This prompt renewal created an immense goodwill for German goods.  Right here is one of the first big lessons for the American exporter to learn, no matter what country he expects to sell in.  It lies in keeping goods “on the shelf,” and being able to meet emergency demand.

The Frenchman in trade is a sort of Missourian.  He must be “shown.”  He shies at samples; distrusts drawings.  He likes to go into a warehouse and look over stocks; it gives him satisfaction to pick and choose.  He is the most fastidious buyer in the world and he likes to do things his own way.  Any attempt to ram foreign methods—­either in buying or selling—­down his sensitive throat is bound to react.

Here is a case in point:  The General Representative in France of a large American manufacturing concern decided to engage some French salesmen.  He was a shark on business system; he fairly oozed with “scientific salesmanship”; he decided to gird his Gallic emissaries with the most improved American selling methods.  So he prepared an elaborate “What I did” schedule for them.  Into it was to be written every evening the complete record of the business day.

When he handed one of these blanks to his leading French salesman, that gentleman shrugged his shoulders and said: 

“It eez imposseeble.”

When the American became insistent all the French salesmen resigned in a body.  This objection was purely temperamental.  If there is one thing above all others that puts a Frenchman into panic it is publicity of his personal affairs.  He believes that the greatest crime in the world is to be found out, whether in business or in love.  There was nothing perhaps to hide in a biography of his daily work, but it was the wrong tack to take.

In the same way militant and masterful salesmanship also fails.  A man may be a crack seller in Kansas City, Denver, and all points West, but he finds to his sorrow that his dynamic process goes straight over the head of a Frenchman.  He refuses to be driven; he wants time for mature reflection and an opportunity to talk the thing over with his wife.

This irritating attempt to force uncongenial methods on French buyers is duplicated in a corresponding lack of plain everyday intelligence in meeting the simplest French requirements.

Indeed, the omissions of Americans are wellnigh incredible.  Take the matter of postage to France.  The head of a great French concern made this statement to me in sober earnestness:  “Won’t you be good enough to beg American manufacturers to put their office boys through a course of instruction in postal rates between Europe and the United States?”

When I asked him the reason he said:  “We sometimes get twenty letters from America in one mail and each comes under a two cent stamp.  This has been going on for years despite our repeated protest about it.  Some months my firm was required to pay from ten to fifteen dollars in excess postage.”