MOST IMPORTANT JOB IN DISTRIBUTION 229 
it is seen may cause resentment at our having sold it. Thus 
it will react against us when the customer has to do some 
shopping for goods that we handle. 
But even this is not the worst of its effect on us. Our 
buying is largely influenced by the way that goods have sold. 
Our records will not show us that the only way we succeeded 
in getting rid of this particular article was by high-pressure 
selling. So the chances are that, having sold this undesirable 
merchandise, we are likely to buy more of it on reorders, and 
perpetuate the error, keep on selling the goods and building 
up ill will with every sale. Of course, we shall not be likely 
to reorder if the defects of the merchandise are so flagrant 
that they force mark-downs. 
Many stores are using considerable time and effort to 
educate employees to serve customers in the very best way. 
The only danger in such educational work is that it may take 
the direction of teaching salespeople to sell something to 
every customer whether or not it isneeded. Then, of course, 
it becomes pernicious. Rightly done, however, it is 
axtremely valuable. 
For many years I have tried to impress salespeople with 
the attitude toward customers that I call “parent service.” 
Every employee who gives parent service deals with a cus- 
tomer as he would with his own father or mother. When 
this prevails throughout our store, we shall never sell any- 
+hing that should not be sold for the customer’s best interest. 
Unless we sell only in this manner, we are sending out into 
circulation customers who tell their friends and relatives 
that their last purchases at our store were unsatisfactory. 
We lose the dissatisfied customers’ goodwill and that of 
everybody else they tell of their experience. Whereas, if 
we send away customers satisfied, they come back. 
We have already seen, under the Model Stock Plan, that 
to plan our sales volume we start from a complete stock rather 
than from past performance. That is, to earn the greatest 
total profits, we must consider the volume that we should sell 
rather than the volume that we have sold. Thus we are likely 
to come face to face with the duty of increasing our sales so