312 



SELLING LUMBER 



Mills Fail to 

 Provide for 

 Factory Needs 



Industrial 

 Trade De- 

 mands Close 

 Study 



facturer leaves off manufacturing where the real profit begins. 

 There is an increasing demand for cut to length, specially worked 

 stock, but how very few are the planing mills that are equipped 

 with proper machinery to execute these orders. 



Let us take as an example interior trims. Do you know of 

 any reason why our rough finish should be shipped into the North- 

 ern markets on highest rates of freight and made into cut to length * 

 casings, stiles, jambs, stool aprons, blocks, treads, risers, newels, 

 balustrades, built-up stair rail, etc., when with the addition of a 

 very little equipment and skilled labor it can be produced at your 

 own plant cheaper, and marketed at a better profit by some one of 

 your sales force who will develop himself along the line of special- 

 ization in this line of salesmanship. It is true that we cannot all 

 develop profits along this one line, but I am using this as an illus- 

 tration only of one of the many lines that can be developed by 

 the salesman with the co-operation of the manufacturing branch. 

 Selling factory and industrial trade demands close study of their 

 different requirements. The yellow pine industry has already lost 

 to allied wood a big volume of business on account of the salesmen 

 failing to study usage to which the stock they were selling would 

 be put and by this error of judgment he has not only failed to 

 secure repeat orders but has kept other concerns, who could furnish 

 suitable stock from getting business. 



To make this argument plain, only a few days ago I called on 

 the buyer for one of the largest automobile manufacturers in De- 

 troit and was informed by the purchasing agent that they did not 

 use any Southern pines. Knowing that other automobile concerns 

 were using large quantities of 6-inch No. 2 for export crating, I 

 -asked his reason for using a substitute. His answer was that on 

 account of the weight and the hard flinty character of yellow pine 

 he found it more economical to use another wood. After going over 

 the subject thoroughly with the purchasing agent and the man in 

 charge of their crating, it developed that they had evidently always 

 used long leaf stock, when they had used yellow pine, but that a 

 soft variety of shof t leaf such as can be procured from many 

 Southern manufacturers would be equal in serviceableness in every 

 respect to the wood they are now using and on even a lower basis 

 of price than they are now paying would net a nice f. o. b. mill 

 price to the manufacturer. The foregoing observations serve to 

 bring out two points : First, the importance of a specialty sales- 

 man having a thorough and complete knowledge of the wood they 



