Two Americans met by chance one day last summer at a little table in front of the CafÉ de la Paix in Paris. One had arrived only a month before; the other was an old resident in France. After the fashion of their kind they became acquainted and began to talk. Before them passed a picturesque parade, brilliant with the uniforms of half a dozen nations, and streaked with the symbols of mourning that attested to the ravage of war.

"There is something wrong with these Frenchmen," said the first American.

"How is that?" asked his companion.

"It's like this," was the reply. "I have sold goods from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and yet I can get nowhere over here. I give these fellows the swiftest line of selling talk in the world and it makes no impression."

"How well do you speak French?" queried his new-found acquaintance.

"Not at all."

"Have you studied the ways and needs of the Frenchman?"

"Of course not. I've got something they want and they ought to take it."

The man who had long lived in France was silent for a moment. Then he said:

"The fault is not with the Frenchman, my friend. Think it over." He did, and with reflection he changed his method. He put a curb on strenuosity; started to study the French temperament; he began to see why he had not succeeded.

This incident illumines one of the strangest and most inconsistent situations in our foreign trade. By a curious irony we have failed to realise our commercial destiny in the one Allied Nation where real respect and affection for us remain. France—a sister Republic—is bound to us by sentimental ties and the kinship of a common struggle for liberty. Her people are warm-hearted and generous and want to do business with us.

Yet, as long and costly experience shows, we have almost gone out of our way to clash with their customs and misunderstand their motives. In short, we have neglected a great opportunity to develop a permanent and worth-while export business with them. It was bad enough before the war. Events since the outbreak of the monster conflict have emphasised it more keenly.

Why have Americans failed so signally in France? There are many reasons. First of all, their whole system of selling has been wrong.

For years many of our manufacturers were represented in Paris and elsewhere in France by German agents, who also represented producers in their own country. The energetic Teuton did not hesitate to install an American machine or a line of American goods. But what happened? When the machine part wore out or the stock of goods was exhausted, there was seldom any American product on hand to meet the swift and sometime impatient demand for replacement or renewal. By a strange "coincidence" there was always an abundant supply of German material available. The German salesman always saw to that. Necessity knows no nationality. The result invariably was that German output supplanted the American. The Frenchman did not want to be caught the second time.

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."

Now the amount of money involved in this transaction is the slightest feature: it is the chronic laxity and carelessness of the American business man that gets on the Frenchman's nerve.

Here is another case in point: A well known French firm has been writing weekly letters for the past eighteen months to a New England factory trying to persuade the Manager to mark his export cases with a stencil plate and in ink rather than with a heavy lead pencil, as the latter marking is almost obliterated by the time the shipment arrives at Havre. In fact, this French firm went to the extent of sending a stencil and brush to New England to be used in marking the firm's cases. But the old pencil habit is too strong and a weekly hunt has to be instituted on the French docks for odd cases containing valuable consignments of machine tools. Vexatious delays result. It is just one more nail that the heedless American manufacturer drives into the coffin of his French business.

These incidents and many more that I could cite, are merely the approach, however, to a succession of mistakes that make you wonder if so-called Yankee enterprise gets stage fright or "cold feet" as soon as it comes in contact with French commercial possibilities. Let me now tell the prize story of neglected trade opportunity.

Last spring the American Commercial Attache in Paris made a speech at a dinner in Philadelphia. He painted such a glowing picture of trade prospects in France that the head of one of the greatest hardware concerns in America, who happened to be present, came to him afterwards with enthusiasm and said: "We want to get some of that foreign business you talked about and we will do everything in our power to land it. Help us if you can."

The Attache promised that he would and returned to his post in Paris. He studied the hardware situation and found a tremendous need for our goods. He was about to make a report to the hardware manufacturer when an alert upstanding young American breezed into his office and said:

"I have been looking into the hardware situation here and I find that there is a big chance for us. In fact, I have already booked some fat orders. Will you put me in touch with the right people in America to handle the business?"

"Certainly," replied the Attache. "I know just the firm you are looking for." He recalled the enthusiastic remarks of the man who came to him after the Philadelphia speech, so he said: "Write to the Blank Hardware Company in ——, and I am sure you will get quick action."

"No," said the enterprising young American, "I will cable." He immediately got off a long wire telling what orders he had and giving gilt edge banking references.

Quite naturally he expected a cable reply, but he was too optimistic. Day after day passed amid a great silence from America. At the end of two weeks he received a letter from the Export Manager of the firm who said, among other things: "We are not prepared to quote any prices for the French trade now. We have decided to wait with any extension of our foreign business until after the war. Meanwhile you might call on our agent in Paris who may be able to do something for you."

