Better Selling Does Succeed

By PAUL S. COI.LIER, secretcrry, Merchcrndising Institute oI Nctlioncl Retcil Lumber Declers Associction" Inc.

A couple of days after Thanksgiving Day, this year, a man in a lumber yard in Missouri picked up his pencil and wrote a little note of thanks for something he had just discovered.

"I see now'," he wrote, "why I've lost deals in the past that I could have made if I had learned this lesson long ago."

What he u'as talking about was one basic idea that he had dug out. for himself, in his study of Tested Selling Methods, the sales development program which the Mer' chandising Institute introduced at the beginning of 1939.

The Institute's program has now been in active operation for almos't two full years. Perhaps this is a good time to take stock of what has been accomplished. so far.

The record of Tested Selling Methods is one in whi'ch the industry can take honest pride; it is a recor'd of promises kept and results obtainecl. Two years ago, rvhen the program was first annottnced, s'ome plain, straight-forrvard promises were made.

We said, "It \,\'ill help the retail lumberman land sales that he otherwisd would lose."

Thousands of lumbermen, today, know that this statement was literally true, and that their own use of Tested Selling Methods has helped them land many a cleal that would have been lost without this help. Today, Tested Selling Methods has "alumni" in every state in the lJnion. and in alm,ost every province of Canada; and they know, from their own experience, that the sort of selling it describes has won more business for them.

We said, "It will hel'p get the business at fair prices."

This promise, too, has been kept. And it was an important promise. More sales volume, of the sort that some dealers had been getting during the years since 1929, wouldn't have been'much value to them. Profitless volurne, no matter how big, wouldn't have helped the retail dealer.

So what Tested Selling Methods set out to describe was the kind of selling that wins business at fair prices by earning fair prices. The result became apparent immediately. Right from the start,'dealers who had enrolled in this program began to write to the Institute to say that better selling had begun to make it possible for them to sell without cutting prices.

We said, too, "Tested Selling Methods will increase your sales volume."

On this point, the record is plain and unmistakable. More than nine men out of ten-9|/o of the retail dealers enrolled in Tested Selling Methods-say "Yes" when we ask them if it has increased their sales.

Meanwhile, the success of this sales development program has been recognized not only within our industry but 'also outside of it. Sales Management Magazine, a feu' months ago, featured Tested Selling Methods as one of the outstanding sales-training plans in the whole field of business. The American Trade Association Executives, during 194O, picked Tested Selling Methods as one of the seven best association activities of the year.

But what counts most, with those who have had the closest contact rvith the creation and conduct of the whole efiort, is the constant, steady flow of letters and comments from the men whose opinion weighs heaviest-the retail lumbermen who have enrolled in Tested Selling Methods and have found out, for themselves, that it has helped them to succeed. These letters and comments come in all the time. There are more than 2,000 of them in the files, now -voluntary statements from lumbernren in all parts of the United States and Canada-everythinq from a simple ('OK" to a six-page letter of detailed explanation of the results the program has produced.

Why has this program been successful?

The answer is very simple, "Because better selling does succeed."

I remember a letter from a man in a yard in Florida, who said, "I tried using one of the paragraphs in Section 4 of Tested Selling Methods, on one of my customers today' And it actually worked."

Well. why sh'ouldn't it have r,vorked? There wasn't anything theoretical about the paragraph he picked out and ,sed. It came straight from the written record of a piece of good selling done by a lumber dealer in Illinois' It had worked when the Illinois lumberman used it. And it u'orked again, in Florida.

The wor,d that ought to be underlined, in the name of this sales development program is the word Tested'

WhY Tested Selling Methods Work

Before a single word of the eigl-rt Sections of Tested Selling Methods was put down on paper' men who have spent years learning to recognize good selling when they see it went all over the United States, hunting for good selling of lumber and building materials. They visited all sorts of yards, in small towns and in cities, and listened to the way the selling was done.

