SELLINGLUMBER 65 



Some salesmen have enormous sales, but the cost of selling 

 is so great that it offsets the profits. Other salesmen may only 

 sell one-half the quantity in a given length of time, and yet the 

 net profit on their sales may be greater than that of the man who 

 holds the record for volume. Volume is a fine thing under cer- 

 tain conditions, which I will enumerate, but it is all wrong unless 

 it is accompanied by profit. 



Profits, as made in the wholesale lumber business, may be 

 created in two ways : First, by the margin or difference between 

 the cost of the lumber delivered at destination and the price at 

 which it was sold. From the profit, which is termed the gross 

 profit, the cost of selling the lumber must be deducted, which 

 leaves the net profit. If the gross profit on a car is only $20, 

 and it costs $8 per car to sell it, your net profit on that car of 

 lumber is $12. Therefore, if you have a fixed market price at 

 which you must sell your product there is only one other way you 

 can increase the profit, and that is by decreasing your expenses, or 

 by increasing your sales without increasing the expenses. Thus 

 if you sell 60 cars this month, and your expenses are $200 for 

 the month, it has cost $3.33 per car to sell. But if you can sell 

 120 cars this month without increasing your expense account, 

 the cost of selling is only $1.67 per car. But if you double your 

 sales from 60 to 120 cars per month, and double your expenses 

 also from $200 to $400, your cost to sell, per car, is exactly the 

 same on 60 cars as it was on 120 cars. 



Therefore the efficient traveling salesman watches his ex- 

 pense account ; he keeps in close touch of his record of cost to 

 sell ; he strives from month to month to increase his profit, to re- 

 duce his expenses and to decrease his cost to sell per car. Are 

 you efficient in this respect? If so, to what extent? 



Mr. Woodhead : That proposition, in its last analysis, is 

 the amount of profit per . thousand feet. I am disregarding, to 

 some extent, the question of economy, because my sales always 

 cost me more than some others' do. I claim 90 per cent. 



The Chairman: Shall we give him 90? All right 90. 



Mr. Dionne (reading) : "21. Knowledge of human nature, 

 psychology." One of the most superb mental qualifications for ^ s r y t C jJ 1 e logy 

 a traveling salesman to possess is the ability to quickly judge hu- Salesman 

 man nature. 



