Twenty Reporters Get the Facts To get definite proof of this fact, Mr. Wheeler approached Erwin Huber, then director of advertising for the Baltimore News-Post. Together they selected twenty reporters and gave each of them five dollars with instructions to go to The May Company and buy as many of the men’s advertised dollar shirts as the $5.00 would purchase and the clerks would sell. When the reporters returned fro m the store, fifteen of them hadn’t bought a single shirt, informing Mr. Wheeler that the clerks had made no attempt to sell them one. The five reporters who did buy shirts purchased only one each, explaining that the clerks did not suggest a second, third, or fourth shirt. It was evident, according to the reporters, that the clerks figures that after all a man wore only one shirt at a time, so if he bought one, why try to “load him up” with several? Important Selling Evidence Armed with this important evidence, Mr. Wheeler then approached Mr. Wilbur May, head of The May Company store in Baltimore at the time, explained what he had done, and produced his findings. Mr. May was most interested. He realized that he had a million-dollar establishment, with a million dollars worth of merchandise on the shelves – yet the real control of his business was in the hands of his eight hundred salesgirls, whose only two worries (and we can’t blame them, either) were these:
1. “When am I gonna get married and quit working!” 2. “Gee, I wish it was 5:30 – my dogs are aching!”
Mr. May further realized that the most the manufacturer was doing was getting his goods up to the counters, the most the store was doing was teaching the clerks how to fill out checks properly and placing advertisements in the papers, and that the most the newspaper was doing was bringing the people in alive. In the final analysis, the sales were consummated by the salespeople – and on what they say or do depends to a great degree just how much merchandise will be sold across American counters each day. Wheeler Word Laboratory is Formed Upon hearing this story and seeing the facts, Mr. May suggested that Mr. Wheeler be commissioned by his newspaper to go behind the counters and really make a study of salespeople.
P. 6
Powered by FlippingBook