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A well knowu hardwood iiiuu duilaied receutly that iu a small 

 Middle Western factory town he recently found eighteen lumber 

 salesmen at one time. The inference he drew was that the trade 

 is lipinjj over-solicited, and that the manufacturers and wholesalers 

 of hardwoods would do well to "let up" a little and take things 

 more easily. 



This raises an interesting question as to just how often a cus- 

 tomer should be solicited by a hardwood salesman. Nobody wants 

 to make his presence obno-xious by wearing out his welcome with 

 too frequent calls; and on the other hand, a few experiences in 

 "just missing"- a juicy order that might have been landed with 

 an earlier call makes the salesman think hard before passing by 

 a plant merely because he had been there not long before. 



Trade conditions just now, of course, have emphasized the fact 

 that a lot of traveling men are on the road. When business is 

 quiet and orders are hard to get the concern which normally 

 does not use salesmen puts men out on the road to liven things 

 up; and this increased effort shows itself in the larger number 

 of those who are marking up the hotel registers and wiping their 

 feet on the doormats outside the offices of the factory purchasing 

 agents. 



However, there is no getting away from the fact that the 

 tendency to solicit the trade of the consumer has become more 

 and more strongly defined during the past five years or more. 

 Sawmills which formerly disposed of their product entirely 

 through middlemen are now getting after the factory trade direct. 

 The manufacturer of lumber with anything like a considerable 

 output wants to establish as many consuming connections as 

 possible. That means that in addition to the large number of 

 wholesale concerns which have been in the field all along, a great 

 addition to the number of travelers has been provided in the 

 persons of sawmill representatives. And while there have been 

 many furniture, interior finish, farm implement and vehicle plants 

 established during recent years, there seems to be no reason to 

 believe that the increase in the number of consumers has kept 

 pace with the additions to the ranks of the salesmen. 



The matter of selling through traveling men is given greater 

 importance, also, by the increased expenses connected with this 

 branch of the business, like others. The high cost of living is 

 reflected in the necessity of paying larger salaries, while expense 

 accounts bulk large compared with those of former days, simply 

 because the hotel charges have gone up steadily. Therefore, in 

 view of the increased expense and the perhaps overcrowded con- 

 dition of the field, it is evidently up to the lumberman to think 

 twice about putting salesmen out, and then to insist on getting 

 the right man to handle the business. Otherwise the picking will 

 be slim indeed. 



' ' Conditions vary, of course, ' ' said one of the most successful 

 hardwood manufacturers and wholesalers in the country, in dis- 

 •cussing this question, ' ' but on an average I should say that a 

 customer should be canvassed about once every sixty days. If 

 the customer was sold it will take that long for the car to be 

 shipped, settlement to be made and the former transaction closed; 

 and as most business is built on the way previous orders were 

 handled it is important that one deal should be disposed of 

 before another is entered into. If no sale were made — presum- 

 ably because the consumer was stocked up — it is hardly likely 

 that he would be ready to buy again in less than two months. ' ' 



One angle on the proposition, of course, is the fact that close 

 buying is getting to be the rule rather than the exception among 

 factory men. Instead of putting in a big stock of lumber and 

 filling in by the purchase of a number of cars occasionally, the 

 consumer nowadays buys just as he needs it. This means more, 

 but smaller orders, single cars being purchased as a rule, unless 

 a contract covering an entire season 's supply has been entered 

 into. This seems to mean that more frequent solicitation is in 

 order, and that it is necessary to get around often enough to 



ders that are being placed, 

 time, knowing that the order 



to hgurc on the single 

 instead of being able to take one 

 does not have to be given out immediately 



The number of factories in a community and the size of the 

 individual plant have a bearing on the situation. The big plant 

 is likely to need material of various kinds rather frequently, while 

 the salesman who has stocked up the small factory canusuallv 

 rest assured that the latter will not be iu the market for some 

 time to come. That results in a coagulation of salesmen, so to 

 speak, at the important towns and centers, while the isolated 

 factory iu the small town, especially if its consumption is not 

 above the ordinary, is not likely to be canvassed as closely. 



But while the plan of going for business where business is is 

 apparently sound, some lumbermen have looked at the question 

 from another standpoint, and instead of calling on the big con- 

 cerns, which are always buying something or other, they confine 

 their efforts to the small-town, one-factory stands, finding it 

 easier to sell lumber to these plants for the reason noted, that 

 they are not over-solicited. These plants, in their estimation, 

 constitute fresh woods and pastures new, compared with the 

 concerns which are shining marks because of their big purchases, 

 and which consequently are canvassed to death. And, of course, 

 the big buyer, who gets numerous quotations, usually drives a 

 harder bargain than the smaller consumer, who does not subject 

 his purchases to the keen competition found in the other cases. 



"The lumber salesman is in danger of becoming a mere order- 

 taker," declared a well-known traveling man, who has been on 

 the road for a long enough time to know what he is talking 

 about. "We have to watch our customers so closely and keep 

 in touch with them so constanMy in order to avoid losing out 

 that instead of doing real sales work we are compelled to spend 

 most of our time in the purely mechanical effort of going over 

 our territory. It's necessary, perhaps, but not nearly so effective 

 as the work of the man who gets orders by sure-enough sales 

 work, because he makes the consumer want to buy his stock at 

 his price. Brain-work is still needed, of course, but leg-work 

 is getting to be at a premium." 



The growing realization of the fact that because of more 

 frequent purchases of small lots of lumber at a time the consumer 

 must be solicited' ca.Teful!ly. has resulted in the narrowing of 

 territories by concerns which have a number of men on the road. 

 Men who formerly had an entire section are now covering but 

 one state; while in other cases special salesmen have been 

 located in the big cities and spend all of their time soliciting 

 the factories there, without venturing outside that restricted 

 territory for fear that somebody will get around to a customer 

 ahead of them and nose them out of a coveted order. 



This seems to suggest that the matter of over-solicitation, if 

 it exists, is becoming intensified, instead of diminishing, espe- 

 cially as trade conditions seem to make it more necessary than 

 ever before to keep before the consuming trade all of the time 

 with facts and arguments to justify the persistent campaign to in- 

 crease business. 



One corollary of the facts which have been presented is that 

 lumber advertising is bound to be more necessary and more 

 effective than it has ever been heretofore. With many more 

 salesmen in the field, and competition for orders keener, the house 

 that gets the business must be well and favorably known to the 

 trade, and must back up its salesmen with the right kind of 

 publicity. Many traveling men admit that if the customer hasn't 

 heard of them and their house, it is next to impossible to sell 

 him, and other visits are necessary before the buyer will consider 

 placing an order. Familiarizing the consuming trade with the 

 name and policy of the lumber company through the pages of 

 such high-grade trade papers as Hardwood Record is, in the opinion 

 of the writer, not merely desirable, but almost essential to success 

 under the new order of things. G. D. C, .Jr. 



