A Dealer without Plans Is Like a Tailor without Patterns

A retail lumber dealer not properly equipped to serve his trade with plans to show the various buildings and building additions into which he desires, or is able to convert his stock of building material, is somewhat like unto a ship without a rudd.er, but very much more like unto a tailor without patterns.

WE HAVE ABSOIIUTEIIY NO R,ESPECT WHATEVER FOR THE RETAIII IJUMBER DEAIJER, WHO, WITH THE OPPOR,TUNITIES THAT HAVE BEEN OFFERED HIM, HAS I'AII-/ED TO EQUIP HIMSEIJF TO SERVE HIS TRADE BY FUR,NISHING THEM WITH THE IDEAS AS WEIJIJ AS THE MATERIAIJ, fOT BUITIDING.

We would like to see the building trade of the entire country edueated by direct advertising to the consumer, to such a point that they would as decidedly refuse to buy building material from the man not equipped as a building tailor, as they would to buy clothing material from the would-be tailor who had no patterns or building ideas for the making of their clothes.

The wagon yard is a relic of the past. The sooner it passes out of existence, the better. The salvation of the building business d.epends on whether or not the professional builders are going to keep up with the times, and furnish such service as other lines of industry are furnishing.

The retail lumber dealer who deserves to survive and prosper, is he who desires, aspires, and perspires to make himself the BUILDING AUTHORITY of his territory, who equips himself and then labors intelligently and ambitiously to be, not only the material merchant, but the architect, contractor, builder, and building SPECIALIST in that entire neck of the woods.

Back to the tall and uncut timbers with the man who believes that retail lumber yard should be a drab and dreary looking storehouse of ill-kept building materials in some God-forsaken part of the town; who believes that it is his job to keep his stock of materials assorted and balanced and be prepared to serve it out to such people as happen to decide that they need lumber, and then drive up after it; who uses neither brains, energy, salesmanship, publicity, or any of the other powerful assets in his business, that God gave him for his right hand bowers.

The real retail lumber dealer is too big a fellow for that kind of a job. Instead. of being a leech on the body social, HE desires to be SOME PUMPKINS locally. IIE casts about him to see what he may do to improve his business. And the ffrst thing he discovers is that the live and ambitious retail lumber dealers who are making a howling suc. cess of their affairs, are those who have realized that the old-time wagon yard has served its time, and that a bigger and better field has spread itself before the eyes of the professional building man.

The ambitious, up-to-date retail lumberman of the future has a ffeld that he is, and has every right to be, PROUD of. FIe runs an attractive BUILDING STORE. He locates it with other attractive business houses, and he strives to make the HOME BUIITDING STORE as attractive to the observer and the visitor, as the stores in which other, and much less precious commodities, are sold. IIe equips himself with plans, pictures, ideas and suggestions, so that he can SHOW his prospective customer what he has to sell in the line of BUILDINGS-noI IJUMBER. He realizes that the public is NOT interested. in lumber, as a r&w material, but is absolutely WIIID about lumber in its finishecl condition, in the shape of well built, well appointed, well painted and finished HOMES, BARNS, GARAGES, PORCHES, FENCES. INTER,IOR, HOME IMPR,OVEMENTS, ETC., ETC., ETC.

He goes about his home town as the missionary goes about the land of the heathen-preaching, preaching, and TEACHING, the better uses of lumber.

The poorest argument that we have heard against the idea of having the retail lumbermen equip themselves with plan book systems, and with plans and pictures generally, for helping interest their trade in building, is the argument that -('Our trade does not build that kind of houses."

Otr' COURSE THEY DON'T. That is exactly rvhy the dealer needs the plan books. He needs to EDUCATE his trade, to devise ways and means for improving the TASTE of his trade, and incidentally the architecture of the residence districts of his community.

Your competitors all have stocks of MATERIALS. The way you can get the edge on them is to be better stocked with IDEAS.

