Service, Sale and Plan Rooms For Retail Dealers

Bg Jack Dionne

Never a week passes that we do not have inquiries from lumber dealers as to the arrangernent, equip'ment, use, and advantage, of plan, service, and sale rooms for lumber merchants.

So we are taking the liberty of reprinting herewith, t,he greatest talk on the subject that rvas ever made. Any retail lumberman who can read trhis straight-forward, prac. tical, magnificent declaration of principle, and not feel prompted to do something better in his own business, is surely lacking in amrbition.

This talk was made two years ago to The Lumbermen's Association of Texas, by a tall, intelligent, typical country lumber dealer of the finest type, Mr. Roy Gaither. Remember, in reading it, that the office he describes is in a lumber store in a town of less than a thousand people. Mr. Gaither has sinoe been promoted and is Assistant Superintendent of Yards for Wm. Cameron & Company, and lives at Waco, Texas.

He is one of the greatest living believers in modern merchandising for lumber deal,ers, and'has proven everything that he beli'eves in. Here is his talk:

With the progressive efforts of building material dealers to apply as high class methods and ideas to the selling of building material as other merchants use in merchand,ising'their lines, there has developed a real need for the use of right equipment in selling Building Service. When we moved out of the lumber yard section into the society ofBuilding Stores, we assumed the duty of rendering ma+y lines of service. Some of us have even foll,owed the Gulf Coast Lumberman's suggestion and advertised ourselves to our communities as Building iSpecialisls and solicited that they bring to us their building troubles for correct treatrnent. fn our progressive aspiration to be real merchants, we have wond,erfully improved the general service and relation of our business to our communities: but the peculiar fact that we are interested in selling materials while our customers desire to buy finished products makes it incumbent upon us to provide them a special service d.epartrnent with special equipment with which we ,can the more ,easily make apparent to the customer the thing or function we desire for him to rsee, and especially should dhis equipment be such as the customer can use to show us the thing he wants or the service'he needs.

The Service Room idea is that the dealer should use his knowledge and experience to teach the consumer the proper use and ap'plication of his materials, to 'help him select the right materials, to give him information in construction methods and planning of his buldings, and such other assistance in building as will make 'him a cont€nted ccinsumer, pleased with the materials bought of the dealer. Thus this service will be the means of keeping the cus'tomers, we have, and incidently bring us new ,customers as we become recognized as authorities on building rnaterial and can give the consumers helpful advice.

The Sale Room idea is to add to the Service Room idea a sales-appeal and to visualiz'e the selling talk. It is to us a Selling Room,; but to our customers, a Buying Room, and as we liave been 'taught, they care very little about raw materials, we should use the Sald Room to sell ideas, t'he functions of our merchandise to visualize the finished product. The Sale Room should embody the principles of and atmosphere conducive to good salesmanship. It must have freedom from interruption, provide comfort for the customer, a restful atmosphere, to be attractive to the eye, and suggestive to the customer that we can be depended upon to put the right ,materials, workmanShip and beauty into his home.

The Plan Room is to add to the service and sale ideas architectural service. With the Plan Room System we offer for sale the com,pleted building.

We visualize the home in many patterns, in the latest styles and fashions; we appeal to the modern and, progressive thoughts of home lovers. We destroy the old joke that the bill of extras doubled the original estimate; we take upon ourselves the worry of details and actually do the building thinking for the customer. We translate our materials into the language of homes for which our customers will save and make sacrifi,ces to own.

Service, Sale and Plan Rooms, three rooms, no; but at least one room in connection with the office, where special service and equipment is found, for which there are 'as many reasons of good merchandising as there are reasons for the Building Store itself. The purpose of this room, by whatever name it may be called, is to equip the modern merchant of building materials to sell more of his merchandise :at a profit non-competitively by giving the customer all the assistance he can to make his buying easy, accurate and satisfactory, in the most attractive method known, the appeal of a modern home.

No dealer should ever build himself a Servi,ce Room until he has first convinced'himself that his real business is selling Building-Service. If he is convinced lhimself ; then he will lay out his'Service Room an'd equip it exactly'in accordance wth his estimate of the requirements of his com'munity, and he will be proud of it as one place in which he has the privilege of exercising his best salesmanship. He will then make a success of his Service Room for he will put himself into it, and no Servi,ce RooIn, regardless of its equipment of material things, is completed until it posselsis a living, enthusiastic, competent personality.

The question of what to put in the Service Room can best be answered by the individual dealer. However-, he should not make the error of under-estimating the requirements of his community or its appreciation of progressiveness. The time and expense of visiting other dealers who have provided themselves Servce Rooms in towns of the same as his will be well spent. No two dealers even in the same town will design and furnish their Service Rooms alike. We do not think you should make a show-window of it, and we weel certain that it should be more than. a show-window. It should be in intimate connection with the office, yet separate from it. Perhaps a description of our equipment will be suggestive to you of our idea.

Oui effice is a large well-lighted one, less than one-half we use for a vault and clerical work. leaving a large lobby' 14 feet by 30 feet, running lengthway of the office for our 'customers. In the vault we have a cabinet in which we keep .dealers' helps for our own information and instruction. Our lobby is fitted with table 'and chairs, and an open cabinet containing the various pamphlets of the Southein Pine Association and certail sales-helps of manufac-

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