The Brush He Put In

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town a slack month put one thought into every tradesman's head, which was to take something off. The men who came out of it richer had gone the other way.

Two brush makers in one town, the same hog bristle and the same beech backs.
Both found June slack, as it always was once the spring cleaning was done.
One took twopence off every shilling brush and chalked it on his board.
The other left his price where it stood and put something in the parcel.
Both cleared much the same number of brushes by Midsummer.
One of them was the poorer for it. Which, and why?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two brush makers, in the town I have never named. Both worked a long bench by a window, the bristle in bundles along the wall and the pitch pot going all day. Both sold a good scrubbing brush at a shilling, which cost each sixpence to make.

June was flat for both, as June always is. The houses are done, the yards are dry, and nobody who has lately bought a brush wants another. The first brush maker did the ordinary thing, and did it honestly. He chalked his board: scrubbing brushes, tenpence this month. The reduction was real, the brushes were good, and the women of that end are not slow. He had the shelf cleared by the last week of June.

The second sat down on the Sunday and thought about the sack in the corner. Trimming long bristle to length always leaves short bristle over, and he sold that by the sack to a man who stuffed mattresses, for ninepence. He had a bin of beech offcuts too short for anything he sold, and an apprentice with little to do. So through the first week the apprentice made clothes brushes, each with the maker's name stamped into the beech underneath, as he stamped everything. Three farthings the brush. In any shop in that town such a brush was sevenpence. Then he chalked his own board. Scrubbing brushes, one shilling. A clothes brush given with each, until Midsummer.

Consider the two boards through a woman's eyes. The first offers her twopence, and she knows what twopence is, having some in her hand. The second offers a thing she would have to find sevenpence for, and has meant to replace since the winter. She is comparing twopence with sevenpence, and she walks up the hill.

Both men cleared about three hundred brushes by Midsummer. The first took fourpence on each and five pounds on the three hundred. The second took fivepence and a farthing on each, the shilling less his sixpence and the farthings, and six pounds eleven shillings. The same bench, the same bristle, thirty-one shillings between them.

July was worse than the sum. The first man put his board back to a shilling and found the street in no hurry, the women having learned that a brush could be had for tenpence when it suited him. The second man's price had never moved, and three hundred clothes brushes now hung in halls with his name stamped where a hand must hold it.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

When you want to move more work, add something to the offer rather than take something off the price. A reduction is paid out of your pocket at its full face. A thing added is paid for at what it costs you and received at what it is worth, two different numbers.

That gap is the whole mechanism, and the nearest thing to free money a trade ever offers. Twopence off costs you twopence and is worth twopence. A clothes brush costs three farthings and is worth sevenpence, because worth, to the woman receiving it, is what she would otherwise have to pay. Every trade has such things about the place: the offcut, the waste sack, the dead half hour, the knowledge that took twenty years to get and takes four minutes to hand over. You price them at nothing because they cost you nothing. Your customer prices them at what the shop charges.

Then there is what each board teaches, which outlasts the month. A reduction is an admission about your price, and it stays in the street long after the chalk is gone, which is why a discount with no true reason beside it moves your price down for good. An addition admits nothing. It says you are generous at your price, which costs your price nothing. One man spent June teaching the street to wait until he was short of money. The other put his name into three hundred hands and kept his shilling.

The added thing goes on working, and the twopence does not. The brush is in the hall, in use, and when a neighbour admires it the answer names a trade and a street. It is the same reason the shape of the offer moves trade where the wording cannot. You have changed no word of what you say, only what is in the parcel.

There is an argument on the other side. Sometimes the price is itself the obstacle, and a woman with tenpence and not a shilling has no use for a clothes brush. That is the one case for cutting, and it means deciding to serve a thinner purse and building a cheaper brush for it. Cutting your ordinary price because the month is quiet reaches nobody new. It sells the usual thing to your usual customer for less.

Two cautions. The addition must be genuinely wanted. Clearing your slowest stock into people's parcels is a reduction with paper round it. The test is to say what she would pay for it elsewhere, and if you cannot answer in pence, leave it out. The second caution is to name the end of it, because a gift that never stops is not a gift but your price, and by next season nobody will buy the one brush without the other.

Three questions, for the week in front of you:

1. What do I hold that costs me little and would cost my customer a good deal? Walk the bench and the stockroom and write down five, with your cost against each and what a shop charges beside it.
2. If I take a tenth off my price, what fraction of my profit goes with it? The whole of the tenth comes out of the profit and none of it out of the cost. Work that before you chalk anything, then reckon how many more you must sell to stand still.
3. What will she still have in six months? Of a reduction, nothing. Of the right addition, a thing in daily use with your name on it. If what you mean to add is gone by Friday, choose something that stays.

The Answer to the Riddle

Both cleared much the same number of brushes by Midsummer. One of them was the poorer for it. Which, and why?

The first, by thirty-one shillings on the three hundred and by more than that in July. He gave away twopence, which cost him twopence and was worth twopence. His rival gave a brush that cost three farthings, was worth sevenpence, and hangs in a hall still with his name on it. Neither man sold cheaper than the other. Only one was paid for it.

The verse:

Take twopence off a shilling brush and twopence is the cost,
The woman has her twopence and your season's profit's lost.
But put a thing worth sevenpence that cost you less than one,
And she has had her bargain and your shilling still stands on.

Until next time. Go and name one thing you could put in the parcel this week that costs you under a shilling and would cost your customer five.

P.S. An addition is also a free trial of a line you do not yet sell. Mark down every customer who comes back asking to buy one outright, and by Michaelmas you will know whether you have been giving away a line worth selling.

Also in the archive: Five for the Money of Three, Made for a Colder Winter and Twenty Minutes to the Pound.