Selling Ideas

'We used to sell Things, in the retail lumber business. Now we sell IDEAS

Nobotly cares a rap whether you are in business or not except so far es you may prove of benefit to TI{FM. People are interested in TIIEMSELVES-not in YOU.

Selling the TIIING is incidental, because that is what YOU are trying to fispose of ; selling the USE OX'THAT THING is of importance, because that is what your customer NEEDS and can, therefore, be interested in.

He may NEED it and not be interested in it, because he may not have become CONSCIOUS of that need. But if he really need.s it, he can BECOME interested in it, through your efrort.

Selling IDEAS is no new proposition. It is as old as the everlasting hills; but it's new to entirely TOO many people. Regarding the sale of ideas, many dealers aro in the position of the college boy who was asked if he had "taken Greek," a4d who replied that he "Iladn'[ TAT(EN it, but had been EXPOSED to it."

If you have read TIIE CAITIFORMA LIIMBER, MERCIIANT you have been exposecl to it every issue for a few months.

Xrour thousand. years ago-if I remember conectly-a man named. SOLOMON thought, of a temple; he had an IDEA. And he wrote a man named EIB,AM and. contraeted. for some MATEII,IAIJS to materialize that IDEA.

Hiram took a contract to bring the logs by raft to Joppa and deliver then on the job. There you'have the ffrst IJIIMBER, DEAIT, ereept the one of Noah ancl his Ark.

Solomon had the IDEA, d.rew the plans and speciffcations, bought the material from Hiram, and the temple was builtTIIE IDEA WAS MATER,IAIJIZED.

And today, few men remember the name of EIRAM, the man who furnished the MATERIAL. But all the world from its cradle knows the name df the man who had the IDEA. IIE is the ian of WISDOM. There is food for thought there, Mr. Merchant.

IDEAS are the most practical of all things. EVERYTIIING is founded orr an IDEA. Every great structure ls simply the visualization, the realization, of the IDEA of sueh a structure.

And it is just in the degree that we have IDEAS anrt IISE TEEM that you will gain and hold prosperity.

The only m&n on earth interested in lumber, is the LIIMBEdMAN, and what is his interest? To get ricl of it, as quickly and successfully as possible.

Yet we BIfY lumber, a4d we TALK lumber and. we TEINK lumber; and how in the world do we expeat our customers to get any other idea from us if that is the only one we have to give. Yet THAT isn't the sort of itlea that THEY are interested in.

The very FrRST idea the merchant nust get, is that he is not in business to sell the goods he carries in stock, but rather to EEI-rP SOMEONE BIII THEM. TIIAT'S salesmanship.

You never really SEITTT a bill of goods. 'Wtren a deal is made by which your goods and the other man's ahange ownership, it is beeause you have sold that man on the IDEA of buikling something with your goods.

Ee isn't interested in the TEING, but is vitally interested in the X'IINCTION of that thing.

Sell him the IDEA and hell do the material purchasing.

More building is done in YOIIR, town whenever you eell the people of your town on the IDEA of more and better buildings. Antl if you sey there is not much builtling in your town, you axe simply saying that the people of the town are NOT soltl on buiklings.

Every human on earth has the DESIRE for SITT:I-rTER, and when you sell hin on the IDEA of some particular form of shelter, he will buy the naterials.

But you can't sell what you haven't got, so in order to .sell IDEAS you must have some in stock; useful ones.

You must have the idea of your business before you can sell CONX'IDENCE and TRUST

You must have the idea of your eustomer's needs, before you can sell builcling THOUGETS.

A.d you must have the IDEA-the VISION---of youi community if you are to builcl that community; and builcting that community is YOIIR, job.

So reach out in every d.irection, for IDEAS; practieal, attractive, useful BUIITDING ideas. Read everything that will give them to you. Meet your fellow craftsmen and see what you can exchange with them.

Stock yourself with building IDEAS and buiklinC MATEBIAITS will be demanded of you.

Crdit is the rympathctic ncrye of cornmerce. Ttcrc rae FGn who do not kcep $itJr with thorc from whom thcy buy. And euch last only a fittle while. Others do not keep faith with thorc to whom they rell. And guch do not lart long. To build on the rock one murt keep himrelf absolutely unrullied; a,nd he must make a friend of ach and dl to whom he aells and from whom he buyr.