Part 6

Somehow this set me to thinking about your business and having a little spare time on my hands I thought I'd drop down to the main office of your company to renew old acquaintances and to listen to the gossip. When I got down there, the first thing that impressed me was the pruning that had been going on in the office force. I didn't see any strange faces to speak of on my visit, but I noticed the absence of a good many whose duties during the war period were no doubt dignified by the title of First and Second Pencil Sharpener and Envoy Extraordinary to His Flipness, the Office Boy, and other strange and sundry nonessentials that crept into all offices during the period of commercial hysteria that we have been recovering from in the last year.

Everybody had their coats off and were working under high pressure and I had considerable difficulty getting anyone to talk to me. I suppose it was out of respect for the fact that I have a red-headed son on the payroll, that finally got an audience for me with the Boss and we had a very pleasant chat. He told me that business was much better than it had been and took me down past the order desk where the old time activity was beginning to show again. He always takes me into his confidence in illustrating his points and I was particularly impressed by some of the letters from salesman managers that were coming in.

It was really amusing to a fellow like me, Red, who has been out of touch with the present situation to quite an extent, particularly his illustrations of the mental attitude of different managers. The majority of letters he showed me were written in an enthusiastic, optimistic tone and recited the strengthening of the market on certain items and were accompanied by contracts for futures, as well as a spot business, while some few were evidently written by managers who didn't know that the wholesale grocers had taken their last fall sugar losses and were still devoting their time to thinking up fancy alibis for poor business.

After so long a time, we got to talking about you Red, and I suppose he just wanted to tickle an old man's parental pride, but anyway he said some nice things about the way you were getting along. He told me something in confidence that I'm going to tip off to you, although he said you didn't know yet, but am sure he will not mind my telling you. He said that the first of next month you were to be brought into the Chicago office as one of his product sales managers. Just about that time he was called into a meeting and had to tell me good-bye hurriedly and as a result, I didn't get to find out just what job it was, or whether it was permanent, or just a tryout for you, but anyway, I went home walking on air for, regardless of what it is or whether or not it is a promotion, it certainly will be a change of base for you and will add to your already diversified experience.

Now Red, I've spent a lot of time in my life watching the antics (yes--I say that advisedly) of some of these product sales managers and there are several things I want to warn you of before you tackle the job. In the first place, the biggest mistake you could make would be to get the impression that all you had to do was to “direct” the efforts of the organization on the particular items you were following. Of course, you'll have some of that, but if you think you will only have to dictate to a good looking stenographer, you're as mistaken as a republican candidate for alderman in the first ward. And again, if on account of your army experience you imagine you're going to be top sergeant for the general sales manager and let him carry the responsibility you'd better stick pins in your chair and come out of it.

The only excuse for having a product sales manager is that the particular product in question will have a “daddy” in the main office, instead of having to be nurtured a la incubator and grow up like Topsy. Don't think for a minute that the general sales manager is going to do the thinking for you, or lay down a set of instructions for you to follow out. I take it that you're getting more than twelve dollars a week now and if so, they expect you to be “creative” and use that torch-thatched swelling on top of your shoulders for something else beside a hat-rack.

Now get this clear to start with--everything the company manufactures in your line is YOUR product. Yours to sell--it doesn't belong to the factory, the branch house, the jobber, the retailer or the consumer. It's YOURS--the weight of responsibility is on your shoulders from the time it comes out of the retort until the can is peacefully reposing on the breeze-swept side of the hillock in the city dumping-ground. If you think you can sit down and dictate a “pep” letter to managers and salesmen, wave your arms and plant Old Glory rhetorically in the azure blue of the heavens until some temperamental manager becomes so moved by your chin music that he orders a carload--if you think you have then accomplished something worth crowing over, you better go back to calling on the retail trade. Those goods are yours, Red--you've only then started them in the channel of distribution and the REAL WORK for your think-tank has only commenced. You must think up schemes--selling plans--watch stocks and keep them moving--give advice and counsel to your managers--in a word, you must be the dynamo that generates the sell-juice and believe me, it's your job to see there are no broken connections.

There are a lot of things about a product sales manager's job that can be well or poorly done, but I cannot begin to comment on all of them in this letter. Am sorry I didn't get to talk just a few minutes longer to your Boss, for I'm curious to know whether they thought you were so all-fired good at your other job that they gave you this, or whether somebody just left the gate open and you sneaked in.

I haven't told your mother about this yet, so I suggest that you write her a letter and just mention it casual-like. After I get her comments I'll write you some more of my observations, which I imagine you relish about as much as salt in your ice cream.

