PLAN No. 460. DID DISTRIBUTING
An Illinois man, living in a city of 25,000 people, had noticed that much of the distributing done in his town was very poorly executed. He had seen boys entrusted with expensive and valuable literature, chuck great masses of it under culverts, into sewers and other out-of-the-way places, and then collect as though having done honest work.
He knew of several druggists, and retailers in various lines, who let tons of advertising matter, sent them by manufacturers and wholesalers for distribution, lie in the stores and go to waste because the retailers were too busy or too negligent to have it properly distributed where it would do the most good.
He therefore called upon these people and offered to do their distributing in an honest and capable manner, at a very reasonable price, assuring them that it was to their own interest to have this advertising matter get before the public as early and as thoroughly as possible.
Most of the firms, knowing him to be reliable, gave him their work, and almost immediately noticed a marked increase in the calls for the particular goods mentioned in the literature. Improvement came from proper distribution, and they were glad to contract with him by the year to do all that class of work for them, at a stipulated price per month. Altogether, these contracts netted him nearly $100 a month, and left him spare time for other kinds of work.
PLAN No. 461. A SUCCESSFUL SELLING PLAN
Many of the readers of this book will select one or more of the plans herein set forth, and no doubt some of them will require local canvassing to make a success. But a great many people, after having an article ready for sale, will not know just how to start selling. In order to aid these people in disposing of what they have for sale, we give herewith the selling plan employed by a very successful salesman in Buffalo:
He was selling a fine massage cream, nicely put up in a dainty jar, and bearing a very fancy label. The jars held one ounce, and sold for 50 cents each. Instead of rushing up to a house and asking the lady who answered the bell if she wanted to buy some good massage cream, he provided himself with a nice premium, such as an ornamental clock, a set of knives and forks, a silver spoon or bon-bon dish—something really valuable, yet which at wholesale cost him only 60 or 75 cents, but would retail at $1.50 to $2. He also carried a number of self-addressed postal cards, with room on the back for ten names and addresses, under a request from ten ladies to call upon each with a jar of the cream. He also had several jars of the cream along with him.
When a lady came to the door, he would show her the premium first, and inform her that he was giving it away. This, of course, interested her. Then he would show her the jar of massage cream, give her one of the postal cards, and tell her that if she would buy one of the jars of cream, and have ten of her lady friends write their names and addresses on the self-addressed postal, and mail it to him, he would give her the premium. This caught nearly all of them, for the lady got the 50-cent jar of cream and a $1.50 to $2 premium for 50 cents, and for getting ten other ladies to sign an order for one jar each. Then when the ten orders came in on the card, he called with the premium and another card for each and made it a sort of endless chain. This isn’t canvassing, it’s planning.