Certainly a dealer does not need plan books and modern building ideas, if all he is inclined to do is to continue to sell his trad.e the kind of homes that they have been in the habit of buying. But the modern retailer of lumber is becoming a building SPECIAI-rIST. He is looking about him, discovering and listing the building need.s and shortcomings of his neighborhood, and then getting busy to remedy the situation.

'When he remedies the situation by interesting his town in a better class of homes, and in improving their old homes to make them more really homelike, he of course, is going to improve his own business at the same time, as it is right and just that he should.

Even though there were no extra money in its for himself, we do not see how a man with ambition could sit supinely still, and continue to help the people of his town build square-cornered, narrow-porched, small-lvindowed, box-car houses, such as they have been building for the past generation. His professional pride ought to be enough to incite him to great efforts to show his trade the difference between HOUSES and IIOMES.

Your customer, when his shoe supply gets low, goes to the local shoe store, and buys a completed, fitted, guaranteed, ready-to-wear pair of shoes. He buys a hat that is ready made, fitted to his head, and which he has admired in the glass on his own cranium. He buys a suit of clothes fitted and read.y for wear. He buys other commodities the same way. HE GETS SERVICE FROM THESE DEAI_./ERS.

BUT HOW ABOUT A HOME ? HOW ABOUT A SI]EEPING PORCH? HOW ABOUT A BUII-.iT-IN BUFFET, OR, A SCORE OF OTHER, THINGS MADE F'ROM BUIIJDING MATERIAIJ?

DOES HE GET THAT SORT OF SERVICE? IF HE DOES, HE'S MIGHTY I/UCKY, F'OR, THERE ARE FEW TOWNS WHERE HE CAN, EVEN NOW.

But he SHOULD be able to get that same service, anywhere. It is WRONG, dead wrong, for the prospective purehaser of a building or a part of a building, to have to go to an architect for a PLAN, a dealer for MATERIAL, a paint store for PAINT, a hardware store for HARDWARD, and have to do business with carpenters, painters, roofers, tin-smiths, etc., if he wants an addition to his home.

IT IS THE DEAIJER'S JOB TO FURNISH HIM THE DEIJIVERED BUII]DING OR ADDITIONS, SAVE HIM THE TROTIBIJE OF DOING ANYTHING BUT O. K. THE PIJANS AND SIGN AN ORDER.

And when the day comes when the citizen of this and

2599 every other town of the land-AND THAT DAY IS COMING JUST AS SUR,E AS GOD MADE IIITTITE GREEN APPITES-knows just where he can go for a new home, or barn, or porch, or any other item of completed building, just the same as he can get a pair of shoes or a suit of clothes-when THAT day comes, and not until then, the retail lumber business wiII come into its own.

(And take it from us, when that day arrives, he will buy his finished building in an attractive, well lighted, plate glass front store, just as he does an automobile,)

The reason why thousands of live retail lumbermen in the United States during the past two years have bought plan book systems and put them to work, is because wide-awake dealers have realized. in advance that these modern plans are what their trade DID want, even though that trade did not quite know it, and had to be awakened to the fact.

The building trade will respect the dealer who introduces new and interesting ideas in the building line in his tenitory. They learn to respect the tailor who keeps up with the fashions, the milliner who knows and sells the latest styles in hats, the dentist who keeps in touch with the newest discoveries for doctoring the teeth, the doctor who keeps up with the march of progress in medicine, and the lawyer whose mind takes account of decisions of legal interest to his clients.

Is it then unreasonable, that your towns-people will look to YOU for building ideas, and will respect your business ability, and subscribe to your business ideas, r'rhen they find that you are keeping up with the mareh of progress.

There are styles and seasons in building, just as there are in wearing apparel. You can't, you MUSTN'T expect your trade to do the building THINKING, dig up the new building ideas for the community. They expect yOU to do so, and as you live up to their expeetations, so shall you prosper.

A man without a plan, is a man without an aim; and a man without an aim is rarely successful. A retailer without plans is far worse off than an ordinary man without definite living plans, because PLANS and IDEAS are what the building trade must look for from him.