"Why Don't You Buy Your Lumber From Me?"

Every reader of this Magazine has asked that question of at least ten prospective customers each year.

It seems a perfectly obvious and simple question to ask Surely, if a man doesn't buy from you, it is a good thing to learn the reason for this lack of patronage.

But friends, this standardized interrogatory is the wrong way of doing the right thing. ft's salesmanship BACK\,t'ARDS.

The question is direct, and is distinctly chdlenging in itsnature. It demands an an$wer.

It is a clear "yes-or-no" que'ry and calls for a categorical explanation.

The impulse is to attempt an ansurer, and human nature and pride lead one to make that answer intelligent.

No one likes to say "I don'tlknow"-1e sqnfsss ignor?rrc+orl any subject whatsoever.

Unless the person under interrogation is under some obligation to the dealer posing the question-which would bring his answer under the head of an excuse rather than 3 1sason-fue will search for a reasonable answer.

Here, then, you have deliberately started him on the hunt for reasons why he should NOT patronize you ! Get the thought?

He goes over in his mind the things he wants to offer as reasonable reasons for buying his lumber elsewhere. One by one he brings them to the surface. Prices, delivery, credit, treatment, terms, quantities, shorts, claims, substitutions-and in every case he is mentally giving you the worst of it.

But he is simply trying to answer your question. Perhaps, up to that time, he had no really well defined idea in his head of why he didn't buy froin you.

Perhaps it had "just happened" that way, and wrise approach that would leave both of you an "out" would have turned his next order your way.

But youdidn't give him the chance. You asked him why he didn't buy from you, and you immediately forced him to find a rellson, excuse, or what not.

And those reasons or excuses that he had to dig up just at that time, probably remained with him after you had left. You had built up a wall against his trade. i

Your question, was, in essence, antagonistic, and antagonism always breeds antagonism.

You asked that question as though in your opinion he SHOULD buy from you; as if you were calling him to account; and men don't like to be called to account. Naturally, he resents instinctively, consciously or unconsciously, this questioning of his freedom of action-

You get the worst of it because you deliberately prejudiced judge and jury against yourself by demanding judgmerrt in your favo,r.

"Why don't you buy?" The "DON'T" is what hurt. That's what you demand to know, and he is going to tell you, even if he has to drag a reason in by the hair of the head.

You have started him thinking about NOT buying from you.

You virtually asked him to dig up reasons for not dealing with you, and he DOES.

Can you think of a better way of killing ofr potential, prospects ?

W. R. CHAMBERLIN ON NORTHWEST BUSINESS TRIP

W. R. Chamberlin, W. R. Chamberlin & Co., San Francisco, is on a two rveeks' business trip to Washington and Oregon. While in the Northwest, Mr. Chamberlin will visit their mill connections and make a general survey of Iumber conditions at the mills. W. R. Chamberlin & Co. are the California distributing agents for the ClarkNickerson Lumber Co., Dempsey Lumber Co., Defiance I.umber Co. and Ferry-Baker Lumber Co.