This done, then the man who believes in drugs must attack the show window and arrange attractively, with each specimen plainly placarded, the items he has selected. He should have his show cards of fair size, say 2 by 4 inches, and they should be arranged so that they will not detract from the exhibit, and so placed that they may be plainly read from the outside.

Avoid Latin terms, and proceed somewhat like this:

"Nux Vomica-the source of Strychnine." "Peruvian Bark-the source of Quinine." "Argols-the source of Cream of Tartar." "Penghawar Djambi-the cotton of the Ancients."

Next, the drug man must take the Dispensatory and "go to it," to use a slang phrase. He must learn the story of each item, its source, peculiarity of cultivation, medicinal value, and other data, so that he will have an interesting story to tell the many people who will be attracted by the exhibit and who will make inquiries.

THE IMPRESSION IT MAKES.

How many people are there who ever saw crude cream of tartar? How many people are there who are familiar with the source of quinine or of strychnine? How many people are there who ever saw Penghawar djambi, the absorbent vegetable wool that was used to suppress the flow of blood in the early Roman wars before cotton, or even the Western Hemisphere, was ever thought of? Now where do you suppose these people will go when they want drugs?

The 90 per cent commences to look fairly

safe!

The crude-drug idea should be followed by shows of chemicals, after which it might be well to try fluidextracts, tinctures, syrups, elixirs, oils, etc. In the store proper the same idea might be carried out. Have a bottle of real oil of rose on a stand, with a card showing its value, for instance. But be sure and learn the story of attar of rose, its history, method of production, and the alluring Oriental mystery that surrounds it. Work in a description of the harem baths in rose water, and don't be afraid to let the listener believe that you know what you are talking about!

The writer has tried out these schemes, and they have brought results. He has had a year's experience in meeting Big Competition.

You need not fear bankruptcy in your business if you do have to sell 10 per cent of your goods at cost, provided you retain a firm hold on the good old 90 per cent, for on the latter there is a margin of not less than fifty-fifty!

BY PUSHING A SPECIAL LINE.

BY A. MORTIMER, HARROGATE, ENGLAND.* The drug business is largely a personal onethat is the greatest factor. We know that chain and department stores can buy bigger and better. We know that very often they can save the jobber's profit, and that frequently they deal on so large a scale that they are in a position to manufacture.

The competition is very real; but the druggist who knows the people and is in intimate touch with them can fill their wants and dispense their prescriptions far better than can a chain store, where everything is conducted on the lines of the pattern.

What does all the big competition really amount to? Why, generally to price-cutting. Drugs that are to do good need to be of the best. It is quality, not price, that counts—or ought to. Then the way to meet such competition is to be known as the "best druggist in town," not the "cheapest druggist in town."

THE REAL TASK.

Everybody can tell which is the cheapest. But it is quite a different proposition to show that your goods are the best: that is the real task.

It is not enough for the druggist to say that he is open for business. He must tell the people how his goods are made, why they are

the best, where they came from, how they are

gathered and sorted, and all the other details

that a live salesman should have at his tongue's end. In a word, he must advertise that he has technical skill, and that he uses it.

A microscope on the counter illustrative of the method of detecting impurities in ground drugs is a method to this end. So is a short account of the points in choosing a sponge, or the method of making a good toilet soap. It will not be long before a druggist who does these things will get a reputation for knowing "how" and "why."

*Mr. Mortimer wins the third prize of $5.

But he must, of course, have the best goods, for if he doesn't then the customers he gains cannot be kept.

Stamp the store with an individuality. Let the window trims be out of the ordinary, and let the counter displays be as fresh as daisies. Stamp the individuality of the pharmacy on all the advertising-on everything! Let your store get to be synonymous with "the best."

A LINE OF PRODUCTS.

One of the best methods of all to meet heavy competition is to specialize. Specialize on an article, or, better, a series of articles-say a set of toilet preparations, such as a cream, a soap, a shaving stick and cake, bath crystals, a dentifrice (liquid, paste, and powder), a perfume, and so on. Let these have a distinctive as well as an attractive and a related appearance. Let them all be got up in the same design, so that they look a series.