Your loving, “DAD.”

_Dad Gets a Lesson from a Trip to the Farm_

Dear Hal:

Every year about this time I get a sort of hankerin' for yellow-legged chicken and striped gravy--you know, Red--not the kind you see on the bill-of-fare in the cafes which they jokingly term “spring” chicken, without going on record as to just what spring; not the kind that's cooked all in one piece and tastes like the pet chicken that Grover Cleveland raised when he was in the White House; but rather that old-fashioned, unjointed, juicy, tender, fried-brown country chicken that you're sure first saw the light of day about May 1st, this year.

Well, anyway, Mother and I piled into the old gas buggy last Sunday and went out in the country just in order to satisfy that craving. You know, Red, I never had a particularly strong leaning toward the farm or anything that goes with it, with the exception of an occasional visit made with the sole intent of just gorging myself on the good things to eat that the farmer always seems to find right handy without having to haggle with the grocer over the price. Not that I thought I was better than the farmer--not that I didn't appreciate that he was the backbone of the nation, and this and that and this and that, but somehow or other I just never did fall for those poetic rhapsodies and popular songs that usually tell in a high falsetto how dear the old meadow and pigpen were to the heart of a prodigal son. You know I always had the secret hunch that all of that patter was mostly bunk and was written only for commercial purpose to be sold to and raved over by some little mouse of a shop-girl that was trying to carve out a career as a counter-jumper in a department-store basement or by some lonesome hick that had come into the city expecting to conquer it and Cook County in three months and was having trouble to rustle shoes for himself on his salary as a bus boy in a one-arm chair feed-bag oasis.

I have made the mistake of looking on the farm as a sort of necessary evil where they just put the seed in the ground every spring and then let nature do its worst and the reason I didn't wake up sooner was because I'd been stopping too much at these near-farms where they advertise chicken dinners for two dollars and have an electric piano and a toddle parlor just back of the dining room.

On the way down to the place I was going, I drove up to a pretty likely looking farm with a big red barn and went in. It was a fancy stock farm and much to my surprise they had electric lights, radiators and an electric fan over each stall. They had some blooded cows in there that they milked four times a day--the attendants were all dressed in white like barbers in a loop shop and the only thing that was missing was the blonde manicurist. Even the pigs were washed and primped up and the thing that struck me so funny was that the manager in his conversation actually showed that by running it that way, it paid dividends on the investment. To make a long story short, I went along on my journey impressed with the fact that the fellow who ran that place wasn't just indulging a fad or hobby but rather was making a success because of brains and because he knew his business. That started me thinking and when I arrived at the farm that had agreed to feed me for a day I was viewing things in a new light.

When I stretched out on the cool back porch after a meal that can be gotten only on a real farm--out there where the very sky seems to come a little closer, where the traffic officer's whistle would be sacrilegious and the smell of burning gasoline was only a memory--I fell to talking business with my host. I found that I had this farmer business all wrong. True, it was a hard life and a gamble with the elements; true, the price of farm products had been taking a merry toboggan; but I found a spirit of optimism--a studied forgetfulness of the drab part of it--a highly scientific and intelligent working out of a problem that formerly I had guessed was only happenstance. My host had a reason for planting corn on the north eighty and oats on the east quarter. The rations for his live stock were as carefully planned as the contents of a baby's nursing bottle. In a word--he knew his business and as a result these minor factors of price declines and other annoyances were only an incident in the successful carrying out of a well defined plan.

Naturally, Red, I got to thinking of you and your work and I wondered if you were thoroughly impressed with the necessity of your knowing your business as you have never known it before. I wondered if you could tell the Boss if he asked you right quick the price your competitor was getting for every one of the staple products in your line. I wondered if you had a good knowledge of which branches had too big a stock of certain items and just what you were really doing to change that situation. I wondered if you considered your slow stock report--your Bible--and the thing to really worry over. I wondered if you knew how much the plants had of your product--just how it was moving and just when you should recommend a packing order, and then if such recommendation were made whether it were based on it being the time of the year when the raw material was the most reasonable.

I wondered if you appreciated that the successful marketing of your own product rested largely on your shoulders--yours for the planting--yours to generate enthusiasm over--yours to be posted on as no one else in the organization.

