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The "Good WilF Emissary 



It is generally agreed by business men, as well as by students of 

 economics, that good-will is the most important asset of a com- 

 mercial institution. In some cases good-will is represented prin- 

 cipally by trade-marks or trade names which have become of such 

 familiar use that the public demands articles by that name without 

 knowing that they are asking for the product of a single concern. 

 "Kodak" and "vaseline" are examples of trade names which 

 have attained a place in the common vocabulary and are now 

 immensely valuable to their owners and a stumbling-block' ■ lor 

 competitors. 



But good-will means more than the value residing in the continued 

 use of a trade name. It means the accumulation of. interest on 

 the satisfactory transactions handled by a concern until the favorable 

 opinions held by its customers assume almost a tangible and measur- 

 able force. Certainly the result of honest dealings and right treat- 

 ment of one's patrons is sure to be felt at one time ar another 

 in the development of good-will, or the lack of it. The average 

 lumberman must store up good-will not in a trade name but in his 

 own name, which, to be of value as a business asset, must stand 

 for the square deal and for the correct practice of the principles 

 upon which every trade and calling is based, even if only in theory. 



The development of good-will, then, may be conceded to be of 

 importance to the lumber concern, just as it is to the manufacturer 

 of breakfast food or talking-machines. How to develop it is another 

 question. The answer may often be found in the most effective use 

 of the selling organization of the house, as well, as in the proper 

 care of the orders placed with the concern by its. customers. 



The value of the salesman from this standpoint is of special 

 interest just now when business is good and when many concerns 

 which have sold up to the limit of their supply are planning to call in 

 their representatives and withdraw themselves from the market. It 

 is a question as to whether this is good business policy. Apart from 

 the fact that the salesman is one of the best possible advertisements 

 that a concern can have, and that the lumber firm which is not 

 represented in the markets where its product must be sold is 

 likely to be speedily forgotten, it must be remembered that the able 

 representative of the company in the selling field does more than 

 merely take orders — he is creating good-will. 



This idea was exemplified recently in the East during the anthra- 

 cite shortage. It was noticed that the big operators did not with- 

 draw their Salesmen, even though they were unable to accept business 

 for immediate delivery. It appeared to be an unnecessary expense 

 to keep salesmen on the road if they could not actually sell, 

 and to be taking money out of the profits account and putting it 

 into the expense account without any satisfactory reason. But 

 there was a reason, and it consists of the idea developed above, 

 that the business concern, in order to maintain pleasant relations 

 ■with the people with whom it has dealings, should not suffer the 

 personal connection between them to be interrupted or broken, 

 even temporarily. 



A spokesman for one of the anthracite concerns put it this way : 



"For years past our salesmen in eastern territory have been 

 used largely for the purpose of keeping in touch with the trade, 

 rather than striving for orders. This policy is regarded as a wise 

 expedient, since it practically eliminates credit losses and serves 

 for gathering much useful information up and down the line. We 

 expect to keep our salesmen in active service constantly, even 

 though orders are coming in freely. Sometimes the unsolicited 

 order is very properly the subject of investigation, which can be 

 made more appropriately by the salesman in charge of the terri- 

 tory from which the order comes than anyone else. ' ' 



As it happens, additional evidence of the value of the salesman 

 from the good-will standpoint was brought to the attention of the 

 writer recently when a manufacturing concern, not in the lumber 

 business, remarked upon the advantages of the plan it uses of 

 sending to each salesman a copy of every letter that is sent to 

 a buyer in his territory. This is done not so much that the salesman 

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shall thus be made more efficient in order-getting, although this 

 result is realized; but so that the representative of the house in the 

 field shall be in the best possible position to look after matters 

 affecting the business of the customer. 



In the lumber trade salesmen frequently dodge the disagreeable 

 duty of Vailing on concerns to whom they have sold lumber, for 

 the purpose of settling kicks. The reason they assume this attitude 

 is not merely because of a distaste for performing what is always 

 a distasteful duty, but for the reason that the lumber concern 

 frequently fails to carry out the agreement made by the salesman 

 with his customer. Some lumbermen complain that their salesmen 

 are too often inclined to take the part of the customer when a com- 

 plaint comes up; and while it may be true that sales representatives 

 should lean towards their employers rather than in the other direction, 

 it can hardly be affirmed that this should be the case in every 

 instance. If a lumber salesman promises one thing, and puts it 

 down in black and white, and his house does another, it is putting 

 more than a small burden upon him to tell him to go see the customer 

 and ' ' straighten the matter out. ' ' And certainly he is not in a 

 fit position to creat much good-will. 



Many Of the errors that are developed in the handling of lumber 

 business are the fault of misunderstanding in the office or the yard. 

 The salesman may fail to express himself as explicitly as he should 

 have done, and may have assumed that his house understood the 

 details of the requirements of the customer as well as he himself did. 

 Thus honest mistakes may have occurred which appear inexcusable 

 to the purchaser of the lumber, and which would have been avoided 

 by the use of the plan mentioned above, that of furnishing copies 

 of the correspondence passing between the house and buyers to the 

 salesmen interested. 



The salesman who is earnestly endeavoring to serve his employer 

 and build up good-'viill by sewing the customer as well — perform- 

 ances which in the light of modern business ideas are not at all 

 incompatible — is unquestionably handicapped by occasional inter- 

 ference by the office with arrangements which have been made with 

 the customer. No man of spirit likes to have business go ' ' over his 

 head" when it should pass through his hands, especially when it 

 comes to a matter affecting one of his customers, since the sales- 

 man who is made of the right stuff feels a sort of proprietary 

 interest in the people who buy from him, and rightly so, for his 

 personal connections are in effect the good-will which he himself 

 has to sell when he puts his services on the market to be sold to the 

 highest bidder. 



Hence the friction that occurs between the salesman and the office 

 and between the concern and the customer, when the salesman faila 

 to be given an opportunity to explain his end of it. Perhaps he 

 made a verbal agreement with his customer that there should be 

 a certain percentage of long lumber in a car which had been ordered. 

 If the salesman forgets to put this into the contract and the lumber 

 is shipped without the required percentage, the consumer has a right 

 to feel that the policy of the square deal has not been carried 

 out; while the office, on the other hand, has a good legal right to 

 object to a complaint based on a condition which was not inserted 

 in the contract. 



If the salesman who made the agreement, knowing the price 

 at which the lumber was to be sold, was permitted to explain that 

 he had promised the extra lengths, the company would doubtless 

 find it good policy to deduct a sufficient amount from the face of 

 the bill to make up for the failure to include them, since the price 

 was doubtless sufficient to take care of the cost of the special 

 dimensions. 



If the customer happens to be a difficult person to deal with, 

 and has to be "handled with gloves" by the salesman, the latter 

 knows that an order to deliver on the fifteenth does not mean 

 delivery on the first preceding nor the first following, and is the 

 best judge of whether a car of lumber the firm is specially anxious 

 to get rid of ought to be unloaded on the consumer without more 



