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SYSTEM IN THE 



i^ CEMETERY WORK 



Experience teaches that to him who waits all things come in a rush, 

 especially the cemetery and lawti work of the vernal season. In this ar- 

 ticle a man who knows tells how to get the orders early, how to fill them 

 handily, and how to get other orders at other seasons. 



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VERYTHING today tends 

 toward specialization and 

 it i» the specialist -who 

 does things expertly well. 

 A specialist simply is a 

 man who has worked 

 along a certain line until 

 he has mastered every 

 phase of it. The spe- 

 cialist is the efl&cient man 

 and in the last analysis the one who 

 works with the least friction. The 

 routine he follows and the directions 

 he gives produce system among men. 

 System becomes helpful public service, 

 which is the spirit of modern business. 

 When properly applied and carefully 

 guided it becomes routine and is far 

 easier to follow than the 

 haphazard and slipshod way 

 of doing the daily work. 

 In the following para- 

 graphs I will endeavor to 

 tell how system can be 

 applied to cemetery work 

 and other gardening opera- 

 tions, whether one fills 

 vases in Portland, Me., or 

 Portland, Ore. For our 

 company it has developed 

 our sales and relieved us 

 of considerable of the hard 

 toil this particular part of 

 the business inevitably en- 

 tails. 



Two Systems. 



It is essential that sys- 

 tem be created for two 

 ends of the business: Sys- 

 tem for getting the work 

 and system for handling 

 the work after one gets it; 

 system in one is just as es- 

 sential as system in the 

 other. True, you may feel 

 that you always get all the 

 cemetery work you can 

 handle and you may not be 

 interested in a system for 

 obtaining additional orders 

 until you first have created 

 a system for filling them. 

 We experienced the same 

 situation until we applied 

 the system we now use. 



In the city of Buflfalo 

 there are about fifteen fio- 

 rists who do cemetery work 

 at the principal cemetery 

 of which I speak. Mistakes 

 and confusion crept in and 

 complaints naturally came 

 to the superintendent. As 

 the famous Elbert Hubbard 

 once said, "When things 



By ROBERT A. SCOTT. 



get too bad they correct themselves," 

 and sure enough that was the way it 

 worked out in this case. The cemetery 

 association adopted a rule that no 

 part of a vase or any other article 

 could be removed from the grounds 

 without the signed order of the person 

 desiring the change. So the florists 

 all had blanks printed to comply with 

 the rule. 



System Leads to Growth. 



Herein developed a part of our sys- 

 tem. We conceived the idea of a 

 postal-card which would be signed and 



It's Time to Plan Cenietery and Lawn Vaie Work. 



by means of which we could at the 

 same time solicit the business at a 

 small expense. This was the begin- 

 ning of what I have termed system 

 in cemetery work. This, remember, 

 was actually forced on us, but, as we 

 saw the light, conditions developed so 

 that we were able to grasp them and 

 adapt them so that we began to look 

 for mistakes in order to bring the work 

 as near perfection as possible. 



I know that a vast number of flo- 

 rists Will say: "That may be all right 

 for his business, but for the orders I 

 have and the time I get, we could not 

 afford to do it." However few you 

 have, it applies. I know that, because 

 ours has grown from a few to a great 

 many. To give you some 

 basis for my assertions, I 

 will tell you that we use 

 20,000 geraniums and 4,000 

 vincas, along with hundreds 

 of other plants, to com- 

 plete our work for Me- 

 morial day." 



Now Is the Time. 



In a foregoing statement 

 I said I would apply the 

 system to the creation of 

 sales as well as the execu- 

 tion of work. For the sake 

 of clearness I will link the 

 two as I go along. Me- 

 morial day being the larg- 

 est business day, I will 

 start there. In our particu- 

 lar section, our vases are 

 placed for May 30, but I 

 assume that in some parts 

 of the country the vases are 

 placed considerably earlier, 

 which, of course, would 

 change the mailing date of 

 advertising matter for the 

 spring business. The fol- 

 lowing is our system: 



In the first place, we 

 keep an accurate list of all 

 cemetery customers, with 

 name, address, location of 

 lot at cemetery and work 

 done in previous seasons. 

 As I proceed you will see 

 the advantage of this 

 method. 



About May 1, we mail a 

 return postal to all cus- 

 tomers notifying them of 

 the approaching season, also 

 asking them for their 

 valued order. The at- 

 tached return card is con- 

 venient for them to sign 



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