256 SELLINGLUMBER 



did not sell through salesmen, point with pride to their selling cost, 

 I have not heard many of the same manufacturers point with the 

 same pride to any high average price received for their product 

 over a period of months. It would be easy enough to sell two 

 hundred million feet of lumber through lists and one or two 

 salesmen, at a selling cost of perhaps 10 cents per thousand, but 

 the manufacturer who pursues this plan would probably have to 

 take $1.00 per thousand less average price for his product than 

 ^ oes ^ e manu ^ acturer wno se ^ s it through a well organized sales 

 in Making force, at a cost of say 16 cents per thousand for salesmen's 

 ales salaries, and about 12 cents per thousand for traveling expenses, 



or a total of 28 or 29 cents per thousand for salaries and sales- 

 men's expenses, which I have found by investigation, to be about 

 the average cost of many of the larger manufacturers that sell their 

 product through salesmen. This cost, of course, does not contem- 

 plate administration, officers' salaries, office traveling expense, rent, 

 telephone, telegraph, postage, stationery or advertising expenses. 

 These will be considered later. 



Let us consider a few items of expense as applied to sales- 

 men alone. We are all salesmen, but some of us are forced to 

 look at expense accounts in a little different light than we once 

 did. We should analyze expense accounts in the same way as we 

 do efficiency in manufacture, and we should not economize to 

 the extent in either so as to affect our efficiency. Economy is 

 one thing that a salesman should keep in mind in making ex- 

 penditures for his company, and I mean, economy in time as 

 well as money. The average salesman does not give enough con- 

 sideration to these matters, and it is my observation that the most 

 The Items successful salesman is the one who does give it the greatest con- 

 Expense S sideration. We all have spent too much time with some good 

 fellow who doesn't give us business, or who lives in a town that 

 has a good hotel, and wasted much of the company's time and 

 . money on towns that could be eliminated from the salesman's 

 route sheet with profit to himself and his company. I will make 

 a guess that nearly all of us have in mind such a buyer at this 

 moment, also, that you can all think of some dealer that you should 

 see more often, but because of not being accessible, or because a call 

 means arriving or leaving his town at an hour when you prefer 

 to be sleeping, you leave him to some other salesman who is a 

 little less choice of his comfort, and who perhaps is rapidly be- 

 coming your greatest competitor in your territory. Think it over. 