The young American dashed up to the agent's warehouse. The agent was an old man becalmed in a sea of empty space. All his young men were off at the front; a few grey beards aided by some women comprised his working staff.

"I have no American hardware in stock," he said, "but I may be able to get you some English or Swiss goods." This did not appeal to the young American. He is now making a study of Russian finance.

Full brother to this episode is the experience of another American in Paris who found out that there was great need among French women for curling irons. Despite war, sacrifice and sudden death, the French woman is determined to look her best. Besides, she is earning more money than ever before and buying more luxuries. Knowing these facts, the Yankee sent the following cable to a well known concern in the Middle West:

"Rush fifty thousand dollars' worth of curling irons. Cable acceptance." He also cabled his financial references which would have started a bank.

He, too, was doomed to disappointment. After a fortnight came the usual letter from America containing the now familiar phrase: "See Blank Blank, our Paris representative. He may be able to take care of you."

Manfully he went to see Monsieur Blank Blank, who not only had no curling irons but refused to display the slightest interest in them.

Still another American took an order for some kid skins, intended for the manufacture of fine shoe uppers. By the terms of the agreement they were to be three feet in width. The money for them amounting to $30,000 was deposited in a New York bank before shipment.

When the skins reached Paris they were found to be heavy, coarse leather and measuring five feet in width. They were absolutely useless for the desired purpose. The average French buyer, however, is not a welcher. He accepted the undesirable stuff, but with a comment in French that, translated into the frankest American, means, "Never again!"

All this oversight is aided and abetted by a twin evil, a lack of knowledge of the French language. Here you touch one of the chief obstacles in the way of our foreign business expansion everywhere. It has put the American salesman at the mercy of the interpreter, and since most interpreters are crooks, you can readily see the handicap under which the helpless commercial scout labours. A concrete episode will show what it costs:

A certain American firm, desirous of establishing a more or less permanent connection in France, sent over one of its principal officers. This man could not speak a word of French, so he secured the services of a so-called "interpreter guide." It was proposed to select a representative for the company from among a number of firms in a certain large French seaport. The firm chosen was to receive and pay for consignments through a local bank and act generally for the American company.

Friend "interpreter guide" said he knew all the big business houses in the city, so he selected a firm which the American accepted without making the slightest investigation. A bank agreed to take care of the shipments and the whole transaction was quickly concluded. The American grabbed the papers in the case (and I might add without the formality of having them examined by a third party) and left France immensely impressed with the ease and swiftness with which business could be transacted with that country.

But there was an unexpected and unfortunate sequel to this performance. A few months later another officer of this American company came post-haste to France to straighten out an ugly tangle. It developed that the French firm chosen by the "interpreter guide" was not of the highest standing: that the interpreter, for reasons and profits best known to himself, had entirely misrepresented the conversation, that instead of paying four per cent for services, the American firm was really paying about ten. The whole transaction had to be called off and a new one instituted at considerable expense of time and money.

Another American came to Paris without knowing the language, used an interpreter every day for nine weeks, and was unable to place a single order. Yet in this time he spent enough money on his language intermediary to pay the rent of a suitable office in Paris for a whole year.

The dependence of Americans with important interests or commissions upon interpreters is well nigh incredible. On the steamer that took me to France last summer was the new Continental Manager of a large American manufacturing company. I assumed, of course, that he could speak French. A few days after I arrived in Paris I met him in the Boulevard des Italiens in the grip of a five franc a day interpreter. He told me with great enthusiasm that an interpreter was "the greatest institution in the world." In six months he will probably reverse his opinion.

The lesson of this lack of knowledge of French as applied to salesmanship is this: That while the average Frenchman is greatly flattered when you tell him that his English is good, he prefers to talk business in his own vernacular. He thinks and calculates better in French. Frequently when you engage him in conversation in English and the question of business comes up, you find that he instinctively lapses into his mother tongue.

I was talking one day with Monsieur Ribot, the French Minister of Finance, whose English is almost above reproach, and who maintained the integrity of his English through a long conversation. But the moment I asked him a question about the proposed bond issue, he shifted into French and kept that key until every financial rock had been passed.

In short, you find that if you want to do business in France, you must know the French language. It is one of the keys to an understanding of the French temperament.

Even when Americans do become energetic in France, they sometimes fail to fortify themselves with important facts before entering into hard and fast transactions. As usual, they pay dearly for such omissions. This brings us to what might be called The Great American Deluge which overwhelmed not a few Yankee pocketbooks and left their owners sadder and saner.