A sale of any one advertises all the rest. And let anything you specialize in be the best. Suppose it is a skin cream, for instance; work

DEVELOPING

at it, stick to it until you have a local reputation. Everybody will be saying that Jones's Eumolia Cream is the best. Then when competition comes along and your competitor says that his cream is just as good as yours he at once sets your cream up as the standard; and the more he tells people this, the better reputation you and your cream get.

Perhaps the line you specialize in doesn't much more than pay for the advertising. That is quite satisfactory; stick to it. It brings people into the store.

Just one other word: in all that you do to meet competition don't forget to keep the clerks fully informed. Nothing is worse than to go into a store, as I did the other day, and be waited on by a man who "doesn't know." I asked for a shirt that had been advertised. "What shirts do you mean?" the clerk asked. "I didn't know we had a special this week." It cannot be said that I departed without a shirt, for I had one on when I went in. But I didn't buy a new one.

Of all customer-producing channels, the salesman is the most important, for he is the point of contact between the store and the customer. A man may spend all kinds of money in attracting customers to his store, but unless those customers receive the right kind of treatment after they get there, the money spent is worse than wasted.

A poor salesman can entirely undo the good work that clever advertising, attractive windows, and trade-pulling letters may have accomplished.

Many druggists seem to overlook the fact that they are judged by the quality of salesmanship exhibited by their sales people. Many merchants who display excellent judgment in buying goods show an absolute lack of that same essential when it comes to buying service. When a druggist buys merchandise, he knows what kind is suited to his store. But one often wonders if he has ever tried to find out what kind of service is best suited to his

By HAROLD WHITEHEAD, President American School of Business, Boston trade-what qualifications he should look for in his salesmen.

HIRING HELP.

The first thing to do in widening and developing this customer-producing channel is to make a list of the qualifications, mental and physical, required of your salesmen. Then with great care hire men who have those qualifications.

I can readily understand your saying, “Huh, that's what I've been trying to do for years, and there ain't no such animal!"

I am inclined to agree with you to the extent that it is difficult to find that kind of salesman already developed. But you certainly can find salesmen who have latent abilities that can be developed.

It is a poor business man who is continually hiring and firing people. The wise merchant is the one who hires salesmen with the right latent qualifications, and by training them

changes those embryo salesmen into the real article. And in so doing he also develops in them that intangible but most potent factor in business success, an esprit de corps; a feeling of loyalty toward "the boss" that is so hard to secure unless the boss is loyal to his employees.

DEVELOPING THE CLERK.

Having secured the right kind of material, don't hesitate to spend some money in developing it. You do not hesitate to spend money for new equipment when your store begins to look shabby. You do not hesitate to spend money when a traveling salesman comes along and offers you some novelty in show-cases which you think will help you get business. And yet the majority of business men will hesitate about spending a few dollars in improving their salesmen!

Your show-cases and store fixtures are articles of constantly decreasing value. Every year at stock-taking time you have to write off their depreciation. With proper training your salesmen, on the contrary, should be an asset increasing in value each year. They will not, however, increase each year in value unless you do your share in developing them.

A

Á druggist talking to me on this subject some time ago said, "Why should I waste my good time in training my employees to be better salesmen, and as soon as they become more efficient they hit me up for a raise, or else they leave me and go somewhere else?"

Suppose you do train a man and then he leaves you to go somewhere else! Surely we all have in us enough love for humanity to be willing to spend a little money to help a fellow being.

THE SALESMAN'S INCENTIVE.

The trouble with many druggists is that while they will put in long hours striving to make a few extra dollars for themselves, they expect their sales people to put in the same hours, but without the incentive which the proprietor has.

Your sales people work for you for just the same end that you work for yourself, namely, to make money. The more money they can make, the better they are going to work. There is no incentive for a salesman to work if there is no future ahead of him.

