150 SELLING LUMBER 



Co-operation With Distrib- 

 utors and Consumers 



By M. B. Nelson 



General Sales Agent, Long-Bell Lumber Co. 

 Kansas City, Mo. 



There is no other manufactured commodity, I believe, produced 

 anywhere in the world to which as little thought and study is 

 given to the merits of its uses or promotion by the manufactur- 

 ers and distributers as is given to lumber, especially Yellow Pine. 

 What does the average lumberman engaged in the manufacture 

 or sale of Yellow Pine know about its merits? The measure of 

 . success in any line of business or industry is the knowledge ap- 



plied by those interested. A comparison of what the average 

 lumberman actually knows about the merits of lumber with the 

 knowledge of those interested in most any other line of business, 

 and a comparison of the energy that is expended by the lumber- 

 men in promoting an increase in the consumption of lumber pro- 

 ducts, especially Yellow Pine, is all that is necessary to consider 

 to realize our deficiencies. 



I consider the sales organization more to blame than any other 

 department of the business. The average young man who starts 

 out to learn the lumber business spends a short period at the 

 mills, in the retail yard or in a lumber offiice somewhere ; famil- 

 iarizes himself with lumber terms and grades and the rates of 

 freight so he can quote on whatever item of stock is listed on the 

 price sheet without making too many mistakes, and when this has 

 Faults of been accomplished, feels that he has graduated and all that is then 



Sales needed to make him a full-fledged lumber salesman is expense 



Organizations , , , , f . . 



money, an order book and a vocabulary that enables him to make 



convincing argument out of information picked up from the retail- 

 ers about low prices which are being made by his competitors. 

 Apparently no thought is ever given to doing something that will 

 increase the use of lumber in his territory. The average sales 

 office measures the worth of a salesman by the number of orders 

 he sends in. Some few measure his worth by the price or value 

 -, of his orders as compared with the general run of business they 



receive. 



