration: What explanation have you to make of this, sir?]
”I went with him. One of the old man's sons, who had just come back from college, had taken charge of the western credits. The old man would have been a great deal better off if he'd pensioned the kid and put one of the packers in the office, instead. My customer went up to the credit _boy_ and said to him: 'Now, Mr. ----, I've just received a letter from home stating that you've drawn on me for three hundred and eighty-five dollars. What explanation have you to make of this, sir? I have always, heretofore, discounted every bill that I have bought from this establishment, and this bill for which you have drawn on me is not yet due.'
”'I'll look the matter up,' said the young credit man. He looked over his books a few minutes and then tried to make some sort of an explanation in a half-haughty kind of a way. My customer interrupted him right in the midst of his explanation and said, 'Well, you needn't say anything more about this, sir. Just see what I owe you.'
”This was looked up and my customer right then and there wrote his check for what he owed and said to me:
”'Old man, I'm mighty sorry to have to do this, but I cannot interpret this gentleman's conduct (pointing to the credit man) to mean anything but that my credit is no longer good here. I shall see if there is not some one else in the city who will trust me as I thought that this firm was willing to trust me. This thing hurts me!'
”I couldn't explain matters in any way, and my customer--_and my friend!_--walked out of the store and has never been back since.
That piece of Tom foolery on the part of our sn.o.b of a credit man lost the house and me an account worth over twelve thousand dollars a year.”
”That fellow,” broke in the clothing man, ”should have got the same dose that was once given a credit man in the house I used to work for.
He had been turning down order after order on good people, for all of us boys. When we came home from our fall trip we were so dissatisfied that we got together and swore that we would not sign a contract with the house unless the credit man they had was fired. We all signed a written agreement to this effect. Also, we agreed, upon our honor, that if one of us was fired for taking the stand, we would all go.
”Now, you know, boys, it is the salesmen that make the house. The house may have a line of goods that is strictly _it_, but unless they have good salesmen on the road they might as well shut up shop. A salesman, of course, gets along a great deal better with a good line than he does with a poor one, but a wholesale house without a line of first-cla.s.s representatives cannot possibly succeed. And the house knows this, you bet.
”Well, sir, I was the first salesman the old man struck to make a contract with for the next year. I, had been doing first rate, making a good salary and everything of that kind, and when the old man called me into the sweat-box, he said to me:
”'Well, I suppose we haven't very much to talk over. What you have done has been satisfactory to us, and I hope we've been satisfactory to you. If it suits you we will just continue your old contract.'
”'There will have to be one condition to it,' said I to the old man.
'Well, what's that?' 'I simply will not work for this establishment if the fool credit man that you have here is to continue. He has taken hundreds of dollars out of my pocket this year by turning down orders on good people who are worthy of credit. Now, it doesn't make any difference as to his salary if he turns down good people; in fact, if he is in doubt about any man at all, or even the least bit skittish, what does he do but turn him down? This is nothing out of his jeans, but it's taking shoes away from my babies, and I simply won't stand for it.'
”The long and short of it was that I didn't sign with the old man that day but he soon 'caved' after he had talked with a few more of the boys--one of whom told him point blank that we would all quit unless he gave the credit man his walking papers. And, you bet your life, the credit man went and today he is where he ought to be--keeping books at a hundred a month!”