Coming home that night I was telling Mother of the lessons that the day had taught. I asked her if she thought that even you might not glean a lesson from the farmer. It was funny, Red, to hear her. I don't know why except that to her, like all mothers, you're still just her baby boy--either that, or else you've been practicing your salesmanship on her, for she thinks that you're 'way ahead of me on the things I've been wondering about you. She actually believes that you could take the man that first packed food in cans and teach him something. Of course I didn't argue with her because I never won an argument with Mother, but I just made up my mind that I'd drop you a little note and tell you that if you didn't put the old one-two on the jaw of that problem of yours by being the best posted man on your line in the whole office, that it was going to make a serious dent in the confidence of

Your loving, “DAD.”

P. S. The only pessimist I found on the farm, Red, was a bull-frog that croaked at night in the creek. He reminded me of a certain type of salesman--he didn't sell anybody anything.

_Dad Takes an Interest in the Boy's Big Sales Contest_

Dear Hal:

Since you have been sending me copies of all the circulars and bulletins gotten out by the General Sales department, as well as your own department, I have been kept pretty well informed as to what your firm was doing and planning to do and I don't mind telling you that I'm as interested as a kid on December twenty-third, in this latest stunt you're pulling--this national convention of leader salesmen campaign.

There are several inferences that I draw from the literature that's been put out on it so far and I think I see some angles to it that may have escaped you and I figure you might be interested in just how this all looks to an innocent bystander such as myself, so I'm going to exercise my prerogative of commenting copiously, as 'twere.

Before you get ready to tell me to keep my comments to myself, I want to tell you about an introduction I once had to a brother knight of the grip. It was in my early days of order-teasing that I met up with a prune peddler on my territory by the name of George Shifflett. George was one of those typical grocery salesmen of the old school. Happy, well formed, jovial, a hale fellow well met, fairly radiating good fellowship and, at the same time, a salesman plus. I was called in to a strange city, and before going I told George about it and mentioned that time would perhaps hang rather heavily on my hands. George sat down and wrote a little note of introduction to a friend of his, whom he said would give me an entree to anything and everything in that town. Although the letter was not sealed, I didn't think to read it, but as soon as I arrived I hunted up George's friend and presented my credentials.

His friend was also a peddler of the George type. He immediately opened up the letter and this is what it said: “This is my friend--treat him kindly and often.” Just how well George's friend obeyed this admonition is neither here nor there, and there's no use rubbing it in by referring to the customs of ancient times, suffice to say that the only point in the story in connection with my relations with you is that in the comments I am continually making on your business, I am merely trying to treat you “Kindly and often”--not in the way George's friend treated me, but I hope in a more beneficial and less bibulous manner.

But, to get down to this leader salesmen campaign--I naturally begin first to look for holes in such a plan, having gone through a good many campaigns myself, but for the life of me I cannot find any in your plan. It's about the finest thing I've ever seen. You know the trouble with most national campaigns is that you have one house, or one bunch of salesmen, competing with another on a product on which the selling conditions vary greatly, one part of the country with another. But, in this one the salesmen merely compete with the salesmen at the local branch, in an effort to determine just what man in each class is the better salesman on a fairly wide line of products. I cannot think of anything that would create more rivalry among your salesmen than your plans, for the convention program that is laid out is both recreative and educational and the big point that I'm sure will not be overlooked by the men is the opportunity it affords the winners to become better and more personally acquainted with the men who direct their movements and destinies.

You know, when I used to be a salesman I looked on the Chicago office as being only just a little lower than the pearly gates--almost as unattainable and a place that could only be reached in the way of a visit by the manager and an occasional special salesman. I wondered how I could ever be picked for a better job when the fellows who do the picking had never seen me. It took me quite a while to break into that holy of holies, and as I look back at it now, it seems I must have had a lucky star for I finally got in, but I had to wait a good many years and I didn't have the opportunity to win an introduction such as is planned for the winning leader salesmen in your campaign.

Now Red, listen to me--the success of this campaign doesn't depend entirely on the amount of enthusiasm that your department sales manager and the branch house managers generate. Not at all--they'll have the enthusiasm in sufficient quantity all right--just leave that to the managers and salesmen.

This campaign will be won by one thing--plans--Red, that's the word--plans. No salesman is going to kid himself into winning this campaign. The fellow who wins will be the chap who first realizes that there has been a change come over business in the last few weeks. He'll have a good idea of just who he's gunning for and his list will include every merchant that has hinges on his door. He'll have samples and selling arguments on each of the campaign items and he'll not make the mistake of underestimating the amount of goods that it's possible to sell each customer. Last, but not least, for the full length of the campaign he'll be up in the morning before the proverbial rooster has a chance to crow, and like the sign in the drug store window, he'll “work while you sleep.”

