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wiches, carbonated water, etc., for the fountain. One hundred gallons of ice-cream can be stored at a time. An elevator serves to carry supplies from the basement to the fountain.

It takes the entire time of three men to handle the constantly growing cigar and tobacco trade. Cigars by the box are a Kinsel specialty, the Saturday sales on box cigars alone running into the thousands.

In the cutlery department are carried pocket knives, razors, and manicure implements of every description. Cameras and supplies, fountain pens, electric irons, flashlights and similar articles are also sold. As an example of the amount of business done in the department Mr. Kinsel recently placed an order for 100 electric vibrators, retailing at from $10.00 to $25.00 apiece, and states that he expects to dispose of them within three months' time.

Candies and toilet goods are sold from a large case in the center of the store. The case is of the slant-type, measuring 22 inches at the bottom and 12 inches at the top. It is 46 inches high. Seven girls are in attendance at this counter.

are pushed, special price inducements being made on quantity purchases. On Sundays, however, high-grade box candies are brought to the front and featured exclusively. The sales-girls are given 5-per-cent commissions on lines retailing at 80 cents or more a pound, and which show the store a good profit.

CLERKS HAVE SHORT HOURS.

Kinsel clerks are not troubled by long-hour days. The store force consists of two crews. One shift serves from 8 A. M to 12 noon and from 6 P.M. until midnight: The hours of the second shift are from 12 noon until 6 P.M. The two crews alternate daily, and each clerk has every other Sunday free from duty. As the store is open all night a third crew of six people has charge from midnight until 8 A.M.

Another feature that is much appreciated by the clerks, and one incidentally that works for the benefit of the store, is the material used in the construction of the floor. The store proper has a handsome tile floor, while the spaces behind the counters are of wood covered with flexible mats of rubber and iron. These mats are easier on the clerks' feet, and, being slightly raised, give the clerk an advantage when talking to a customer.

Newspaper advertising is depended upon

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entirely for giving the store outside publicity. Large space is contracted for in three of the leading Detroit papers, the advertisements running on Thursdays and Fridays of each week. This newspaper advertising features the week-end sales of the store and makes its

During the week the lower-priced candies appeal almost wholly on price.

But few cuts are used, every inch of space being devoted to an enumeration of the special offerings. Prices are quoted on every one of numerous items. Photographs of various parts of the store are sometimes used in the advertising, three of the cuts appearing in this article being taken from newspaper ads.

Seven windows, each 9 feet long, draw attention from the many pedestrians who pass by the store. These windows are depended upon to sell large quantities of goods. Three

SENDING OUT

of the windows display drugs and medicines, two are devoted to exhibits from the cutlery department, while cigars and candy occupy the two remaining windows.

Window demonstrations have proven very effective, according to Mr. Kinsel. He says that displays of such things as corn remedies and shoulder-braces have produced most satisfactory financial returns.

The Kinsel business is a strictly cash one; there are no book accounts.

BUSINESS-PULLING LETTERS*

Competition to-day is more in service than in goods. A druggist can offer very little in the way of quality or price that all his competitors cannot offer. Any of his customers can walk a block from his store and get practically the same goods he offers; and should a competitor give better service than he does the customer will not hesitate a moment to walk that block.

If, then, you are on an equal footing with your competitors as regards price and quality, the only thing in which you can compete is service.

A properly worded letter sent to your customer or prospect shows clearly that you are interested in him, and it is a cord of interest that ties him to your store. One letter-one cord-is not likely to prove sufficiently strong to enable you to haul him in and keep him as a permanent customer; but every letter you send is an added cord or attachment.

The perfect drug store is never out of any merchandise that is asked for, but, thank heaven, there is nothing perfect on this earthnot even a drug store! So it often happens that in the best regulated stores a customer asks for something that isn't in stock.

To have a customer leave a store under such conditions breaks a cord of interest. Now we must replace that broken strand; and a letter will do it where nothing else can.

The third of a series of five articles on ways and means of getting business.

By HAROLD WHITEHEAD, President American School of Business, Boston

SHOWING AN INTEREST.

It will not be long before the article that was asked for will be in stock again. As soon as it comes, send a note saying how sorry you were to be out of it, but that you now have it and if the customer will just telephone or write you will be only too glad to send the goods down right away. Close by saying that you value his or her business so much that you take the liberty of sending the letter.

Do not go into a lengthy explanation of the reason why you were out of the article. The more you explain the weaker becomes your position, and if your customer receives a letter full of explanations and loud protestations, she will exclaim with her friend William Shakespeare: "He doth protest too much."

You can hardly expect that an order will follow the letter, for the customer probably bought that article elsewhere. But you have replaced the cord of interest which was broken because you were unable to satisfy that want. You have convinced the customer that you are trying to render her real service-surely an excellent return for your investment in a twocent stamp!

The form-letter is, in the opinion of the writer, one of the most potent factors in successful business, if used in a well-thought-out plan and followed up consistently.

