HARDWOOD RECORD 



59 



W. MOWBRAY, CINCINNATI. 

 THE HOSTS 



O.. ONE OF U. T. WILSON, NASHVILLE. TENN.. WILSON 

 LUMBER & LAND COMI'ANY 



RICHLANDS. VA.. 

 COMPANY 



EUGATE 



have shortened up the connections and gotten $53 per M.,. adding .fa per M. 

 to his profit and loss account, not onl.v on the first car but on the threi-' 

 additional ones which be sold to the same party immediately after the 

 arrival of the first car. He seemed to be making an effort to sell a large 

 number of cars. 



I was one day talking to a member of a firm selling mill supplies. One 

 of the partners, who was on the road, telegraphed that he had sold a 

 $3,000 bill of goods. The young partner, who was an energetic and 

 sensible fellow, telegraphed back, "What did you make on it," saying 

 to me that he wasn't Interested in the volume of business so much as 

 be was in the profit of it. More of us would be better off if we kept 

 this one salient idea before us. 



I, at first, decided to pass, in writiug this paper, the subject of expense 

 accounts, but find that it cannot well be omitted. Many manufacturers 

 do not consider it advisable to be too particular about the expense 

 accounts of their salesmen and many times knowingly pass what the,v" 

 consider extravagance on the part of a salesman. They do not fail, 

 however, to figure up the cost of the salesman's business by adding 

 together the salary and expense. Most employers prefer paying their 

 employes salary rather than expense, which has been paid out because 

 of extravagance to a third party. Each salesman should spend the expense 

 mone,v entrusted to him by his employer even more carefully than he 

 would spend his own. bearin,g in mind that his salar.v is likely to be 

 increased in the same proportion as his expense is reduced. He will profit 

 by this method instead of the third party to whom he pays the money. 



A large manufacturer whom I know keeps his record of the cost of 

 sales of each of his salesmen by car and by thotisand feet as follows : 

 (1) For salary and expense; (2) for allowance made to customers in 

 each salesman's territory; (3) under list caused by salesman's error in 

 figuring freight rates, etc. This record of territory is kept from year to 

 year and by referring to same and considering certain changes he is able 

 to compare the work of one man with another or any one salesman's 

 record one .year with another with a fair degree of accuracy. 



But low cost of selling or volume of sales does not necessarily prove a 

 salesman's value to his company. The other day a man told me that 

 he had sold all. and the amount was large enough, of a certain low-grade 

 lumber that his employer had at a cost of less than four per cent. I asked, 

 "What did you get per M. f. o. b. Ohio river points for it ?" He replied, 

 "That's always been the principal point with you," and he was right. 

 When one of our men tells me of a sale I assume that the customer's 

 credit is good, that we have the stock and can ship within the limit of 

 time specified on the order, and I want to know, first of all, what did it 

 bring? You can give your lumber away with a postage stamp and some- 

 times without it. The salesman who is a niouey maker for his company 

 always has in mind low cost of selling, volume of business, the highest 

 obtainable or near to it. and the faculty of getting orders for the kind 

 of stock of which his employer has large amounts, instead of orders for 

 stock which is easy to sell because of ils scarcity and the demand for it. 

 Price CtrTTERS 



Mai-keiing in ils True meaning is the passing of commodities from one 

 person or persons to others for an equivalent in goods or money. An 

 equivalent is something of equal value. If any manufacturer here is 

 guilty of trading one dollar's worth of lumber for less than 100 cents 

 he is a poor trader. The more his selling price is under that 100 cents 

 the sooner the sheriff or the receiver will be doing his trading for bim. 

 No man has a right to sell his lumber at less than it is worth. What ! 



Can'l a man do with his own luniher wliat be pleases? Yes: legally he 

 may. morally, be cannot. 



I make some quotations in this paper from "Men Who Sell Things" 

 by Moody, one of the books which I read with interest last year. Any 

 niercbanl or salesman will be profited by reading it. 



Mi*. Moody sa.vs : "Every time a manufacturer, wholesaler or salesman 

 knowingly or otherwise cuts to beat a competitor's price and thus gets 

 bis business he either establishes or aids and abets a practice that is 

 widespreaii in its destructlveness to commercial interests in general. 

 Such methods are at once illegitimate and unbusiness-like and therefore 

 unqualifiedly wrong. No man has a moral right to undermine the work 

 cif olbers all around him who are honestly engaged in their efforts to 

 hecouie successful. The quicker the 'price-cutting' salesman is forced 

 out of the profession the better. If it is his house that is guilty the 

 sooner it fails and goes into bankruptcy the better for the common good 

 of others enga,ged in its line." 



I do not mean, neither do I believe Mr. Moody mean I. Ihal every 

 salesman or firm who sells lumber at a lower price than some other firm 

 is a "price-cutter." The persistent cutting of prices are long on certain 

 stocks, to reduc<' their price on same when (hey know their lumber is 

 worth more than the price at which they are compelled by the "price- 

 colter" to sell. As there is no combination fixing a price on any grade 

 or kind of lumber the selling price of different manufacturers will always 

 vary according to the understanding by each .seller of the market value. 

 There are many men or firms who do not have a sales force and who are 

 not always correctly advised as to the price they should get for the 

 different grades and kinds of lumber which they have. They would get 

 the price if tbe.y knew. They can liardly be called "price-cutters." 



1 believi' this association should publish a "Market t'cuidil ion" monthly 

 and the prices shown should he those obtainable, i-egardless of what 

 tliey may be, or the effect we think such ptiblication may have on the 

 market. Show the price current today on any particular grade or kind 

 of lumber, giving the minimum and maximum prices obtained by different 

 inanufaelurers, giving at the same time, for the benefit of the small mill- 

 men, the opinion of the larger manufacturers who may be holding some 

 of their stocks for a price, naming it, which they think it will bring later. 



For example, show today's market conditions on 4x4 poplar panel and 

 No. 1 L';{-27 Inches wide at .$10.-i to .$110 f. o. b. Ohio river points, at the 

 same time advising if large holders of this wide poplar are boldln,g 

 their stocks and the different prices which they think same should bring. 



'I'he market condition, as published today, amounts to little either to 

 the buyer or to the seller. I have had men ask me what we were getting 

 for certain grades, saying that they wanted to gel what their lumber 

 was worth and had no reliable method of ascertaining the true market 

 value. I suggest that a meeting for informal talks about sales, where 

 (ptestions could be asked freely, w()uld be of material benefit to manu- 

 facturers who do not have many, if any, salesmen in their employ. If a 

 seller is to get the market price it is necessary for him to know what 

 that market price is. ,\ man whoso btisincss it is to go around to mills 

 and buy up lumlier for bis employer was in my office a few days ago. I 

 asked him if the small millmen knew much about market values. He 

 replied. "No, they don't, and if you oft'er some of them cash down. 

 agreeing to ship the lumber right out, you can almost buy at your own 

 figures." lie said once in a while he found a man who was informed. 

 I'nder such conditions he found it difficult to buy his lumber so as to 

 make anything on it. I asked him what profit he thought he ought to 

 have in order to "make anything" on it. as he termed it. He replied 



