THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
255 
tion that is down and out. Waste no time with those who can¬ 
not afford to purchase your goods. It is one of the salesman’s 
duties to look up his prospective customers and satisfy himself 
that there will be no trouble in making delivery and collecting 
in the fall. A story I read a few days ago tells, in a few words, 
how to analyze the territory. 
“A country simpleton—not so simple as he looked—was sent 
out to hunt for a cow that had been unavailingly searched for 
by the entire community. To the amazement of all, a few 
minutes after he had started out, he returned driving the cow. 
The astounded bystanders immediately wanted to know how he 
had found the “critter.” “Well, I just set down and thought of 
the place I would go if I was a cow,” he explained. “And then 
I went there—and there she was.” The way to find business to¬ 
day is to figure out where business is likely to be—and go get it. 
But perhaps you are beginning to wonder how I arrived at my 
subject. This topic may be misleading; if it is, it is uninten¬ 
tional. To explain, I will, with your permission, start on January 
1st. On this date it has been the policy of our president to call 
his assistants into a friendly business meeting, to talk over- 
matters for the new year. After all, our success depends mainly 
upon three things: the right goods, the right prices and the right 
service. Early in the new year is a good time to bring construc¬ 
tive criticism to bear on the past year’s methods, with a view to 
excelling during the new year. But to get back to my subject, 
on January 1st, 1923, Mr. Bindley stated that he expected $150,- 
000 worth of business through the salesmen. Of course there 
were also quotes assigned the other departments—the landscape, 
direct mail order, and greenhouse. May is considered the start¬ 
ing month, then there are the following months for work: June, 
July, August and September. Some business is always done in 
October, but the bulk of the work is done during the first five 
months mentioned. These five months represent. 150 ays. There¬ 
fore, to get the $150,000, we adopted our slogan, “A Thousand 
a Day.” 
To give the whole history, our first bulletin was in the form 
of a questionaire, something like this. 
Have supplies been received? 
When are you going to start canvassing for fall delivery? 
Have you set a goal for your year’s work? 
Total amount of sales you expect to make this season 
for fall delivery $. 
Practically ever man on our force returned this sheet with 
his goal set, and set high. Too high, we thought for after get¬ 
ting the sum of goals, the amount was $300,000. To play safe, 
we cut this amount in two, setting the goal, as just stated at 
$150,000, for agency sales. To date our sales have averaged 
$1000 per day, in this department. Some weeks have fallen 
slightly below the weekly average, but others have gone above, 
and so we have steadily maintained our pace up to this day, and 
have every reason to believe that sales from now on will be even 
better. Sales to the amount of $150,000 are all we care for in 
this department, and we planned our sales campaign with this in 
view. Perhaps your goal may be $500 per day or $5000 per day. 
If we should wish to increase our sales, we would proceed along 
the same lines that we are now working, only on a larger scale. 
Now I am not making a talk on advertising, because I don’t 
know enough about it to do that, but as this is quite an import¬ 
ant link in the sales chain, I'll touch on a few of the high spots 
and bring out a few points that have helped me tremendously 
in what publicity work I have done for the firm. 
Intelligent advertising should not be neglected during the sales 
campaign, for sales success depends upon the efforts put forth 
by the nursery concern to help the salesmen. Good advertising 
without salesmen will bring business, but the salesman is work¬ 
ing under a great disadvantage who does not get the proper 
backing of the firm along the publicity lines. The success of the 
Fuller Brush Company proves this. As you know, this company 
sells direct through agents, yet advertises heavily in leading pub¬ 
lications of the country. They sell the public on Fuller brushes 
and then organize their forces to gather up the orders. Many 
business firms will send out some advertising literature once or 
twice a year, and then tell you that they have tried advertising, 
but it didn’t pay. Of course it didn’t. I would say that there 
is more money thrown away for poor advertising each year, 
than in any other way. First because of spasmodic attempts, 
rather than regular, everlasting hammering, and second because 
of the lack of certain -essential elements in the copy. The ma¬ 
jority of the people are not going to read an advertisement that 
does not offer them something in return for their time and 
trouble. What reasons have you for expecting people to use 
their eyesight and valuable time pouring through a circular or 
booklet? Your anxiety to sell does not interest them. Adver¬ 
tising should inspire confidence, should contain enough helpful 
information to hold the reader’s interest and coax him from one 
line to the next until he has read the whole message and im¬ 
bibed just what you wanted him to know. Don’t you, as a rule, 
read advertising when it indicates ability to tell you something 
interesting, profitable or worthwhile? One sales point is enough 
and this is or should be the underlying idea of the whole copy. 
This underlying idea may be one of several things that you 
possess or can perform, such as experience, some unusual offer, 
service, superior quality, quick action, or some other “reason 
why.” It should not be difficult to write such advertising copy 
as this concerning nursery products. Of all the callings on earth, 
this is certainly one of the greatest and one that interests near¬ 
ly everyone. Did you ever hear of the “Five Tragedies.” Here 
they are for the sake of those who haven’t. 
“A man struck a match to see if the gasoline tank in his 
automobile was empty. It wasn’t. 
A man patted a strange bulldog on the head to see if the 
critter was affectionate. It wasn’t. 
A man speeded up to see if he could beat a train to the cross¬ 
ing. He couldn’t. 
A man touched a trolley wire to see if it was charged. It 
was. 
A man cut out his advertising to see if he could save money. 
He didn’t.” 
Direct mail advertising is one of the best supports for sales¬ 
men, and if handled right, a good many of the salesman’s pros¬ 
pects are sold before he gets there. All he has to do is to gather 
up the orders. We maintain an up-to-date mailing list covering 
most of the southern states, and are constantly on the alert for 
new ideas that will help keep this department functioning prop¬ 
erly. There is just one thing that will depreciate more rapidly 
and that is your mailing list. Keep it up-to-date and it will do 
business, but let it run down and it is worse than worthless. It 
will lose money for you. 
As a result of direct mailing activity and newspaper and maga¬ 
zine advertising, we receive many requests for catalogues, prices, 
etc. When it seems advisable and we have a man working in the 
section from which the request is received, we turn the inquiry 
over to that man, provided it is not a landscape prospect. If 
this should be the case we handle direct from the office, unless 
the man in that territory possesses landscape ability sufficient 
to do the work in a capable manner. 
The value of intelligent advertising must not be overlooked. 
If you are not certain that you can write the business-getting 
variety, you had better turn the job over to a reliable publicity 
concern. The idea is not to see how much money you can spend, 
but to make the most sales at the lowest percentage of cost. 
Keeping salesmen interested is the big problem of every sales 
manager. Principally our methods of enlisting the salesman’s 
interest and co-operation are: Bulletins, Personal Letters and 
Contests. 
Regularly each Friday, rain or shine, the bulletin is mimeo¬ 
graphed in our office. The weekly reports are gotten together 
and the names of the men shown together with number of days 
worked and amount of sales reported for the week. Each name 
is listed starting with the highest amount of sales, and ending 
with the lowest. The man on top is given special mention, and 
perhaps the next two or three are given special mention also. 
Do the men like these bulletins? One of our representatives, 
having four men working under his contract, told us recently that 
the bulletin was the first thing his men asked for when they 
drove in Saturday night. They look for it the same as you do the 
“Saturday Evening Post.” They are keen to see their position 
and the position of rival salesmen. Only one time have we heard 
a complaint on this method of sending out the weekly bulletin. 
One man requested that we leave his name off; that he didn’t care 
to be exposed. That week he happened to be at the foot of the 
column. After considerable discussion we were able to get him 
