Novembor '2o, lUl" 



tlie salesman's efficiency can be greatly inereased if he has the 

 oonfidenee of the sales manager, and in turn the sales manager's 

 cfticieiiey ean be brought to a nuuli higher plane if he enjoys the 

 full confidence of his employer. 



S. S. Stewart of the W. S. Stewart Company, Flint, Mioh., gave 

 some pointed reasons why lumbermen should make over some of 

 their methods of handling consuming factory business. He told of 

 conditions just as he sees them in the daily experience of the pur- 

 chase of lumber for body work. Mr. Stewart so e.\pressed himself 

 that his criticism was taken in good part by the manufacturers 

 who undoulitedly will protit by what he told them about themselves. 



He made the following interesting statement: 



Primarily, of course, the buyer should know well in advance what liis 

 requirements will be, and the salesman should be so well grounded in 

 the tletail of grade and method of manufacture that he can study the 

 buyer's reuuirements intelligently, coiilinually searching for substitute 

 grades of woods, which will meet the buyer's requirements and still 

 answer the question, for the salesman whi) can suggest a substitute of 

 this kind establishes a personal reputation, which, when re-enforced by 

 the shipping of consistent grades by the producer, is a mighty valuable 

 asset to both. 



Mr. Stewart also made the statement that in the opinion of 'a 

 big buyer in his acquaintance his chief criticism of the average 

 salesman's ability was that he does not know his stock, that is, as 

 to grade, texture characteristics such as ranges of strength, and kiln 

 drying properties, and also covering ear and rail conditions which 

 may affect the delivery of the product. 



The Maxuf.vcturek's Idea 



Speaking on the question of merchandising from the manufac- 

 turer's standpoint, Charles A. Goodman of the Sawyer-Goodman 

 (■imi]iany, Marinette, Wis., spoke in part as follows: 



In order intelligently to supervise the manufacture of his stumpage the 

 manufacturer should, first of all. have some knowledge of the require- 

 ments to which his product, if properly manufactured, may conform. 



Each manufacturer of hardwood lumber should study the needs of the 

 consumers in his most available markets. When he knows who uses 

 the various grades and thicknesses of such hardwoods as he manufac- 

 tures, then a further studj' of the size and quality of his own timber 

 would enable him to decide what class of material can be produced from 

 his logs to the best advantage. Putting lumber into pile without any 

 object in view, except to see how much the mill can cut, is wrong. 

 There should be an attempt made to forecast the market. If it is known 

 what lumber is to be used for. then some attempt can be made to saw 

 the logs to meet the needs of the consumers. 



* * * * * * 



This, then, is the province of the sales manager, not only to sell the 

 product of his mill, but to advise his mill how to cut the logs and saw 

 the lumber. He should endea\'or. as far as possible, to see that the 

 lumber he is to sell has been sawed so that he can sell it. He will get 

 this information in endless ways. Mainly, he must depend on his own 

 knowledge of the trade requirements in the territory he expects to 

 serve. He will gain this by personal visits, by correspondence and 

 thru his salesmen. The manufacturer should, wherever possible, fol- 

 low up the work of his sales manager by making personal visits to 

 customers and securing their confidence, thus not only laying the 

 foundations for a mutually profitable continuance of trade relations, 

 but often leading to life-long friendships and always to a broader 

 knowledge of the possibilities of his own business. 



I can foresee that before we go into this very far we will be asked 

 to furnish statements showing the average fair cost of hardwood based 

 on the reasonable values for stumpage. If the Government needs a 

 large amount of northern hardwoods, and we are unable to produce 

 reliable cost sheets, the Government will make up cost sheets for us 

 on the basis of its own investigations. Now. the question is whether 

 we would not rather make up our own cost sheets than have the 

 Government investigators make them up for us. They would need to 

 secure the data from us in the first place and necessarily their sources 

 of information woidd be limited to the few people with whom they 

 would come in contact, and the results, hastily arrived at, would not 

 be properl.v representative and equitable. 



