Trying to Save a Loss a Dealer Learned a Great Truth

By JACK DIONNE

A retail lumberman told me a most interesting story, the other day, about how he turned a loss into a great gain.

We were talking about the use of plan tooks by lumber merchants, and how they may be best turned to account.

The gentleman I was talking to has bought more plan books, and still buys more pl.an books, than any other retail lumberman. And he told me of the first bunch of modern plan books that he bought; how he sent them to a long string of yards; paid a lot of ,money for them; and then foun.d that to a large extent tl.rey were impractical, because the plans and the pictures did not "jibe," etc.

"The Big Boss laughed long and loud at n-te," he said, 'iand kidded me about getting stuck. So what did I do? I went to work to get our money out of those plan books. I wasn't trying to sell homes. I was trying to get my money back out of those books. We took the kinks out of them, used them as a basis for creating home demand, and the whole organization got to work to get our money out of those plan books. We succeeded in doing so. And we suddenly woke to discover that we had not only succeeded in doing that, but that while engaged in this effort at retrievement we had LEARNED THE PLAN SELLING BUSINESS: discovered the fundamental truths oi m'odern merchandising. And since that time we have been using plan books continually, better and more practical ones, 'but the lessons that we learned in trying to get our money back out of those first plan books, we are still applying to our business, and doing it successfully. And I don't believe we would ever have discor.ered the full amount of value there is in the plan book game, if we hadn't decided we were "stuck" with those first books, and made an intense efiort to save our money."

There is a big thought there, and an interesting one. Too many merch,ants have bougllt plan books, and let them lie covered with dust, or only partially used them. If every plan book buyer made up his mind that he had to do everyth'ing possible to get his money back out of his plans books, they would prove a blessing indeed.