308 



SELLING LUMBER 



The Evil of 

 Destructive 

 Competition 



to him aad as a rule, it is the booster that gets the business. Every- 

 body wants to hide when they know there is the weekly or monthly 

 visit of a pessimist due, although he may represent a first class 

 concern that ships good lumber and ships it promptly. 



We all ought to be opposed to destructive competition in any 

 sort of business. By destructive competition I mean the kind, as 

 you know, where one company has a good customer, one that gives 

 its salesman orders for considerable lumber. Another salesman will 

 keep hammering at it until he gets, his price so low that he will 

 get a part of the business away, and then the first salesman will 

 wire his company asking for permission to meet legitimate com- 

 petition. These two words, "legitimate competition," should be 

 eliminated from the vocabulary of every boosting, energetic man 

 who represents our great industry in the field, as the term "meeting 

 legitimate competition" simply means retreat a hole busted in your 

 first line of defense. 



The sales organization of any institution has a great deal 

 more to do with keeping the stockholders, owners and employees 

 happy and contented than any other part of the organization. In 

 any organization there is a continual effort to keep the cost of 

 manufacture down as low as possible, and when the best operating 

 organization has worked hard for thirty days to succeed in getting 

 the cost of production reduced five cents, they are very much 

 pleased, while the sales organization cuts the pricq a dollar with- 

 out very much concern. And I know from experience in our own 

 Unnecessary business that our profits are almost entirely controlled by the sales 

 Price Cutting organization. If a half dozen salesmen write in to the sales man- 

 ager that in order to meet legitimate competition they have got to 

 reduce prices a dollar and after they have written in this strain 

 for three or four times, down comes the price. Perhaps if the 

 salesman understood the territory and understood the reasons for a 

 little depression and would give that impression to the sales manager 

 instead of asking him to reduce prices, it would have a very much 

 better effect on the business and on the organization. 



What is your ambition ? ' Is it to sell Southern Pine lumber, 

 or simply that you like to travel around through the country and 

 get some experience and education by constantly meeting people? 

 I have heard some men say, men who were traveling not only for 

 our own concern but for others also, that they felt that two or three 

 years spent in going around meeting people would be a very valu- 

 able experience, but that they did not have the idea of taking up 



