SELLINGLUMBER 249 



on the 26th and should be in the hands of your delivering line not 

 later than tomorrow." Your representative has just repeated what 

 you told the customer in your letter, but it strengthens that confi- 

 dence on the part of the buyer in your man and leads him to be- 

 lieve that he is dealing with a "live wire," one who has his inter- 

 ests at heart and on whom he can depend. 



I once worked for a line yard firm, and one of their strict- 

 est requirements was that the yard managers report just as care- 

 fully all overshipments as they did shortages, and I heard the head 

 of the firm say the reason for this was that if he led his men to 

 think he was dishonest in his dealings with the firms which were 

 shipping him material, how could he expect them to feel other- 

 wise than that he was stealing from other people, why not steal 

 from him, so if you are unwittingly undermining the confidence tagious 

 your man has established with his trade and causing the buyer 

 to become imbued with the, idea you are suspicious of your man 

 and are not sure of his ability, naturally, the customer thinks you 

 should know your own employee better than he does, and forms 

 the idea it would be well to keep an eye on him and incidentally 

 on the firm, as the salesman is the exponent of the firm. 



Some firms make the sad mistake of not allowing their man 

 credit for orders received from their territory by mail. This is 

 true even of orders on which the salesman has quoted the prices 

 attached to the order, but which for some reason he is unable to 

 secure at the time the quotation is made. I have been asked by 

 retail dealers whether or not I would receive credit should they 

 send an order to the general office on my quotation, being in a 

 hurry for the material and not wishing to lose the time, after mak- 

 ing their sale, which would be required for the order to go to my 

 home address and be forwarded on from there, and, upon receipt Withholding 

 of an affirmative answer, would say they would handle the transac- 

 tion that way, and at the same time remark that they had dealt 

 with firms which would not do this even when they specifically 

 requested it, and they proceeded to comment on the unfairness 

 of it, and to show their resentment of what they termed "not a 

 square deal." Your man should be credited with the business 

 from his alloted territory, notwithstanding the fact that customers 

 write to the general office for prices and your road man, apparently, 

 had no part in that particular sale. You may have received busi- 

 ness from that customer before the man who is now working the 

 territory started in for you, but it doesn't necessarily follow that 



