SELLINGLUMBER 393 



Cutting Out the Traveling 

 Salesman 



From "Commerce and Finance," June 21, 1916. 



There has been an ardent discussion in many trade lines over 

 the question whether the traveling salesman was not becoming a 

 useless factor owing to the widespread use of the multitude of 

 forms of advertising. Some of the parties at interest believe the 

 day of the traveling salesman is nearly done; others insist that 

 much of the advertising is wasted and that between the need of 

 keeping men on the road and the necessity for heavier and heavier 

 advertising to keep up with the broader competition the cost to the 

 sales department is increased. 



Life would be bleak, if not barren, in many small cities and 

 jerkwater towns if the commercial traveler should disappear from 

 the business life of America. The railroads and the hotels would 

 suffer. The drummer is too much of an institution to be wiped 

 out. He has his virtues and his vices. He has sinned, perhaps, q^e Salesman 

 in misrepresentation and has made life woeful for many a re- An Institution 

 tailer who was impressed by his suavity and his persistence. Too 

 many of them, no doubt, considered their mission was to sell 

 goods and that it was the buyer's affair and not theirs if he 

 happened to be deceived. But there have been honest, upright 



men among them. Lots of them. The traveling salesman is not need- 

 less. His sphere is contracting, but there are many, many thousands 

 of drummers "on the road" today and there will be many thousands 

 for years to come. One commercial travelers' organization has 48,000 

 members. The weekly and monthly publications, the greater use of 

 printed and illustrated advertising matter, the form letter and many 

 styles of printed appeal have made him less of a power, but he still re- 

 mains a power. There is great potency in personal solicitation. There 

 is great potency in advertising, also. There has been waste, much waste, 

 in the drummer's work, just as there has been and there is now in 

 various kinds of advertising. One of the greatest advances in advertis- *phe "Drum- 

 ing has been in its increased honesty. The cleaner and the more abso- m er Still 

 lutely honest it becomes the more powerful it will become. The drum- a p ower 

 mer, too, has given up many of his bad ways. 



Honesty has proven to be the best policy in American selling. 



The traveling salesman once had the field almost to himself. He 

 has tremendous competition today. He is not going to be wiped out, 

 but he will improve in his character and serve well his somewhat more 

 restricted field. 



