A Manager is Known by Number of Credit Ratings in His File

An Editorial to Its Managers by Thompson Yards, Inc., lllith Some Remarks of Our Owu

The quoted portion of this article is from the September issue of ' 'Thompson Yards Ink'', issued by Thompson Yard.s, Inc., of Minneapolis, Minn., to two hundred. managers and several hundred assistant managers.

'We agree with all of the statements mad.e. But why limit the information concerning each of these prospects to this credit information? The card that gives this information might just as well give all the additional information that the firm can use concerning the prospect, his possessions, his buildings, and his building needs.

The most valuable possesion of a retail lumberman is a list of all his builcling prospects. Many retailers have such lists. But the overwhelming majority have NOT. yet it is much more important to the success of his business than his stock of building materials. Likewise, it is harder to get. There are hundreds of people that will sell him building material, but his prospect list must come from his own ingenuity and labor, mixed with keen intelligence thought- fully applied to the proper making of the list.

The "Ink" story is as follows:

A manager must make sales. He must do more than this,. however. Ile must collect for that material which he sells.

It is the height of folly to permit people to come and haul merchandise away without making definite arrangements with them as to when it will be paid for.

Tt is not enough, however, to simply make such arrangeuents.

The manager must know IN ADVANCE whether the customer with whom he makes such arrangements is able tb futfill his agreements.

Many people will go through the motions of making agreements of this nature when they know full well that it is not going to be possible for them to keep them.

They only HOPE that they will be able to keep them.

They are buying on IIOPE.

'We cannot afford to sell on HOpE.

'We cannot pay salaries with HOPE.

A manager would be very angry if the company wrote him a note and said in it that they HOPED that they woulcl be able to pay his salary for August a few months later. trfanagers then go out into the highways and the byways in search for customers who have good. credit. ft necessarily is the ffrst requirement of a manager that he know every person in his locality that is entitled to credit and just how much credit that he is entitled to. ft can't be d.one.

IIe would be just as perturbect if the company sent him a letter in which it deffnitely agreed to pay his August salary later on in the year and. was ff','ancially able to keep the agreement.

More and more concerns afe beginning to eliminate the IIOPE element from their sales.

'We did so a long time ago.

Instructions to local managers are "Sell any one you want to on our regular terms PROVIDED YOU CAN PROVE TIIAT THEIR, CR,EDIT IS GOOD."

This is a perfectly natural procedure.

It is safe, sane and sensible.

It would seem foolish to try to do it,otherwise.

Suppose that we were visiting a yard manager and we would say to him: "fs there any one around. here who enjoys a credit rating to the extent that you would care to sell him?"

How would it sound if he would say that he dicl not know ! Or if he answered., that there must be but that he dicl not know who they were !

If he does not lrnow this he can never make a success of running a yard.

He will be aflat fizzle.

A manager who does not know his locality in this manner might just as well hope to run a lumber yard successfully in Arabia !

It requires but a brief investigation to enable a manager to d.etermine who is entitlecl to credit and who is not. He makes his Recommend and attaches the proof in the form of a Pencil Abstract.

The Credit Department then OK,s or rejects the Recom_ mend.