80 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
immediately followed it, was not received with an outburst of 
enthusiasm, in fact, we came to find many a “doubting Thomas” 
among them. Having been determined and optimistic our¬ 
selves, we stood our ground. The thing we didn’t do was to at¬ 
tempt cramming it down the throat of each and every man, re¬ 
gardless of his like or dislike for it, but undertook SELLING it 
to them. That we have been reasonably successful is attested 
by the fact that thus far we have not, to our knowledge at least, 
lost a single man on account of the changed policy. There is no 
small amount of encouragement for us (and I hope there may 
be for others who have tried the plan) in the fact that some of 
our older and more successful men who were perhaps the most 
antagonistic to begin with are now the biggest BOOSTERS for 
the plan. Through the conversion, success and co-operation of 
such men the matter of lining up new recruits has been a fairly 
simple matter. It has been intensly interesting to watch and 
study the development and expansion of the plan within our 
own organization, and while we have not yet rounded out our 
first year with it, the results thus far have been so satisfactory 
we are thoroughly satisfied that regardless of what other firms 
operating over the same territory may see fit to do, we will 
“carry on” until we put the business on a self-sustaining basis, 
at least, nor do we believe it will take us more than another 
year or two to do it. 
From April until November our cash payments increased 
from oV 2 to 19%, with an average of 10.01% on our total fall 
sale. The past 3 months they have been showing a substantial 
increase and we believe that on spring business we will have con¬ 
siderably better than 15%, which, for the first year, we think 
fairly encouraging. It was an entirely new proposition over the 
territory where we are operating—our men and our customers 
had to be won over, there were objections and prejudices which 
had to be broken down, but the rough part of the road is now 
behind us and we find the way getting smoother and smoother 
with each advancing step. 
OUR INDUCEMENT: So far we have offered only one, and 
that to the purchaser, being the Premium of 10% in stock. Prop¬ 
erly presented, and with legitimate embellishment, such an of¬ 
fer can be made very interesting to the majority of buyers. We 
have talked our “Preferred Service” for CASH buyers more 
strongly, perhaps, than we have the Premium offer. We have 
done more than talk it, however, we have “delivered the goods.” 
The tags covering Cash orders carry the impression of a rub¬ 
ber stamp which reads “THIS ORDER WAS PAID IN AD¬ 
VANCE AND IS SUBJECT TO PREFERRED SERVICE.” Our 
men understand that such orders are to be given special at 
tention, both in the selection and packing of the stock. The 
agent, the deliveryman and the customer are quickly impressed 
with the fact, that, in addition to the 10% Premium Stock, the 
CASH BUYER does get more for his dollar than the other fel¬ 
low, and as time goes on, we’re satisfied that more and more of 
the worth while trade is going to want to come in on it. 
All we have offered the salesman is the opportunity to draw 
down his full commission on PAID ORDERS and the protection 
he obtains for himself against “charge backs” on countermands. 
We are not sure that a bonus of 1, 2 or 3%, perhaps, wouldn t 
be a good investment, and if such an offer had been in force 
with us the past year we question not our record would show 
op a whole lot better than it does. Such a bonus would not 
necessarily become an added cost, for the reason that when 
the business has been put on a cash basis, it will be a very easy 
matter to reduce the delivering and collecting expense propor¬ 
tionately. We handled 95% of our fall deliveries at a cost of 
6% or less, half of those costing only 3%. 
Referring to the matter of bonding the salesman, there is 
more to be said in favor of, than against such policy, though we 
believe its value lies in the dignity and character it lends to the 
business, and to the individual salesman, more than the pro¬ 
tection it affords. We do not assume to minimize the safety 
feature, however. There is always the chance of being “crook¬ 
ed”, we’ll admit, but under careful management the risk isn’t 
any greater than in employing unbonded deliverymen, and if we 
had no greater loss to reckon with than we have suffered 
through dishonest deliverymen over a period of 20 years, or 
more, we would consider ourselves most fortunate. We doubt 
very much if it would amount to 1-10 of 1%, which is negative 
along side of what we lose season after season on uncollected 
orders. 
At this point I am prompted to throw a side light or two on 
the subject being treated just to show what the other fellow 
thinks of it. The following quotation from a letter received 
from a delinquent customer a few weeks ago is not offered be¬ 
cause of any value we place on his opinion of things legal, but 
simply for its significance: 
“Gentlemen—I enclose you settlement of my order. Will say 
for your benefit that your so-called contract isn’t worth the 
paper it is printed on, and for that reason no payment was made 
on it, which was necessary to make it binding.” 
This one, which was from an Attorney and came to hand only 
a few days ago, is worthy of consideration also: 
“Referring to your claim against Mr. Blank, there is no 
chance of collecting it now, for the reason he has been out of 
work for some little tune, is badly in debt and hasn’t anything 
over and above his exemptions, though he was holding a good 
paying position at the time he placed the order. One thing I 
have never been able to understand is why you nurserymen 
don’t collect for these orders when they are written, instead of 
waiting several weeks or months, risking such reversal of cir¬ 
cumstances and conditions as has happened in this case. Blank 
was earning good money at the time he ordered, and should 
have been able to pay, whereas today he is broke. It isn’t for 
me to dictate how you should run your business but it does 
seem to me there is plenty of room to safe-guard yourselves 
against experiences of this kind.” 
Going back to the question of methods or policy, I might state 
that our men are furnished a printed letter of introduction, 
which carries authorization to collect payment of orders also a 
specific notice and instruction to the purchaser that all checks, 
or remittances of other form, must be made payable to our¬ 
selves at Lawrence, Kansas. We have not lost a dollar under 
this plan so far, yet it is our intention to have our next supply 
of order blanks carry a similar notice across the face of them, 
in red ink perhaps, and as a further precautionary measure. 
Another scheme we adopted, and which met with commenda¬ 
tion at the hands of our salesmen, was the incorporation of the 
Premium Offer in our printed form of acknowledgment which 
we mail each customer on receipt of his (or her) order. 
We have not kept tabulated record of returns from this in 
percentages, but were agreeably surprised the way it took, and 
continues to take. Here again is encouragement for the sales¬ 
man, because when such remittances come to hand he is ad¬ 
vised and any additional commission he is entitled to is added 
to his next check. 
Here is a concrete example of how it works. This letter came 
to hand Saturday, January 6th: 
“Herewith G. T. Owen’s check for $40.90, being half the 
amount of his order dated Dec. 5th. He is going to pay the bal¬ 
ance inside of 30 days, and will then select his premium stock. 
Mr. Owen is a sample of how pressure brought to bear on the 
Premium Offer will line them up with the cash. I gave him a 
work-out both times I sold him, but lie admitted to me that not 
until you wrote him did he consider seriously the idea of mak¬ 
ing an advance payment. I want you to know that your co¬ 
operation from that end helps wonderfully, so I hope you will 
keep on with the good work, helping me to get the cash on just 
as many of my orders as we can.” 
Another salesman wrote us about a week ago that he was 
holding up something better than $200.00 worth of orders, for 
the reason the customers wanted to take advantage of the 
Premium Offer but needed a little time to scrape the money 
together. 
With the thought that there might be some in attendance at 
this meeting who have not yet adopted the new plan, and who 
find the question “How would our men accept such a policy?” 
bobbing up in their minds, I copied a few additional letters, 
which we received during the early weeks of our experiment, 
with the hope they might prove of interest and lend a degree 
of encouragement, perhaps: 
“I am pleased to know that my work for you has been so 
satisfactory. As far as my success in getting CASH WITH OR- 