Red, it's your job to lead. Are you giving those boys the suggestions and selling arguments that it's your place to supply? You know the finest compliment that can be paid you at the convention is to have not one, but several of those snappy winners slide up to you and tell you just how much help you really gave in those plans.

Now, don't give me the “busy signal.” Of course, you're busy--why shouldn't you be, but listen Red--this campaign is the most important thing that your company is putting on this year--make it your first and most important duty--lead 'em, Red, lead 'em!

You know, Boy, every time I think of your job and your problems, I'm reminded of the difference between a real live salesman in a clothing store and one of the wax dummies in the window of that same store. Both are salesmen after a fashion, and the poor wax dummy that sits behind the plate glass all day is doing his best and helping to sell goods in a measure, but Red, you never bought a suit of clothes of one of 'em in your life, now did you? No, you bet you didn't, but the boy with the Elgin movement and the snappy sales argument, behind the counter teased many an order away from you, now didn't he? All right--now the thought I'd like to leave with you just before I take off my shoes and make a midnight raid on the ice-box is:

That department sales manager chair that you're sitting in was never intended for the outer casing of a mummy--shake 'em up, Red, and make it snappy!

Your loving, “DAD.”

_Dad Surrenders When the Boy Lands the Big Job_

Dear Hal:

For once in my life, I confess to you that I'm starting a letter that I don't know how to write.

Mother and I just finished reading your telegram that announced you had just been made general sales manager of your company. While it was not so much of a surprise in one way--it has been a long while since you received your last promotion and naturally we knew you would not be satisfied until you had climbed even further up the ladder--still, I am somehow differently impressed with this last elevation of yours than I have with your previous steps.

I don't know how I could better illustrate my feeling than to say that when you were a little fellow about ten I started in to give you what I thought at the time was training in the fundamentals of the different stages of boyhood. I can look back now and see where I used to hold myself up to you as a sort of example. Yes, I'll admit now that I used to paint the Old Man as being quite some fellow in his youth. While you seemed impressed from year to year as the so-called schooling progressed and were interested in my teachings, I realized finally when your voice began to change and a peach-skin fuzz began to form on your upper-lip that you weren't a little boy any more. Altho I recognized your growth, not until your twenty-first birthday did I realize that I must needs pursue a different plan, for lo--my once little lad had suddenly grown to manhood and if you'll remember I ceased advising you against the pitfalls that the boy must guard against and began talking he-man language from then on.

Similarly, from the time you started as a salesman for your company, until the present, I have taken a keen delight in listening--sometimes with a good deal of patience, but withal a great relish--to your trials and problems as they came to you along the same old road that I myself had traveled and I kidded myself into thinking, at least, that probably I was doing you some good by tearing pages from my experience in the past and applying them to your problems, and I never realized until just tonight that like the other experience, I had been so busy being a pal of yours that momentarily your gradual growth had escaped me and I must now look upon you in a new light--as being the equal, if not the superior, in experience, knowledge and acumen of the Old Man who's tried to tutor you along the way.

General sales manager--Well, Boy, Howdy! My hat is off to you, Red, with a couple of Salaams! Needless to say, I knew you'd get there and again, needless to say I know you'll fill the chair.

Just for tonight, Red, now listen--just for tonight I'm going to forget momentarily your title and lapse into the old vein. After this, if you insist, I'll call you Mister Red, or any other title you wish, but I just cannot resist the temptation of still imagining you to be the same old impetuous, impulsive, don't give-a-dam Redhead who used to put wrinkles into my forehead, and I'm going to talk to you accordingly.

No, I never was a general sales manager, but I know all about how the job should be run, just like Harry Sparks knows all about raising babies--he never had any. Red, did you ever see that play, “If I Were King”? No? Well, neither did I, but I imagine it's something like the way I'm looking at this new job of yours. I can well imagine your feelings, anyway--especially these first few days after your appointment.

I know you're leaning over backwards trying to act natural in this new job of yours. Every fellow who comes up to wish you well you sort of look over mentally and wonder if his good wishes have a real kick, or if they're about one-half of one per cent. You are painfully aware that there are those in the organization who think you have a horse-shoe in your hip pocket, while others wonder just how you got that way. One minute you wonder if you look and act so that no one could suspect a swelling of your hat rest and the next moment you're wondering if the Boss doesn't wonder if you're sufficiently dignified for the place. All-in-all, Old Top, I'll bet you're in a peculiar state of mind and will remain so until the odor of mothballs and the price tag wears off.