Page 58 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

would enable a store operator to stock up on a line of one item large enough
to interest most store people. But they have enough high quality merchandise
for small fellows like me to keep going on. My big talking point, of course, is
price.

“I use the ‘sandwich’ method of building up orders. When talking to a
customer I ask what she is paying for, say, her husband’s socks at the local
department store. She tells me. ‘I have a very fine sock that I know would
please him, and the price is only $1.59 in dozen lots,’ I say. ‘What are you
paying for towels? I mean the large-size Cannon turkish bath towels?’ She
tells me and I go on, ‘I can sell you a package of one dozen Cannon bath
towels, the large size, at $2.10 a dozen—less than twenty cents each.’ These
are two low-priced items in constant demand. I don’t make much on them,
but I make a good profit on most of the other items I carry. So after throwing
two low-priced items out to catch interest, I whip in a profit maker. Say it’s
soap. I get this hand soap, a regular ten-cent item, at one and a half cents a
cake, and offer it at four for a quarter. Then I mention another profit maker,
such as a house dress. After that, I mention a lowpriced leader item, and by
that time the prospect has the impression that every item I have is very
inexpensive. That’s what I mean by merchandising the goods.”

Some of Graves’s orders run as high as $30.00, and his average is $4.75. His
average profit is $1.69 an order. Graves has built up a regular route, calls on
this route once every three weeks, and makes an average of twenty-three calls
daily. He closes orders in twelve out of the twenty-three homes he calls upon,
and his daily earnings average close to $19.00. His entire equipment consists
of his stock, in which his original investment was $50, and the car he drives,
which cost him $300 at a used car lot. You can build up a business as
profitable as that of Graves in your own community with a small investment.

How Cord Earned His First $1,000