A very effective way of using form-letters is to first revise your list of present customers,

and prepare a list of people you would like to have for customers. Then put the name and address of each individual on a card similar to the following:

NAME

ADDRESS

TELEPHONE

BUSINESS OR GROUP..
DATE

LETTER

COMMENTS

Divide these customers into groups. By that I mean classify them according to their social or business relationship. It is a good plan to use a different colored card for each group, or class. White cards can be for well-to-do women; blue cards for farmers; pink cards for young men; yellow cards for laborers' wives; and so forth.

Each month send to each group a letter mentioning some article in which the group as a whole will be interested. You can send to the well-to-do women some particulars about that new imported perfume you have. To the farmers you might send a letter about the new fertilizer, stock food or disinfectant you have just received. To the young men a combination offer of shaving soap, witch-hazel and powder would be appropriate; while the laborers' wives would doubtless be interested to hear about what can be done in the way of dyeing. These are merely off-hand illustrations.

DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH.

However, do not expect that the day after you send out these letters you will find a string of customers half a mile long waiting to purchase the goods exploited. A salesman may have to make numerous calls to turn a prospect into a customer, so do not expect one letter to do what a dozen visits of a salesman might not do.

The general appearance of your letter decides what kind of attention it will receive. This general appearance is determined by the quality of the stationery, the way the letter is folded, the kind of printing on your letter

head, and the general formation of the com'munication.

The first paragraph will decide the degree of interest you will arouse. The rest must turn that interest into desire to act upon the suggestions contained therein.

Do not try to write a letter as if you were Woodrow Wilson. Write to your customers in just the kind of language you use when talking to them. Highfalutin' phraseology sounds mightly nice in a book, but if you are not in the habit of using it a letter from you containing that sort of thing will make you and your effort a joke in the eyes of your customers.

You can get the thoughts and the ideas from any one; but having got the idea you want to convey, dress it in your own language. Trying to present ideas in other people's language is just like trying to wear other people's clothes.

SHORT AND SNAPPY PARAGRAPHS.

Make your paragraphs as short and snappy as possible. The writer believes in paragraphs of not more than five lines, as a general thing.

If you want a customer to answer, make it as easy for him to do so as you can. Do not ask him to write you a letter to order some little thing, and do not leave it to him to hunt all over his house for an envelope. It is very little expense, you know, to put an envelope inside your letter; and instead of asking the customer to write to you, just put a P. S. on your message to this effect: "Don't bother to write-just say 'yes' on this letter and mail it in the enclosed envelope."

Some good letters fall down because they talk to a group. If you are sending out a form-letter to two thousand people, you must not take the attitude of standing on a tub and haranguing that two thousand in a bunch. Write your letter to just one man, so as to get that personality and friendliness into it which is so helpful to business.

Form-letters are written to so many thousands of individuals-not to a bunch of so many thousands.

In short, in writing letters keep in view these simple rules: Be brief and concise; do not use long words or sentences; do not gush; tell your story simply; give reasons why your customers should buy; and do not rant, beg, or preach. And above all talk with your customer, not at him.

Next month Mr. Whitehead will discuss "The Satisfied Customer."

GETTING A START

IN THE DRUG BUSINESS

People say I have been successful. Perhaps I have. Probably what they mean is that I have not failed in business. Well, I am not so very old; in fact, when I sometimes forget and wear my cap in the store people take me for the junior clerk, instead of the proprietor. But having started with something less than nothing I find myself to-day, ten years later, the sole owner of a good paying drug business free of all debt, with a good name, with credit at the bank, and the good-will and respect of my customers.

I was born in the country. Before I was quite sixteen I had completed the high-school course and was forced by the near-edge of poverty and the lack of any other opening to take a position as errand boy in a drug store. At that time a college course was not considered necessary or advisable in our Province, and was seldom taken.

After a time I tired of the sights of the home town and being fired with an ambition to see the world, I packed a strawboard suitcase and set out for the city of Hamilton. Here I was fortunate enough to get a position at $8.00 a week, in what seemed to me to be a most awful big wholesale house. My expenses were $6.00 a week, leaving me two dollars for spending money. In my former position I had got $9.00 a week and my expenses had been less than five. Still, I never did like to be laughed at, so I didn't go home.

A PROMOTION AND AN OPPORTUNITY.

I guess I must have been pretty green; anyhow the other clerks thought I was, and they certainly did rub it into me. But in some ways I was not as green as I seemed. In my former position I had been well instructed in every branch of the business, from bookkeeping to dispensing and manufacturing.

The "boss"

soon found this out, and at the end of a year I was promoted from the sundry department to a better position in the drug department.

This promotion was a great surprise to me, as I was an under-graduate and about the youngest of the staff. It was given me, I was told, because I stuck strictly to business, wasn't

By A. N. S. BIXBY

afraid to work, and knew how to use my head. Unlike some of the others, I was not simply filling in time while I waited for some rich relative to die.