Fully to understand this series of events, you must know that since the beginning of the war the question of an adequate French coal supply has been acute. Indeed, for a while the country faced a real crisis. Many of her mines are in the hands of the Germans and she was forced to turn to England for help. Not only has the English price risen, but to it must be added the high cost of transportation, the heavy war risk, and all those other details that enter into such negotiations.

France had to have coal and various enterprising Americans got on the job. At least, they thought they were enterprising. Before they got through, they wished that they had not been so headlong as the following tale, now to be unfolded, will indicate.

A group of New York men made a contract to deliver three shiploads of coal at Bordeaux at a certain price. After they had signed the contract, freight rates from Baltimore to the French port almost doubled. This was the first of their troubles. When their vessel finally reached Bordeaux, the dock was so crowded with ships unloading war munitions that they could not get pier space. In France demurrage begins the moment a ship stops outside of port. The net result was that these vessels were held up for nearly two weeks and the high price of transportation coupled with the very large demurrage practically wiped out all the profits.

Another group of Americans made a contract to deliver coal to a French railway "subject to call." Without taking the trouble to inquire just what "subject to call" meant in France, they signed and sealed the bargain. Then they discovered that the railroad wanted the coal delivered in irregular instalments. Meanwhile the consignors had to store the coal in French yards where space to-day is almost as valuable as a corner lot on Broadway. They were glad to pay a cash bonus and escape with their skin.

Still another group made a contract with the Paris Gas Company for a large quantity of coal. They discovered later that the company expected the coal to be delivered to their bins in Paris.

"But the American plan is to sell coal f.o.b. Norfolk," said the spokesman.

"We are sorry," replied the Frenchmen, "but the coal must be delivered to us in Paris. The English have been doing it for forty years, and if you expect to do business with us you must do likewise."

When the Americans demurred the company held them to their contract.

This last episode shows one of the great defects in the American system of doing business abroad. We insist upon the f.o.b. arrangement, that is, the price at the American point of shipment. The foreigner, and especially the Frenchman, wants a c.i.f. price which includes cost, insurance and freight and which puts the article down at his door. The German and English shippers, and particularly the former, have made this kind of shipment part of their export creed, and it is one reason why they have succeeded so wonderfully in the foreign field.

The Great American Coal Deluge also precipitated a flood of miserable titled ladies all selling coal for "well known American companies." Most of them were clever American women, married, or thinking they were married, to Italian or French noblemen. Their chief effort was to get a cash advance payment to bind the contract. Such details as price, transportation, credit, and other essentials were unimportant.

Here is a little story which shows how these women did business and undid American good will.

One day last August, the telephone rang in the office of the General Manager of a long established American concern in Paris. A woman was at the other end.

"Is this Mr. Blank?"

"Yes."

"I am Countess A. and I have a letter of introduction for you."

"Yes."

"I represent several large American coal companies and have secured a large order for Italy."

"Yes."

"Can you tell me how I can get the coal to Italy?"

"Yes."

"Splendid! But how?"

"By boats."

"Oh, yes, I know, but have you got the boats and can I get them? I have the order, you see, and that is the main thing."

"But, madam," asked the man, "have you cabled your company in America about the contract?"

"No," answered the woman. "What's the use of doing that. I have no money to spend on cables. Besides, I have full power to act. The price is all right and the buyers are ready to sign but they want to put into the agreement some silly business about delivery and I am asking you to help me get the boats."

"Come and see me," said the Manager.

The woman promised to call the next morning, but she never came. Just what she had in mind the Manager could never quite tell. But one thing was proved in this and similar activities: The "Countess" and most of her sisters who have been trying to put over coal and other contracts in Paris, have little or no real authorisation for their performances, and the principal result has been to prejudice French and Italian buyers against us.

In seeking to make French contracts, some of these adventurers (and they include both sexes) make the most extravagant claims. One group circulated a really startling prospectus. At the top was the imposing name of the corporation with a long list of branches in every part of the world. Then followed a list of names of individuals and firms with their assets supposed to be part and parcel of the corporation. One man whose name I had never heard before and who was set down as a Pittsburgher, was accredited with assets of $250,000,000. Under other individual and firm resources ranged from one to twenty-five million. The list included the name of a great American retail merchant, without his consent I might add, but the promoters had cunningly misspelled his name, which kept them within the pale of the law. The total assets of these "concerns personally responsible for all orders entrusted" was precisely $340,000,000. In spite of this dazzling array of misinformation, let it be said to the credit of the French buyer that he failed to fall for the glittering bait.