And yet a druggist in a New Jersey town told the writer a while ago that no clerk was worth over fifteen dollars a week!

How short-sighted such a man is! A good merchant will always attract good salesmen around him. Keep your men satisfied. If your men are of the right kind, they have ambition. The only way to keep that kind of a man satisfied is to share your profit with him. I believe and I say this in all seriousness and with some few years' experience in retail business as a sales specialistthat the successful stores of the future will without question operate on a profit-sharing basis; and I believe just as sincerely that the druggist who is so blind to his own interests as to limit the earnings of his clerks is doomed to eternal littleness, if not even to extinction.

THE BONUS SYSTEM CONDEMNED.

The writer questions the wisdom of giving bonuses on long-profit goods. It often induces a "pushfulness" on the part of the clerk which makes customers suspicious. The sale of such goods should be developed by advertising, not by bonuses to your sales people, which may cause them to discriminate against the welfare of the customer to the benefit of their own interests. You are putting in their way the temptation to sell customers long-profit goods which really may not be suited to their

needs.

One of the best plans the writer has known involves the division of the profits on a varying pro-rata basis. Suppose you say to your

clerks:

"Here, fellows-there are four of you here besides myself; that is, five altogether. Last year I made $3500 profit, and I spent $3000 of it to live. I consider myself on a salary basis here at $2500 a year.

"Now, I have $15,000 invested in this business, which at 8 per cent should pay me $900. That leaves $100 surplus. What I propose to do is this: on all the profit we make I am going to give each of you a share.

APPORTIONING THE PROFITS.

"Every hundred dollars we make I shall divide in two-one-half for myself and the other half for you; and your half shall be divided equally among you according to your salaries. Not according to your sales, for it would be unfair to expect the prescription clerk to have the same total as the cigar and candy salesmen, etc.

"We shall, however, set a minimum amount

of sales expected from each department; and the man who falls below that minimum, based on what we did last year, will not be eligible for any division of the profits; in which case his proportion will be redivided among those who have qualified."

This idea is very loosely expressed, but my purpose is not to give a definite plan, but merely to direct your attention along a line which seems to be the trend of modern affairs.

Efficiency is the ability to effect results. The results you obtain in your business are the

At one time the argument that the better class of people was not reached by motionpicture advertising was to some extent true. At first the movies did not draw much of their patronage from the better classes. But conditions are different to-day, and no matter where you go you will find almost as high a grade of attendance at the moving-picture houses as at the theaters. Possibly you will reach as high an average as is possible through the newspapers.

Especially is this true in country towns, where the movies form almost the only recreation a great many weeks in the year, and where you will find the bankers and doctors and lawyers, with their families, in attendance as often as those in the lower walks of life.

There are some who have tried slide advertising who claim it hasn't paid them; but the writer personally knows of hundreds of cases where it has paid better in proportion to its cost than any other kind of publicity.

SAY SOMETHING.

The main trouble with many retail advertisers is that they don't say anything in a great many of their announcements. Even some of those who get out very clever newspaper advertising, full of snappy selling arguments and strong quality and price inducements, seem to have forgotten their cues entirely in their curtain work, where they are content to say nothing except to give their name and address, with a brief, cold announcement of a few of the lines of goods carried. Most curtain advertisements read like the merchant's letter-head.

By DAVID STRANG

That isn't advertising.

You've got to say something. You've got to feature your goods. You can't interest people in a movie by the startling statement that you are still in business at the same old address any more than you would if you stuck the same announcement in the newspapers.

Say something! You find plenty of things to feature in your windows, which you use— or should use-in backing up your other advertising. Feature some of these things in your curtain advertising, one or two at a time. Give selling arguments and price.

But the most profitable announcements you can make are of bargain leaders, featuring as leaders only such things as are in constant demand, or that are in particular demand when the announcement is made. Work the curtains to draw people into your store; to get just as many in as you possibly can.

DON'T TRY THE IMPOSSIBLE.