Each of our associations is getting out cost sheets and I understand 

 ■A joint cost sheet is promised. It seems to me we should go further 

 than this and have some sort of a clearing house for stock that a 

 .seller is desirous of moving and which he has no immediate prospect 

 of selling at a fair price. Very often these extremely low prices are 

 fiuoted on stock which some other mills are refusing orders on because 

 they can not furnish. I believe the wholesalers as well as the mill 

 men could make some arrangement that would not only work out to 

 their profit but woidd go a long ways toward pre\enting unnecessar>' 

 demor.alization of the market. 



Finally, it is bad policy to be in too much of a hurry to sell your 

 lumber. Do not try to force it on to your customers before they want 

 it, as that only makes them think that there is a surplus of the very 

 items they are using. Everything that you make in the way of lum- 

 ber will be needed if you are satisfied to let it wait its turn, .ind in the 

 meantime make some intelligent effort to find out who will i)robably 

 use it, when they will need it, and what it is worth. 



From a Wiiole.sai,er 

 He was followed by E. M. Holland of the Cartier-Holland Lum- 

 ber Company, Grand Rapids, Mich. The strong jioints in Mr. 

 Holland's talk follow: 



A great many also are connected directly or indireclly with the 

 manufacture as well as the sale of lumber. Kurlhermore, the suc- 

 cessful wholesaler must know the manufacturing end of the business 

 before he can properly market the product. Many times in my short 

 experience, I have had the god fortuiu- to meet some of the old- 

 timers, those who have made history in lumber manufacturing, and 

 they have said to me; "Why, he used to work for me in the woods — 



worked all the way up to head salesman — decided to shift for himself 



— is making good." 



The average Siiles department has been considered a necessary 

 evil, sort of department created for the movement of lumber and has 

 usually been paid about one-half of what should have been paid for 

 an etlicient sales department. Small salaries have been in vogruo 

 ever since this necessary evil was created, and have aftected every 

 one in that department from the sales manager down. 



It has always been the custom to market lumber at the lowest pos- 

 sible cost, whereas, liberal expenditures of money have been made to 

 secure production efflciency. The sales managers of today and in the 

 past have been tied down to their de.sks with oodles of details, so I 

 can safel.v say that not one in a hundred knows his customers per- 

 sonally, and if he does, nine times out of ten the customers have 

 found him in his own home town. 



Another point is that the amount of money paid to sales forces keep 

 them from being stars, and if by chance a star is developed, it is 

 next to impossible to secure compensation commensurate with serv- 

 ices rendered. The a\'erage sales manager will generally sour, go to 

 seed or breaks into the wholesale lumber business. 



-V while ago a representative of one of the large manufacturing con- 

 cerns in the west called at my offlce to sell me some boards. His 

 price was about $3 per M higher than a similar kind of material pro- 

 duced in our section of the country. I advised him that his price was 

 considerably higher, and asked him why I should pay a premiiim for 

 his stock. He replied by saying that it was pretty hard for him to 

 sell his stock in this territor.v as his price was so much higher than 

 his momjiclitors', and tie could think of no reason for this condition, 

 excepting that the freight rates were so high. (Jentlemen, he did not 

 know that his grades were nearly $5 per M higher in (luality than the 

 stock from our own section of the country. 



The other manufacturers who do not maintain sales forces, sell 

 their product during their leisure hours, or when the spirit moves, 

 generally paying ver.v little attention to the .selling or to whom sold, 

 as long as the lumber was moved to make room for some more lum- 

 ber to be cut and so on until all the trees are gone. 

 trarge.enon,.evilmotsasese,Walg. shrdl hrdlu shrdlu mfwyp hrdi uhro 



Gentlemen, in most cases it is almost impossilde to get a descij)- 

 tion of stock. The men who manufacture the lumber generally are 

 their customers to come and look it over. They do not know them- 

 selves what they have in pile, how it will grade, average widths and 

 lengths, etc.. yet they expect their customers to look at the outside 

 of the piles and figure it out for themselves. 