The result is that the eight sections of Tested Selling Methods, which go out one a month, to every man who enrolls, are the boiled-down essence of thousands of pages of records of actual selling-the best selling that could be found in this industrY.

And when each section was written, it was submitted in manuscript form to a review board of experienced, successful retail lumber and building material dealers, who passed on every word, before anything further was done'

Someone once sat down with a piece of paper and a pencil and figured out that if an individual dealer set out to do exactly what was done in gathering the facts used for Tested Selling Methods, he'd have to spend close to two

Port Orford Cedar

(f,bo Lnowa cs Whltc Cedc q f.crrroo Cypccer) Lumber

years, traveling from Coast to Coast, North and South, East and West.

That's quite true. But when he got through with that two years, he wouldn't have had Tested Selling Methods. He would have had a lot of ideas, facts, and impressions, gained in visiting yards of all kinds. Some of those facts an,d ideas and impressions would be clear in his mind-some would be blurred and indistinct-and a lot of them wouldn't be seen in the right perspective. His two years would have given him a lot of valuable experience, but they wouldn't have given him what Tested Selling Methods gives him.

For one thing, he wouldn't have the work that was done after those facts had been gathered. He wouldn't have the months of study that went into analyzing the field reports -examining the methods that all sorts of men were using in all sorts of yards, under all sorts of con,ditions-weighing one selling method against other selling methods-deciding which methods worked best and oftenest.

It took an expert, trained staff of experienced men almost a year to do this one part of the work.

Those men weren't interested in theories about salesmanship. They wanted to know what worked best-in the actual, everyday selling of lumber and building materials.

What's more, they weren't interested in boosting any special type of lumber yard operation. They had no axe to grind. All they wanted to do was to find out what really worked best in all kinds of yards, under all types of sales folicies, with all types of customers.

Today, you can see the result in one thing that is said oftenest, about Tested Selling Methods by the dealers who have enrolled in it. They say, "It has helped our relations with our customers. It has given us a better understanding cf our customer's problems and desires and needs. It has - shown us how to develop a better relationship and a closer and more friendly relationship, with every customer we serve-contractor, home-builder, farmer or consumer.

There is no accident about this result.

From the very beginning, the men who were preparing Tested Selling Methods recognized that one of the big obstacles we had to face was the lumber dealer's rightful fear of using selling methods that would antagonize his customers.

In the past, this obstacle had kept many a lumber dealer from making even the slightest efiort to become a better salesman. Many a dealer had said to himself, "I get most of my business from a grou'p of regular customers. I won't have anything to do with the sort of selling that would offend them."

Those of us who had a hand in preparing Tested Selling Methods said, "That's entirely right. The retail dealer's good relations with his customers are his biggest single asset. This asset is often worth more than his whole stock of lumber and building materials. So let's see how he can develop still better relations with those customers of his."

T'he result is that today, when we ask the men enrolled in Tested Selling Methods to tell us what is the one biggest benefit they have secured from it, the thing they mention often is "Better relations with our customers."

And to any man with much experience in the lumber and material business, this means "M.ore sales and better profits."

For a good many years, the retail lumber and building material business has been sadly handicapped by one traditional belief-the belief that sales volume "depends on business ,conditions and we can't do much about it."

Some retail lumbermen still feel that way about the business to which they have devoted their lives. But meanwhile, a lot of other men, in that same business, have been demonstrating that something can be done about it-that sales volume can be improved by the dealer himself, if he just knows how and has the ambition to do it. And also-the fair prices and better profits can be won.

What Tested Selling Methods has been doing, these past two years, has been to make the successul methods of successful'dealers available to every retail dealer.

So far, almost 4,500 men have taken advantage of this national, cooperative program. More are coming in on it, every month, and month after month.

And what they are discovering, for themselves, can be summed up in four short words: 'rBetter Selling Does Succeed."

Charlie Schmitt In Army

Charles J. Schmitt, salesman for U. S. Plywood Corporation in San Francisco, who was a U. S. Army Reserve Captain, has bben called for service and is now in Georgia.