Another reason that some have not found this method profitable is that they have used the curtains to push slow sellers on which they were trying to build a demand. Sometimes the articles have proved to be things that the use of all known advertising mediums, all at once, couldn't create a demand for, simply because they were things that people couldn't be made to want or use to any great extent. In other cases it has been found that, while the articles featured were all right, the advertising was stopped after a few weeks because "it didn't pay." The reason it didn't pay, however, was that it wasn't continued long enough.

One can't expect to create an immediate demand on a new article except in those rare cases when it is something of extraordinary merit or fills a pressing need that cannot be suitably filled in any other way.

Some men who quit like this ought to take a lesson from their own past. Did you win your wife by announcing your name and address? Did you win her without long and consistent and the most earnest kind of advertising?

NO ADVANTAGE IN SCATTERED SHOWINGS.

The Street Railways Advertising Company, which controls a majority of the street-car space in this country, will not accept a contract for a less period than six months, while the regular contract is for one year. This is because experience has shown that a few weeks or months are not a sufficient time in which to make an impression. There is no advantage in making a few scattered showings, because there is no cumulative effect; and cumulative effect is essential to the success of any advertising.

When you advertise leaders in the newspapers, it is to get people into your store to buy goods other than the leaders. Use your movies the same way, and then you will have no particular complaint to make.

When an advertisement is thrown upon the screen in a darkened theater people can't help reading it. There is nothing else for them to see. They have nothing else to do.

There is positively no waste circulation. If your advertising is only 25 per cent perfect you will get better results than you can with an advertisement in a newspaper that goes to the same number of people, because many of the people who take the paper will not see or read it at all. A good many of the papers go out of town, too.

One of the crowning arguments in favor of the theater is that it costs very much less per actual circulation than newspaper advertising.

The many attractive ways in which slides. may be prepared is another strong inducement.

HOW SLIDES ARE MADE.

The theater slide must be limited to a single thought, however, and this must be put in the fewest possible number of sentences and sentences and words. It should not contain more than is said on the average street-car card. In making up copy remember to keep the bill-board appeal in mind, and hit the reader "between the eyes."

You can have slides especially made to your order by a number of concerns, but it is cheaper, quicker, and usually just as satisfactory in every way to make them yourself. To do this, obtain a mat or margin from the moving-picture theater and outline this mat on a sheet of paper. If you wish to illustrate the slide, paste a small picture within the outline you have drawn on the paper. Any appropriate picture cut from a newspaper, magazine or catalogue will do, if it is small enough. You can use a small comic figure in this way, the picture of a girl's head, or a picture of the article you are advertising. It is much better to use a print taken from a drawing than one taken from a photograph; in other words, a line cut, instead of a half-tone.

Surrounding, or at one side of the picture, write or print the text matter. You may do this with a typewriter, if you prefer.

Now place a cover-glass the same size as your outline over your copy, seeing to it that the outline matches the edges of the glass. Fasten the glass down with thumb-tacks at its edges. Then simply trace on the glass the sketch and lettering showing through from the paper, much in the same manner as a child does with a piece of transparent paper. Use any hard-pointed pen, and bear down very lightly; a little practice is needed to avoid getting too heavy a line. Use a thick ink, preferably stamping ink, though show-card ink will answer the purpose.

THE USE OF COLORS.

You may use any color or variety of colors you desire. It will be less confusing to the reader, however, because more easily taken in at a glance, if you do not use too great a variety of colors on one slide. Two colors are usually sufficient, black and red or black and green being the best combinations.

When finished, let the work stand for three or four hours, until perfectly dry. Then put the mat over the glass, and on the mat place the cover-glass. Passe-partout the edges as you would a picture, using a half-inch passepartout tape. With a little experience one will be able to make a very good slide in from ten to twenty minutes, exclusive of the time required to dry the ink.

Pictures may be colored by using a fine camel's-hair brush, and filling in with an ordinary, thin, quick-drying wood stain.

The motion-picture theaters will usually furnish mats and glass plates free of cost.