108 



SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



J 



impossible to sell the better grades, and 

 yoii couldn't wonder that the jobber in the 

 city wasn't very much interested in honey 

 for his sales were small. If you were to 

 call to sell him honey, we would open his 

 book to the sales record. Now, a firm 

 that is doing a very large business, a 

 million-dollar-a-year business, perhaps it 

 would not be at all surprising if you found 

 they were not selling over two to five 

 hundred dollars worth of honey a year. 

 Compared with their volume of business, 

 that amount was very small, and you can 

 appreciate a little better the task that is 

 before the man who is going to get them 

 interested in pushing honey. 



Perhaps I am getting a little ahead of 

 my subject. When we first sold honey, it 

 was just producer to the consumer, but 

 the distribution that you could get that 

 way was so very limited. If honey is to 

 have a large distribution we must be able 

 to send it through the regular channels 

 of trade. Now, the sales organization in- 

 cludes the wholesale grocer. In every 

 localitj' he has experienced salesmen, men 

 of high selling ability who are employed 

 at a high salary. The firm who has only 

 one commodity to sell cannot afford to 

 employ salesmen to cover the trade and 

 call on the retail grocer to place their 

 goods on his shelves, so they must employ 

 the regular organization. The wholesale 

 grocer instead of having one line, has many 

 lines to sell. When he discovered that 

 his sales were not over two hundred and 

 fifty, five hundred, or perhaps a thousand 

 dollars a year, on any one commodity, the 

 buyer was not going to spend very much 

 time in selling that article, just enough 

 so that if they did have a call they could 

 supply it. So far as their salesman ever 

 mentioning it to his customers the fact 

 that they had honey, that never occurred 

 to them. If Mr. Jones asked for honey 

 they said, "Oh yes, we have it." "What 

 is it?" "It is good, our own brand, and 

 you know we always handle the best." 

 That was the situation until a very short 

 time ago. Then the big task was to make 

 the wholesale grocer realize that there were 

 possibilities in the development of the 

 business that would be worthy of his 

 attention and of his telling his men to give 

 some special attention to that particular 

 line. 



To do that, there must be a reasonable 

 profit. The profit is not large, but it 

 must be such that it will be attractive to 

 him if he can get the volume of business. 

 You must prove to him that there is a 

 chance to get that volume, if he will set 

 his force to work at it. That has to be 



done by concrete facts, not by just talk. 

 Then he has also been discouraged along 

 that line by another thing. I hope you 

 will not feel that I am criticising the way 

 of selling, but when the wholesale grocer's 

 salesman walks into a grocery store, he 

 goes in there to sell honey and the customer 

 says, "Oh, well, I am buying my honey 

 down there from Mr. Jones." That is all 

 right, but that salesman discovers that 

 this retail dealer is buying honey at per- 

 haps, ten, fifteen, or twenty cents a dozen 

 cheaper than this wholesale grocer can sell 

 it to him, the wholesale grocer's salesman 

 goes back with a poor report to the buyer, 

 and the buyer at the end of the season 

 decides that it is poor business. He 

 decides, "We won't sell honey." "We 

 will sell dried fruit, peas, canned tomatoes 

 and com and all those things." 



What is needed is a campaign of edu- 

 cating the public to first attract their 

 attention to the honey. Get them to ask 

 for it, and that is what the bee-keeper has 

 been doing. He has been helping that 

 condition. Then we would back that up 

 with an educational campaign to the whole- 

 sale grocer and to his salesmen, and you 

 know without my telling you, perhaps, 

 what the result has been, as do all who have 

 been interested in the welfare of honey; 

 so that we have to-day, or had before 

 these unusual conditions came up, per- 

 haps the most stable conditions that the 

 honey market has ever known, and yet it 

 is not as stable as we want it to be. 



Now, as I look at it, the thing that is 

 going to make conditions stable is a con- 

 ference between the producer and the 

 seller, and recognition on the part of the 

 producer of the real expense connected 

 with selling the article. "The producer has 

 two questions before him: He has to de- 

 cide which is the best way for him to 

 dispose of his honey, either in the home- 

 or in the foreign market, he wants to ask 

 himself, "Well, how am I going to sell it?' ' 

 If he is interested not only in his own 

 success but in the success of the business in 

 general, he thinks of this, because if he is 

 one of those who sells very, carelessly and 

 is willing to send his honey out on almost 

 any kind of an arrangement, without any 

 investment whatever on the part of the 

 buyer, then if the market is a little weak, 

 that honey is going to be sold on a weak 

 market which makes it still weaker. The 

 problem resolves itseK into this, that it is 

 up to the bee-keeper to decide whether he 

 wants to be a big producer and a salesman, 

 because it takes ability to sell goods. It 

 takes time to sell goods, and I have noticed 

 this everywhere, there are more bee-keepers 