I worked away for another year, took my examinations successfully, and was considering asking the "boss" for a dollar a week more, when one day he came up behind me, laid his hand on my shoulder and said, "Son, how would you like to own a store of your own?" I looked at him dumbfounded, for I hadn't been thinking of any such thing and hadn't a cent saved up towards buying a business. He went on and explained that a business 'way back in the country, a hundred miles from nowhere, was for sale and could be bought very cheap. It was in a good prosperous district, but the store had been mismanaged. As he explained it, if I were to go there, bury myself alive for a few years and work hard, I might make a small fortune.

A FATHER'S GOOD NAME.

And right here I discovered my father's best bequest to me. Though a man without much means, my father had a reputation for honesty that was enviable, and that reputation the "boss" (who knew him) now told me was worth whatever money was needed to buy the business, at a very low rate of interest and without other security than the good name my father had given me.

Well! Saturday I went home to confer with the home authorities. They seemed to think that I was rather young to go into business, and seemed dubious of my making a success of it.

Sunday I went to the little country church. Up to that time I had never paid much attention to sermons, and probably I haven't paid any too much attention since; but that minister had a big lump of horse sense hid away somewhere, and he certainly knew how to talk to young people in a manner that made them sit up and take notice.

I still remember his text. I have heard a good many sermons before and since, but that was the only one I ever remembered the text

of. I have never forgotten it. It was "And he slew a lion in a pit and the snow was on the ground."

He went on to show how any young man with gumption, who wouldn't let himself get scared, but would put a double clench on both fists, dig in, and do his "darnedest" would win out every time, even if the odds were against him and the footing poor.

A DETERMINATION TO WIN.

That sermon was just what I needed. It acted on me like a hypodermic of morphine would on a dope fiend. Before he was half through I had made up my mind that if that business was to be had and was worth having I would have it.

A week later found me on my way to the town of Choburg, where the business in question was located. This town, which I hardly knew before existed, I discovered was sixty miles by coach from the nearest railway station, or ninety-five miles by water. A traveler who had been there told me by all means to take the water route. I embarked on a small coasting steamer early in the afternoon, and all the rest of the afternoon and all that night we moved forward, stopping occasionally to land supplies at some backwoods village.

The morning broke clear and sharp with an early September frost. After breakfast I went on deck and found we were just backing up to the wharf of a small settlement. An old man, clad in the original homespun; an old woman who had never heard of corsets; two girls and a young man these were there to greet us. One of the girls, I concluded, was the belle of the place. Dressed in a bright pink dress that came to her heels behind and above her boottops in front, with black hose and white boots, wearing white cotton gloves, with about four inches of brown arm between the ends of them and her elbow-sleeves, and with a blue hat trimmed with red and green, she could not fail to attract attention. As I stood and looked at the group, I remarked to myself, "Good Heavens, is this what I have come to live amongst?"

LOOKING THE TOWN OVER.

A little later, however, I discovered that I was mistaken. Just before noon we steamed up a bay full of islands of all shapes and sizes and suddenly emerged before one of the prettiest bits of scenery I have ever seen. Before us lay the village of Choburg, situated at the

head of the bay, surrounded by prosperous looking farms of green and golden fields, and encircled by a low mountain whose trees were resplendent with the red and gold of early autumn-and the whole thing reflected in the still, blue waters of the bay! It was a sight never to be forgotten. Though I have seen it many, many times since, I have never again seen it just as it was that beautiful September morning.

The town I found had a population of about nine hundred, the people were well dressed and looked prosperous; and what few of them I met that day seemed very pleasant. The chief industry was raising and shipping potatoes.

I spent the remainder of the day in inspecting the town and surrounding country and was well pleased with what I saw.

In conversation with the hotel proprietor I learned that the druggist whose store I hoped to buy was given to drink. He had neglected the drug business and had turned the store into a regular barroom. He had done a thriving business until the people of the town had risen in revolt and put a stop to it. Since then he had been employed in drinking up everything alcoholic in the store. Before I got around to see him the next morning he had finished the Ess. Limonis, had started on the Tinct. Capsici, and was in anything but a pleasant humor.

A TANGLED SKEIN.

The store I found in a good building on a good corner-well fitted, but poorly stocked. I stated my business to the proprietor. Yes, he wanted to sell, he said, but he wanted to get all there was to be got out of it for himself. He wasn't going to pay any wholesale accounts. They had always cheated him, anyway, and had already got enough out of him.

Now I had been instructed by the "boss" that his account was to be taken from the purchase price; and as the "boss" " company was putting up the money, it was up to me to see that this was done.

Accidentally, I think, the druggist let something slip about a bill of sale. This was news. to me. Excusing myself, I hurried to the recorder's office. Here I found that the druggist had borrowed money from a neighbor, given a bill of sale of the stock to cover the loan, but had persuaded the neighbor not to have it recorded, as it might hurt the druggist's credit. He had immediately gone to work and

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