Pricing
Half a Crown Each Monday
Two range makers, the same iron and the same price, and the one who asked for it half a crown at a time. Letter No. 149 from Ben B. Tilley, on the shape of a price and why it sells where a discount cannot.
The Letters & Archive
Every letter, newest first. One lesson at a time, told as a story, hidden in a riddle, sealed with a verse.
Marketing
The Same Tuesday
Two bookbinders, the same three ledgers, and the same Tuesday finish that made one man quick and the other late. Letter No. 148 from Ben B. Tilley, on the date you name and the date you keep.
Sales
The Questions He Gave Away
Two slaters, the same price to the shilling, and the card of six questions one of them handed over for his rival to answer. Letter No. 147 from Ben B. Tilley, on teaching a customer how to judge your trade.
Marketing
Two Piles at Breakfast
Two wine merchants, the same forty customers, and the plain envelope that was opened over the marmalade while the gold-edged one went to the grate. Letter No. 146 from Ben B. Tilley, on why the first job of any message is to look like it came from a person.
Marketing
Twenty-Seven Hundredweight
Two ropemakers, the same hemp, and the slate by the gate that said exactly what the rope would hold. Letter No. 145 from Ben B. Tilley, on why an exact figure is believed where a boast is discounted.
Marketing
Two Marks Already Made
Two barbers, the same eight shaves to a free one, and the card that left the shop already a fifth full. Letter No. 144 from Ben B. Tilley, on why people finish what they believe they have already started.
Marketing
The Board She Chose
Two cabinetmakers, the same oak dresser, and the morning one of them spent letting the householder choose the board. Letter No. 143 from Ben B. Tilley, on giving the customer a hand in the making.
Pricing
Made for a Colder Winter
Two hatters, one mild winter, the same third off, and the handwritten reason that kept one man's prices standing. Letter No. 142 from Ben B. Tilley, on why every discount needs a true reason.
Marketing
What the Porter Did
One landlord paid off his porter to save a wage. The other watched him for a week first. Letter No. 141 from Ben B. Tilley, on finding out what a cost does before you cut it.
Marketing
The Man Who Sold the Horse
Two saddlers, one horse dealer's yard, and the buyer who was somebody else's customer a week before he was yours. Letter No. 140 from Ben B. Tilley, on standing beside the trade that makes your customers.
Marketing
The Waiting Room Wall
Two tea merchants, one crowded page six, and a bare waiting room wall that nobody had thought to sell. Letter No. 139 from Ben B. Tilley, on why attention is cheapest where people have only just begun to look.
Marketing
The Last Twenty Minutes
The job was over in both houses. Only one of them was finished. Letter No. 138 from Ben B. Tilley, on the part of the work your customer actually watches.
Marketing
The Coal in the Yard
He was not the quicker man. He was the one who did not spend his first morning moving another family's coal. Letter No. 137 from Ben B. Tilley, on the four lines you send before you start.
Sales
Eight to Twelve Hundred
He answered promptly and thoroughly and lost the work, and would have told you the market was competitive. Letter No. 136 from Ben B. Tilley, on the reply that contains nothing.
Sales
How Are the Hens Laying?
One chandler heard the corn and the other heard the eggs. Letter No. 135 from Ben B. Tilley, on the customer who has been buying the wrong thing from you for years.
Sales
I Might Have a Go Myself
Ringing them would have meant standing in his own hallway being right about the wrong thing. Letter No. 134 from Ben B. Tilley, on competing with the customer himself.
Sales
The Cart With the Barrels
One shop sold him a horse and the other sold him Christmas morning. Letter No. 133 from Ben B. Tilley, on serving the customer who is buying for somebody else.
Marketing
The Habits of the Hungry Year
Success hands you the result with no itemised bill. Letter No. 132 from Ben B. Tilley, on why the practices that built a business are the ones that quietly begin to cost it.
Pricing
The Bell He Had Never Cast
He was chosen for the very admission his rival thought he could not afford to make. Letter No. 131 from Ben B. Tilley, on pricing work you have never done.
Marketing
The Clear Evening
A clear evening is a mythical animal. Letter No. 130 from Ben B. Tilley, on why willing customers never begin, and the size of the step you put in their way.
Pricing
The Good Iron on the Axle
And what can you do on the price? Letter No. 129 from Ben B. Tilley, on the question asked at the handshake, and why it costs you more than the money.
Sales
The Woman Who Works the End
Within the year it was a thing they had bought and did not really use. Letter No. 128 from Ben B. Tilley, on the difference between who signs and who lives with it.
Sales
The Wall Has Moved
He joined himself for ever to the worst quarter of an hour of her year. Letter No. 127 from Ben B. Tilley, on being called in after somebody else has botched it.
Sales
March, Two Years, the Extension
It does not arrive as a rejection. It arrives as nothing. Letter No. 126 from Ben B. Tilley, on the enquiry that is not a no but a not yet.
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