258 SELLINGLUMBER 



the sake of present or future results in securing orders. Some 

 are too conservative, and some lean to the other extreme. It is not 

 necessary to be extravagant to get good results, and the secret is 

 to do the right thing at the right time. The salesman who is not 

 extravagant in his own personal habits does not find it necessary 

 to be extravagant with his customers, and he doesn't find it neces- 

 sary to live up to established precedents in the way of expensive 



The Item of dinners, lunches or cigars. Once you have established this habit, 

 Entertaining . . . . J 



it is sometimes embarrassing to break away irom. 1 hese expenses 



amount to but little with each individual customer, but in the ag- 

 gregate they amount to a considerable sum in the course of a year. 

 You should figure out to see if you get an adequate return 

 on these expenditures. We should always remember that spending 

 the company's expense money is simply putting our hand in the 

 cash drawer, and, as business men, we should consider it from 

 an investment standpoint. 



I would like to add, also, that spending time while on the pay 

 roll, in pursuits other than pursuing an order, or attending to the 

 company's business, is nothing more nor less than putting one's 

 hand -in the cash drawer. We all have known of salesmen who. 

 under one pretext or another, rarely get away from headquarters 

 until Tuesday morning, and many others who always make it a 

 point to be back at headquarters by Friday night, but you have 

 Wasting the never known any such salesmen that are recognized as the high- 

 Time salaried, successful salesmen. A salesman who will take the 

 company's time and accept a salary for it for one or two days a 

 week that he does not work and devote his time to the company's 

 interest, is pursuing a plan that he would not do if he was under 

 the watchful eye of the general office, and the chances for his 

 promotion are far less than those of the man who possibly is less 

 gifted or brilliant as a salesman, but who by calling on a larger 

 number of buyers increases his chances greatly for securing busi- 

 ness. 



How many times have you all known of salesmen attending 



conventions, who, instead of spending their time with a customer 



Congenial wno m ight: have appreciated entertainment, would pick out one 



Companions or two congenial souls that were probably competitors, and spend 



Customers. most of the week in each other's company, while the customers 



that they should have been entertaining were almost unnoticed? 



This is a form of indirect selling expense that probably costs their 



employers a great amount of money in the aggregate. 



