Selling Completed Building Service

An Address by Gerald E. Meliff, Retailer, San Antonio, Texas

Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen: This is the greatest honor that has come my way, being asked to attempt to cover the most important subject before the retail building material merchant today-that of "Selling Completed Building Service." This is, in my estimation, gentlemen, the most important factor confronting us today in the retail building material business. Selling Completed Building Service is absolutely necessary to hold the industry to the front today and a better completed building service than we have today is necessary for the industry to advance in the future.

Now, before rve get into the whys and wherefores of this most important subject, let's talk about ourselves a littlekind of take an inventory of ourselves and see what we have to have and before we are in shape to Sell Completed Building Service.

First-We have to be 100 oer cent Americans and believe in our country

We have to believe in our state.

We have to believe in the community in which we live and glad that we are permitted to live there.

We have to believe in our fellow men and our competitors.

We have to know that we are in the best business in the country.

We have to take personal interest in our community and its people.

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We have to have and hold the respect and confidence of that communit-r' and its people.

We have to be and keep posted on the fundamentals underlying our business.

We have to knorv the commodities rve are selling; the commodities we ought to sell and the commodities we are apt to be asked to sell.

We have to know the needs of our community and feel that it is our personal obligation to take care of those needs.

We have to know plans and specificatioRs and know how to drarv and rvhite them if necessary.

We have to know salesmanship.

If rve have these requisites and can keep a smile on our face and carry a few thousand real hand shakes up our right sleeve-we are in a position to sell 'fCompleted Building Service" in the old home town.

If we have all of this in our system and don't sell this service then we are not fit to ruh a building material store and are simply running a wood yard.

Now, right here I am doing a little mind reading. I can see by the expression on some of your faces that some of you are thinking that I am handing out a lot of stuff that might be all right for where I came from but it won't work back home. In other words, I am trying to unload some big town stuff. Right here is rvhere you are wrong. Small toivns will always be small if you as one of its leading

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(Continued from Page 75.) through it and peek at the pictures. Next day they'd u'ant to borrolr' it to take home rvith them to study over; and the next thing we knew they'd steal it when we weren't looking, and never bring it back. In the past nine years rlre ha,re bought $4,500 worth of plah books -in our one office, and San Antonio is full of contractors who have walked ofi with rvhole sets of the formerly despised books. And lr'e were glad to hal'e them do it. And they are building hottses alf over our territory from the books that walked ofi from our office, and we are selling the building material; so we are all satisfied.

Norv, rvhat is completed building service? This service is selling a man a HOME-ready toinove into, instead of selling him a flock of 2x4 and some shingles, with which-to bu-ild himself a house if he can. Selling this service is like selling a man a nice slick looking pair of shoes with- strings in them and everything, ready to put on, instead of selling him an old broken down steer and a hunk of iron-saying here is your leather and your nails, make yourself some shoes.

Selling Completed Building Se1vic-e is making- men and their fariilies happy and contended-in making wtrole communities happy and contented and proud of their Homes, and at the same time fattening vour ou'n family bank roll' C"t yoo possibly think of a m-oie pleasant situation-making tle world hippy and getting ietmoney for.it' Yny it'6 the real "Grind and -Glorious Feeling"-this selling comoleted service.

I'fi bet there isn't a man in this room that's been right on the firing line that hasn't had thjs happen to him: Old man Smith "-ttd *ife drive up in front of the office and he jrowls and gets out and ties the hay burner or chokes the f,izzie dewn--snfsrs the office looking like he is going to a fntt.tat and asks you what them boxin' boards are worth' You quote him a price per thousand feet and he throws a nt "",i tells you that you are a robbe.r and he can get thsm shipped in for half thit much' You jarv around arvhile and he hnally leaves and goes to youl cnmpetitor and finds the orice ab-out the samJand usually buys there so you will ihink he is smart.

Don't knock him over the first clatter rvith the price of $65 a thousand, or whatever that.price may b-e^' Find out Arst. what he needs. He came into your office because th;;; is something he is in need o{ in your line' He didn't come in just to fass the time of day' And to the comrrleted buildine materials service man, getting the.prospect l;;.-;.;; storE is 98 per cent of the job of selling him' To the old fashioned dealer, it is only 2 per cent'So *hen this man comes in and asks what stock is worth' find out what he wants it for, how much of it ,he need.s' ""J siu. him a price on the material to perform the service he is looking for'.

Then, if y"ou ltave a proper-inventory of your territory on h"t d, tuch as IUr. Fajr, bf Kansas, has just told you to

Keep your plan books brushed off, and where everyone rvho comes in can see them.

The'n there is the architect. In the old days before plan books came, and before we started selling completed building service in the lumber industry, we bought ou-r b-oards ani built our box car shacks to live in, and never bothered the architects. And the architects never bothered us. It wasn't ethical for them to do so. Architects were like doctors, they wouldn't solicit. So we grabbed our- plan books and 6egan building real homes on our own hook' without any irchitects. -And the architects th-ought we lvere cutting in on their game. But they soolr found that on the cont?ary we were educating the public to- the -usd of better and more attractive small homes' and getting their tastes in homes raised mightilv. And the next thing the architects knew, they found we were really creating a market for THEIR business by selling the public on attractive homes. and today the architects are doing more busines-s than they dicl before in their lives, and they are-.doing it because we got out and waked up the home building market for them.

The other day I was standing on the corn€r talking-to a lumber competiior of mine, when a man walked up and declared to bolh of us that his roof was leaking badly, getting old, and that he was afraid he would have to builcl a neri roof sometime in the next year. A minute later I phoned the offrce and sent a Tal flying out to this man's iroore to take the measure of the roof in squares. Two hours later I called on him with a typelvritten estimate on the material to re-roof his house, showing our charge on thick ivooden shingles (u'hich rve believe and recommend to be the best home roof in the lvorld), and also on everv other type and class of building ma-t-erials- that-.we carry. in stock. -fre sold him, right then. THAT is selling building SF]RVICE. 'We can all do those things, do them every dav in the rveek, and all that is necessary is for us to wake up, and get br.rsy. I thank vott.

Try out-thinkin$ rather than out-talkin$ the other fellow

have, you can reach in and get his card and tell him just .""Jri *rt"i yo"t figures-p"revio-usly made and pre-pared -..e,'o" that iob. Y-ou can say,-"That^bathroom will cost lnoo d95, or that barn will cost you $350, and you can eat it here or take it home with You."

Don't say that selling completed building service don't Dav. You mav say thaiit don't pay in your case, but that ho'es"'t -."tt ih"t there's anything wrong with the idea, or with the torvn; it simply means that there's something wrons with YOU: and if ^you can't sell your town building servi&, why go back and tun your WOOD YARD'

Take thii pTan book business. When we first put in.plan books, the iontractors thought ll'e were fighting thep' They didn't realize at first thit what we were really going to do was to make a lot of business for them. They'd come in and find a plan book on the desk, ahd lift the cover contemptuously, .and walk au'ay. Next day they'd run