Famous Kansas Lumber Dealer Tells How He Handles His Merchandising

From one end of the United States to the other. wherever the modern m,erchandising of building material is discussed, the fact is acknowledged without argument that no man has made a greater success of merchandising builtling materials in small country towns, than has D. J. (Jasper) X'air, owner and manager of the D. J. X'air l-rumber Company, of Sterling, I(ansas. Mr. Fair operates nine retail lumber yards in a eluster in that great Kansas territory. IIe has practiced the forceful sale of builcling materials for the past few years from every possible angle, and he knows from experience what does, and does not, pay in the way of special efrort to advertise and sell builcling materials in small town ilistricts.

$e is undoubtedly one of the livest, most active, and most forceful exponents of the higher art of retailing lumber in the entire country, and therefore the following terse statement of what his firm does to make people build, should be interesting to the amibitious lumber dealer. This statement is by Mr. Fair himself. A thoughtful reading of it cannot but inspire his fellow craftsmen, because he has proven that the things that he does, pay big.

By D. J. Fair

The Modern Building Merchant should be equipped with the following:

1st. A calendar that correctly represents the retail lum. ber business, and showing a particular building to be sold, and selling stunt to be performed for everSr month in the year.

2nd. A good memo book on building construction.

3rd. A good plan service, and the knowledge to apply it. lf you can't read blue-prints, etc., take a good course by mail in that line. I have had all my managers do that with great success.

4th. A strong advertising equipment.

5th. Take and read your trade papers.

6th. A plan service room, attractively furnished and finished and well equipped.

Fruit Growers Supply Company

7th. Get all the Dealers' Ilelps you can and make the best use. of them. Many you get will be no good whatever, but many of them you can use to good advanlage. Get fuli layout and. choose what suits your needs.

8th. A complete survey of. your trade territory. 'We have a card. index system. We have personally surveyed every house and every farm in our territory. On one side of the card is the name of the owner or renter of the prop- erty, and a full history of the property and its apparent builtting needs. On the other side is a statement of what we have d.one to supply those needs, kept continually up to date.

gth. Not less than three seasonable articles or ideas oftruilding to sell every month of the year, and on these keep your salesmBn at work. Watch your seasons, and provide these specialties to ofrer your trad.e. Make this a most distinct effort.

10th. A fielcl service department constantly and eternally at personal and direct solicitation. At my yards .foe keep salesmen in the field every day except Sunday, and they do the selling for our entire group of nine yards, which pre all located in three adjoining counties, and these men do all our outside solicitation, and make their reports directly to our sales manager at the general ofrice at Sterling. The ord.ers are placed with the inilividual yards from the general ofrice.

'We also keep demonstrators in the field much otthe time. For the past several months we have had two cleier young 'women in the ffeld. demonstrating paint. 'We move them from one yard to the other, advertise their coming, prepare for them in our plate-glass wind.ows, and. have them give wind.ow and. store demonstrations of what paint will cto. They have sold wonderful quantities of paint in this way to people who stop to'watch and come in to buy.

11th. Building and loan association of some character to ffnance the builcling of homes. Ifave some character of organization that clubs together the savings of the conmunity to loan each other.

12th. Have regular opening sales days, just like any other live merchant. We find them most valuable. 'We don't try to sell on those d.ays, but simply try to entertain our visitors, and interest them. in building service. We advertise our opening and sales d.ays, and. we always get a big crowd..

AII this means more organization, more expense, and. greater efrort of course. We have a kite show in our town as an ad.vertising stunt with the kids, and it was a huge suceess. 'We converted old lumber, old mouldings, etc., into kite framing, and gave prizes for a kite show, and. we found that the kids were all interested, and. the questions they asked forced us to get all the dope available on kite-making, and it was an edueation to us, and a great ad for our busi-' ness. We have likewise hatl bird-house campaigns that the children of the town were all enthused about.

You must educate yourself as you go along, and you must and will grow with your business. You mqst use more originality, more brains, to get more business. Select men for salesmen strictly on aecount of their fitness, and you can then look to them for results.

'We employ one general man now who does nothing whatever but develop business for our string of yards. We secured. the best man we could f.nd, and turned. the businesscreation d.epartment over to him, and we hold him responsible for the development of new business. 'We appropriated a fund of money to finance his department, and we check the returns on that direct investment.

Make your survey cards (previously mentioned) strictly in the field and not in the office. Then we know they are correct and they save us endless trouble and expense. 'We look at the card and see what a man has, as well as what he needs. Then we don't try to advertise paint to a man whose place is well painted, nor try to sell a home to a man who doesn't need one, etc. 'We just go after the fellow who DOES need things.

We check and cross-check these eards to discover the seasonable needs of our territory, and we make our business attack in the proper season.

For instance, we have had a man for some time visiting every house in each town and looking over the screens to see what is needed. He makes a report on eaeh need, and. we write a letter to every owner whose ssreens need improvement or replaeing or ffxing, and make him a complete price on the job, and that without his solicitation. Our letter tells him.what he needs, and what we will charse to deliver the servrce.

'We builcl folks homes, and when we put up a home for newlyweds, we don't let them look into it until the floors and. woodwork are washed, the windows polished, and there is ham and eggs in the ice-box for the morning breakfast. That is what we called complete builcting service.

The need.s of a modern buildins merchant are orsanization and. salesmanship. We call oirr business-creatin! manager the Community Service Bureau.

We have had. wonderful success selling silos, and have quit the wood.en silo entirely, and build. only the monolithic type of silo. We have seen a ranchman turn from his cattle raising and go to raising cattle feed and storing it in silos, and. have seen him get rich just selling feed to the other fellow's cattle.

We designed a special type of wooden grain elevator several years ago and merchandised it, and. we have hundred.s of thed on the farms all over our territory. We cticl the same with grain bins.

You are in the best business in the world, Mr. Retail I-.iumberman. No other line of merchandising offers the same opportunity that yours does. The shoe merchant can't go to his customer and offer his shoes, but YOU can offer your material and. service. The buteher, the baker, and the other merchants can't get out like you ean and offer to help people by furnishing THEIR stocks, but YOU can, and. can put your trade und.er obligations'to you by so doing.

You are the only man who enjoys those privileges. Go tend to them.

'We call everything except board measure "specialties", and we keep keen watch of the turn-over on this stock. We handle everything the trade asks for that isn't forbidden by the eighteenth amendment. We sell for quality, we cut no prices, but furnish service at reasonable terms. 'We educate our trade against snide ofrers, and keep them from buying valueless articles at cut prices, and. we make it hard for that sort of stuff to sell in our terriotry.

We put on a gate campaign Iast year, selling a patent gate to the farm.ers of our territory, and. we sold and delivered exactly 262 gales in three weeks.

'We put into stock and. sell anything that we find we can handle with profit that has to do with the building game.

We've got the quality of goods to aupply the Southern C,alifornia lumber trade, and above all, we have the ability to give unequalld seryice in the matter of delivery' We make

24 Hour Delivery

to any part of Southern California on Stock Material

One week's delivery on Special Manufactured Material lr-tI

We chrry in rtock a big rupply of fir and whitc pine doorg windowq and sash. Also glaro. Also fir and redwood columng fir and redwood garage doors. WE