The Lumber Merchant is the Best Paint Merchant

By Jack Dionne

Many years ago I began preaching building SERVICE selling IDEAS, selling BUILDINGS and their FUNCTIONS rather than boards and shingles. At that time very ferv lumber dealers in the territory I was trying to serve, were paint dealers. And almost NONE were paint MERCHANTS. Those who handled paint, generally carried it on musty shelves as an unpushed and unappreciated side1ine.

But my conception rvas that to sell building material as the shape of building THINGS and building NEEDS' PAINT must be used. because when the consumer thinks BUILDINGS, or building ADDITIONS, he thinks of them ATTRACTIVELY PAINTED. No doubt about that, is there ?

Then to sell building functions successfully, the lumber dealer should sell the paint to go with the material' to cover it, to beautify it, to protect it. If he sells i man a barn plan, he sells him a PAINTED barn plan; if a porch, it's a PAINTED porch, every time, that makes the appeal.

So the lumber dealer is the best possible paint merchant because his business is selling the stuff that paint is made to cover, protect, and beautify. So why shouldn't he sell both ? Who coulcl be in better position ? Who has a better right ?

And besides, he is in business for profit, and there is fine retlrrn on the paint investment.

The greatest living authority on paint said to me not a month ago: "There is no doubt on earth that the live lumber merchant is the best possible paint merchant." I have heard the same thing from many paint men.

So for many years I have been talking "PAINT" rigl-rt along with lumber, because they work together like the legs on a stool-helping one another. At first the paint men took no interest in my paint efforts. They didn't think much of the lumber dealer as a paint dealer, because, as they told rne frankly, the lumber dealer "Isn't a merchant and we want our paint merchandised-not just stocked."

The thing that makes paint a great lumber side-line is the teamwork of the two materials. When the dealer finds lumber hard to sell "as is," he just dresses it up rvith a plan and some paint, and-Presto ! it sells itself.

There's no doubt about it. If there's one thing on earth more infectious and contagious than the Bubonic plague, it's the PAINT fever on the part of the housewife-and her hubby, too.

Why, Mr. Lumber Dealer, every BLESSED HOUSEWIFE IN YOUR SALES TERRITORY IS A PAINT PROSPECT NOW. Every blessed one.

There's no use talking; during the sunny season every housewife is filled with a desire to grab a brush and paint something. It's the nature of the home-loving woman to want to paint things at this time of the year. The porch furniture, the flower boxes, the fence, the back porch, the lawn srving; everything, in fact, that is looking dingy.

Tie up with this desire. You knorv the old sarv: "A board and a nail and a can of paint, Ilfakes many a place look new that airt't."

YOU furnish the board. Why not the can of paint ? Why not the nail? Why not the "new" idea? If you sell the idea, she'll buy the board, and the paint, apd the brush, and the nail, and a hammer to drive it with.

Sell one paint job in each neighborhood, and you have everyone in the neighborhood THINKING PAINT.

Yes, sir ! Paint belongs to the lumber dealer, and if he doesn't sell it he's refusing good money. You can sell paint jobs when you can't even start a house bill, and it furnishes something to keep you eternally busy, serving your territory, anad selling something at a profit.

Senate Committee Hears Lumber Facts

Waslrington, May 25.-Representing the lumber industry before members of the Senate Commerce Committee, considering bill S-174 on Safety-at-Sea in Washington, May 19, Wilson Compton had opportunity to stress points of imrrense importauce to lumber.

Making the statement that "Where combustible cargo is carried, safety does not depend primarily upon the material which goes into ship construction, but rather on measures taken for cargo protection." Dr. Cornpton raised a doubt of 1@ per cent protection rvhen the n.rethod chosen is to rely on ship construction instead of on means of fire detection, smothering and extinguishing. He urged the needs of the Iumber industry, largely dependent on water transportation for its carg'o, and asked, should the bill in its present form become lar,v, that cliscretion be left in the hands of a responsible agency in inclividual cases to suit the requirements in construction of cargo ships to the services for rvhich they are used.

Dr. Cornpton inclicated also, in consideration of the use of wood in various phases of ship construction, that safety specifications, standard today, may not necessarily be correct over a long period of time. He urged that safety standards be definite and that lumber, as rvell as all other materials, have the opportunity alone, or in cbmbination with other materials, to meet such standarcls. "It rvould be unreasonable," he said, "for any group to be shut out by statute from the chance of trying to provide suitable material for use in ship building."

Dr. Compton deplored any general proliibition of use of rvood rvhich \vould keep the pulllic, as 'rvell as the industry, after proper investigation of facts, from having the advantages of scientific advances in low cost fire safe ship constrttction rvhich rvould meet the prescribed safety tests. He was asked by the Committee Chairman to supply additional information and indicate<l he would do so.

Going and Coming

M. L. "Duke" Euphrat, Francisco, returned May Northwest.

Announcement

Effective June I , 1937, A. W. Donovan will represent Hobbs Wall g Co. as their Southern California sales agent. The off,ce will be at 62) Rowan Building, Los Angeles

Telephone TRinity 5088

HOBBS WAI.I. & CO.

275O Jerrold Ave.

San Francisco

Telephone Mlssion 0901

Manufacturers of Red,utood

Mill at Crescent City, California

STEAMERS

Brunswick-Elizabeth-Santa Monica

Adequate Storage Stocks at Los Angeles and Long Beach Flarbors

Wendling-Nathan Company, San 24 lrom a business trip to the

E. G. MacDougall, of MacDougall & Cole, Los Angeles, is back from a business trip to Tacoma. where he conferred with the Peterman Manufacturing Company, rvhich his concern reDresents in Southern California.

Herbert A. Templeton, of the t{erbert A. Templeton I-umber Co., Portland, Ore., sales agents for Cobbs & Mitchell Co., Valsetz, Ore., recently spent a fe'rv days in Los Angeles on business.

His firm is represented in Southern California by G. C. Gearhart, 1000 W. 6th Street, Los Angeles.

Carl l3ougere, manag'er of the Western Fir Lumber Corporation, New Orleans, La., is on a business trip to the Pacific Coast, calling on Pine, Redwood and Fir mills.