The more you go into the reasons why so many of our business men have failed in France, the more you find out that plain everyday business organisation seems to be conspicuously absent. Take, for example, the question of credit. The average American doing business in France proceeds in the assumption that every Frenchman is dishonest. This being his theory, he either exacts cash in advance or sells "cash against documents." Such a procedure galls the Frenchman who is accustomed to long credit from English, German, Swiss and Spanish manufacturers and merchants.

Of course, behind all these American errors in judgment and tact is a lack of organised credit information. To illustrate:

When I was in London, the English Managing Director of one of the greatest of Wall Street Banks received an inquiry from his home office for information about the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique (the French Line). The amazing thing was that this bank, that prides itself on its world-wide information, had no data regarding the leading steamship line between England and France. You may be sure that the Credit Lyonnais or any other French banking institution has a complete record of the American Line.

Not long ago, one of the largest banks in Chicago refused to extend credit to a French concern, although the French Government backed up the purchase. This concern had occasionally done business with a New York Trust Company in the Rue de la Paix, whose French Manager was a live, virile, far-seeing young American. The President of the French Company laid his case before him. Quick as a flash he said:

"All right! If they won't guarantee it, I will, and on my own responsibility."

Whereupon he put the deal through. It was the kind of swift, dramatic performance that appeals to the Frenchman. The net result was that the service has come back a hundredfold to the Trust Company.

The idea prevailing in America that French firms are not worthy of credit is a matter of great surprise all over Europe. Here is the way an Englishman whose firm has done business in France for fifty years, sized up the situation:

"There are no better contracts in the world than those entered into in France. Americans who have had little experience in such matters may find the negotiations leading up to the signing of a French contract somewhat tedious, but we do not mind this and one is so completely protected by the laws of the country, that losses are almost unknown.

"Not long ago we had a case in point. A purchaser of lathes who had already made an advance payment, received his machines and then by various excuses put off the final payments for the remainder from week to week. We waited four weeks and then made our complaint to the judge at the tribunal. Two days later the judge ordered the delinquent firm to pay up in full and we received our money the very same day. How long do you think a New York court would have taken to decide a simple question of business of this kind? The fact is that in spite of the war, French credit remains to-day as good as any you can find."

On top of their resentment over our lack of confidence in their credit is the added feeling which has cropped up since the beginning of the war over the way American manufacturers have ignored many of their French contracts. A French manufacturer summed it up in this way:

"There is no doubt that some American manufacturers who had signed contracts for the delivery of machinery in France, deliberately sold these machines at home at higher prices. It has created a very bad impression and I am afraid that henceforth your salesmen will find it much harder to operate in my country.

"The trouble is that Americans have been spoiled by too many orders. Before the war they were all crying out for business. Now that they have everything their own way, they have become independent and arrogant. With the ending of the war, all this will change, for the French are not likely to forget some of the bitter lessons they have learned. Henceforth they will profit by them."

One reason for our laxity all up and down the French business line is that the American has never taken the French export business any too seriously. On the other hand, stern necessity has been the driving force behind the English and German manufacturer. The American, too, has made the great mistake of assuming that the foreigner, and especially the Frenchman, is not always serious-minded and to be depended upon. If he wants his mind disabused in this matter, let me suggest that he see him at war. He will realise that the superb spirit of aggression and organisation that mark him now is bound to last when peace comes.

You must not get the impression from this long list of American business calamity that all our endeavour has failed in France. Those few great American corporations who have planted the flag of our commercial enterprise wherever the trade winds blow, have long and successfully held up their end throughout the Republic. So, too, with some individuals. The story of what one New Yorker did is an inspiring and perhaps helpful lesson in the right way to do business in France.

This man is resolute and resourceful: he speaks French fluently and he was familiar with the foreign trade field. With the outbreak of war he did not lose his head and try to get business indiscriminately. Instead, he made a careful survey of the field; he did not listen to the optimist who said it would be a short war: his instinct told him, on the contrary, that it would be a long one. "What will France need more than anything else?" he asked himself.

He realised that most of all France would need machine tools. He got the cables busy assembling goods, and by every known route he brought them to France. When he had a warehouse full of material, he began to sell. He not only had what the French were hungering for, but he had them to deliver overnight. While his colleagues were frantically trying to get their stuff in, he was getting all the business. The French like the man who makes good.

This man met their expectations and to-day he stands at the top of the selling heap.

More than this, he is building a factory on the outskirts of Paris where he will make and assemble his product. Ask him the reason why he is doing this, and he will tell you:

"First, it means good will; second, we will get the benefit of native and cheap labour; third, we will be able to replace parts at once; and, fourth, we will get inside the wall of the Economic Alliance."