The wholesaler's turn for A-iticism comes next. I'nfortunately. 

 there seems to exist three claWes of wholesalers, the first-class, the 

 cheap class and the third-rater. 



The first-class, as I have stated above, takes and deserves the credit 

 of being the best salesman and market maker the industry has. Note 

 particularly that I say "Market Maker." Every opportunity is open 

 to him. He is generally located at or near the great consuming mar- 

 kets, where he is in close touch with the consumers' reciuirements. 

 He is accessible to the consumers at what is known as the psycholog- 

 ical moment, the time when the customer needs something quick, 

 and delay means more than costs. He knows just what the con- 

 sumer wants, when he wants it, and takes opportunity to see that 

 he has, or is in touch with the particular article required. 



When he employs salesmen, he employs the best as a general rule, 

 or does this part of the work himself. There is nothing to be ashamed 

 of in selling lumber. In fact, if one can sell it instead of give it 

 away, he has mastered a trade worth while. 



The average first-class wholesaler has adequate capital to discount 

 his bills. The vare the kind that sell the product for just what it is. 

 and vou can depend upon them to get the highest market prices, and 

 deliver the goods. When I say deliver the goods. I mean a great deal. 

 It applies to "delivering" to the manufacturer of the said goods, as 

 well as to the ultimate consumer. You will find the relations existing 

 between the first-class wholesaler, manufacturer and consumer are 

 generally most pleasant. Those of you who cater to both the whole- 

 sale and' consuming trade can count on the highest type of competi- 

 tion. 



The consumers are. of course, the real goal toward which we are 

 working, and they depend on our giving them one of the many raw 

 materials used in the manufacture of their product. You must bear 

 in mind that the manufacture and sale of their own product requires 

 the major portion of their time so that the buying of lumber is of 

 necessity somewhat neglected, especially where the owner and gen- 

 eral manager is also the purchasing agent of all supplies. 



Verv often industrial concerns are obliged to hire inspectors whose 

 sole knowledge of inspecting has been picked up by reading the rule 

 books, learning something about measurement and then bluffing 

 themseh'es thru as inspectors. 



Some of the large industrial consumers employ strictly lumber pur- 

 chasing agents, young men taken from the^offlces of either manufac- 

 turers or wholesalers. It is unnecessary for me to make any com- 

 ment on the latter. The three types mentioned constitute what has 

 been in my observations, the three kinds of industrial consumers. 



You can readily see that the first two mentioned are those most im- 

 posed upon. Very few have ever had an opportunity to learn anything 

 about the manufacture or grading of lumber. Consequently, the only 

 point left for them to consider in buying their lumber is the price. 

 You can easily see that with conditions of this kind existing, it is 

 possible for those wholesalers whom I have termed as third-raters, 

 to sell their doctored grades and infiated scale at lower prices and 

 get away with it, by posing a.s the consumer's friend. 



Other speakers of the afternoon's sessions who were not on the 

 regular program were Mr. Putnam, director of publicity of the 

 Southern Pine Association, who urged that all lumbermen get be- 

 hind the nu)vcment for increasing home building and told of some 

 of the big things the southern pine association is doing and is 

 about to do, to the cud that wood as wood may bo given broader 

 markets; Bruce Odell of Manistique, Mich., and Hoy H. Jones. Mr. 

 .Tones has just been appointed manager of the newly opened Wash- 

 ington (D. C.) office of the Northern Hemlock and Hardwood Emer- 

 gency Bureau. Mr. Jones will be sort of a watchdog on the lookout 

 for long specifications and to seize upon every opportunity to secure 

 govcrnruciit m;irkcts for northern woods whore those w'oods arc 

 suitcil. 



There followed reports of the resolutions committee and other 

 Cdiuinittccs .'IS previously noted. The meeting then adjourned. 



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