When new goods are received, they can be brought to the notice of those customers whose purchases indicate that they are most likely to be interested, without disturbing the other cards.
Indexing Customers' Cards. The best manner of indexing customers' and prospects' cards depends on the size of the list. A list of a few hundred names is best indexed alphabetically. A large list should be indexed geographically—according to location.
The geographical index consists of index cards printed with the names of the states, and sets of indexes bearing the names of the cities and towns in the different states. The state indexes are arranged in alphabetical order, and back of these the town indexes are filed alphabetically. The cards are filed back of the town indexes, these also being arranged alphabetically. When the number of names in a city is large, the cards are further subdivided by alphabetical indexes. In states where the list is small, an alphabetical index can be substituted for the town index, the letters representing towns; names of customers in Alton would be filed back of the A index, those in Springfield, back of the S index.
An advantage of the geographical index is that a definite territory can be covered by the letter salesman, or the personal salesman can go over the list and find out the condition of the trade in his own territory.
PERSONAL SALESMANSHIP DIVISION
Though the volume of business secured through the medium of the mails is increasing at a rapid rate, the bulk of the business of the country is done by personal salesmen.
Leaving out of the discussion the question of retail salesmanship, the personal salesmanship plan—the employment of traveling salesmen—is the least expensive method of selling goods at wholesale. To sell certain low-priced specialties to consumers, the mail order plan is sometimes best, for the reason that it is necessary to reach a large number of possible buyers to find a few actual buyers. This can be done at less expense by letters than by traveling salesmen.
More is being learned about how to use the mails to promote business—how to make the follow-up system an assistant to the salesmen. The manufacturer whose goods are sold to the trade, by salesmen, is learning how to build up his own business by assisting the dealer to sell his goods. He advertises to interest the consumer, he follows up the consumer and the dealer, and in the end assists his own salesman to sell more goods.
Much good literature has been written on the subject of salesmanship, plenty of advice about being systematic in his work has been given the traveling man, but very little has been written on the subject of making sales records and reports of assistance to both the house and the salesman. Some suggestions on this phase of the question are made in this discussion.
Routing Salesmen. How to route his salesmen to the best advantage is one of the important problems of the sales manager. He must first decide how often the territory should be covered, then the extent of the territory he will attempt to work, and the number of men required. When this has been done, the territory of each man must be laid out, and a route which will enable him to cover the territory with the smallest mileage, must be selected. The territory should not be larger than a man can cover in a specified time, but large enough to require all of his time.