Putting A Premium on the Yard Manager's Efficiency

We ran an article recently on the eubject of giving the retail yard manqger for a line yard concern something to put him on his mettle, by permitting him to share in the prosperity he might help create'

It has been raid of Napoleon that the chief secret of his success was that he ttgave every private to understand that he carried a Marshall's Baton in his krapsack"' And this has been proven a successful way of looking at things in the lumber busine$ abo'

Since the publication of that article, we have had a nurnber of inquiries asking iust how line yard firms who have tried g,vi"g their managerc a premium for creating buriness have gone about it' So we asked a very live retail concern iurt how they did it, and the head of the concern has given ur the following information' his name and firm not to be given for obviour rearona' Suffice it to ray that this concern has a string of retail yards and ir noted for itr progreeciveness, and also for its continued rlrsserE in business, ro that its experiences are founded on "occesfut operationr. The managerts statemente b as followr:

"We originally had our managerE on a ralary and flat commirsion of 12 per cent. This is an unusually large commissionbutwemadethesalarymoreofadrawins account, and smaller than we would ordinarily pay a manager. Our experience with this plan was unsatisfactory for the reaaon that the manag:erst regardlers of how ho'nest and sincere they inight be, were too enthusiastic trying to make sales, leaving us to hold the bag on bad accounts that accumulated.

"We decided that there should be some premium on cash business and in order to mahe it arr incentive to our *g"r" to get all the money possible on their salee' we instituld a policy of paving them 1 per cent of dl carh oi." *a". - In addition we gave them 2 per cent of the ,r"t profit" of the business. This in addition to their salarv' "We have found thfu a better system in many wayr than the former, but experience has taught us that thil p"fi." is defective also, inasmuch as the manager only shared 2 per cent of bad accormts that had to be charged "ii Jif. -e stood 9E per cent of such accounts' We tahe ii. p*id"" that inasmuch as the manager makes the notes and accormts' that where their iudgment is bad and we lose some of l'here accountr, the manag;er should rhare more fultv in there lorser, and be made more rerponsible for them.

(Continued on Page 33.)

We havc ready for prompt lhipncnt fron our Bay Point, Cal., plrnb a conridcreblc quentity of

No. 1 and 2 Clear Cedar, either rough' or suffaced