Producer Read Online Free PDF Page B

Kennedy, Nancy Kissinger, and
     Eunice Shriver. I always made sure I approached them with a good attitude. I was a popular saleswoman because of that, and
     I remember my very first customer, a distinguished man named Clark Clifford, former US Secretary of Defense. When I approached
     him on the floor to say, “Can I help you?” with a nice smile, it turned out that he wanted alarge number of custom-made shirts with monograms. They were quite expensive, and my very first sale totaled a couple thousand
     dollars.
    When a veteran salesman saw me serving ex-Secretary Clifford, he sized me up as a “just out of college chick,” and he came
     over to rescue my sale that did not need rescuing. I
did
need him, however, to help me ring up the order since I was unfamiliar with the system as yet, but the commission was mine.
     Buoyed by making such a strong first sale, I continued my efforts and I swiftly became the highest earning salesperson on
     the staff, man or woman, without ever selling a suit.
    One afternoon at about 4 p.m., after the manager of the store, Bob Mallon, had finished an afternoon cocktail, he called me
     to his office. “Okay, Wendy,” he said, “how are you doing this? I want to know exactly what you’re doing.”
    “Well,” I said, “I walk up to a customer. I smile, and I say, ‘If you need anything, I’ll be right over there.’ And I walk
     away.”
    “Why do you do that?” Bob wanted to know.
    “I don’t know about you,” I said, “but I don’t like to be bugged when I’m shopping at a store. I hate it when someone starts
     following me around. If I greet them with a smile and tell them where I’ll be if they have any questions, they find me and
     ask. And they don’t feel bugged or pressured.”
    “That can’t be all,” he said. “What else do you do?”
    I thought for a moment. “Some of the sales staff don’t go out of their way to make a sale for just a tie or a scarf that costs
     only about ten dollars. They prefer to talk with one another instead of waiting around. But in my mind, ten times ten equals
     a hundred dollars. I see each sale as important, and I make the customer’s experience a good one. I don’t care how many times
     I ring up a ten-dollar sale. I just know it adds up.”
    Excited, Bob went to a sales meeting in New York and toldhis bosses about this interesting saleswoman who was making more than most of the men. I ended up working at Brooks Brothers
     for the next two years, earning annually about thirty-four thousand dollars in commissions, an unheard of amount at the time,
     especially for a woman who was not allowed to sell suits. I was thrilled, able to go out to dinner when I wanted, and I did
     my artwork, my first love, on the side. I had no idea how long it would be before I ever matched that salary again, and at
     the time, I took it in my stride. My dad, however, hoped I would stay on at Brooks Brothers for a good long time because he
     got tons of new shirts every month!
    The trouble was that I got tired of being a sales clerk. True, I was earning a really good living and I was meeting interesting
     people. But there was only so far a salesperson could go. I wanted more. I wasn’t sure what that looked like until one of
     my customers told me he wanted to open an art gallery. He and I had discussed art and he knew it was my first love. So he
     asked me if I was interested in leaving my present job to run the art gallery he was about to open. I did it. I left Brooks
     Brothers to manage a small new operation called the Huber Art Gallery for five thousand dollars a year, a fraction of the
     salary I’d been making. Looking back, it seems like an impulsive move and not the smartest thing to do, but I couldn’t remain
     a sales clerk forever. I had started my master’s degree work at George Washington University, but I stopped when I left Brooks
     Brothers. I just couldn’t afford it anymore.
    When I began working in the gallery, I did as much