370 



SELLING LUMBER 



Began in 

 a General 

 Store 



Order Takers 

 Who Called 

 Themselves 

 Salesmen 



getting narrower and more hazardous. The salesman who starts 

 a selling career in any line of business with determination to 

 make a success of his job will find his gray matter a much greater 

 f actor than his leg work. If he is going to exchange a standard 

 commodity fork cash, ' intelligently and at a living profit, he will 

 have to think to do it, and he must THINK in capitals, for today 

 mere industry and perseverence, admirable qualifications as they 

 are, are quite as likely to lead their possessor to the poor-house as 

 to success. He must put his thinking machine in high gear and 

 keep it there all the time to keep pace with his competitor. To 

 the man who does think, and is possessed of initiative to back up 

 his mental activity by industry and action, the business world 

 offers magnificent rewards in every way commensurate with the 

 effort to attain them, and generally is soon recognized by his em- 

 ployer. 



In my reference to former years I have in mind that period 

 when I started out to try and become a salesman, when selling 

 conditions were primitive as compared with those of today, so 

 primitive indeed that mere perseverance unaided by scientific 

 thought, tumbled many men into material success ofttimes to 

 their own bewilderment. 



It happened that my first experience prior to entering the 

 lumber business, was in a retail general store, where I had to 

 deal with everything the housewife used, and I really think that 

 first experience was a wonderful foundation, and many little 

 ideas that were there initiated helped me later to circumvent larger 

 problems. It happened later that my line was lumber, but had it 

 been coal, sugar, flour, or what not, the application of those first 

 principles would have been the same. 



In the years of my first selling experience we men on the 

 road called ourselves salesmen, but I know now that we were 

 mere order-takers. We disposed of goods chiefly by seeing as 

 many- men as we could crowd into a day's travel. We got along 

 splendidly by letting the buyer do his own thinking while we 

 wrote down his spoken requirements in our order books; lumber 

 was "lumber," and in reality it had no competition with substitutes 

 or other respective kinds of lumber as you have today. In the 

 great Middle West, pine was the only thing called for; in fact, 

 it was a common occurrence to board a freight train going up 

 a line of road, and while the crew were switching, seize the op- 



