212 SELLING LUMBER 



How Best to Cover the 

 Territory 



By James H. Heyl 



Eastman, Gardiner & Company 

 Laurel, Miss. 



If your territory consists of one state or two, it is necessary for 

 you to locate in some town and make this headquarters, where your 

 house and your customers know they will be able to reach you at 

 least on Saturday or Sunday. Try and looate about the center of 

 the territory that you are expected to cover, provided it is a town 

 that has enough facilities for getting in and out of readily. A post- 

 office box is a necessity, for all your mail is important and if your 

 postmaster is furnished with a route list showing where you will 

 be each night, he will see that your mail reaches you on time, and 

 a few cigars given to the box clerk from time to time will make 

 you a very dear friend of his. Mine gives me a list of each piece of 

 mail he has sent out during the week. 



Before starting out Monday morning, take your railway guide 



and route yourself for the week. You will find that by doing this 



and doubling occasionally that you will make the most towns possible, 



Th V an< ^ ^ w ^ ena ble y u to sen d out advance cards which will save 



of Advance some business for you from a friend who would otherwise give 



Calling j t to some other good fellow who beat you to it. An advance card 



ought to be something original. I once got the best results from 



a photo of an eighteen- foot shark on a card about eight by ten 



inches, until Uncle Sam made me cut its size down. This was 



twenty years ago, but I still see one occasionally that one of my 



contemporaries has saved. 



In starting out on Mondays, remember that the early trains 

 pull out of the Union station at six-thirty or seven o'clock. If you 

 miss this train you are probably stuck till noon. Also, if you want 

 to get home on Saturday in time to take in the ball game, you will 

 probably have to catch another one of these early morning trains, 

 and the result is the loss of a day and a half out of your week's 

 work, or 25 per cent of your actual working time. Your firm 

 away off in Arkansas or Mississippi might never know it, but, if 

 you wish to look the world straight in the face, don't do it. 



