Letters From an Old Time Salesman to His Son

by Roy Lester James

For the past few months I have allowed your mother to do all the letter-writing from this end; in fact, Mother has become a pretty important factor around here since she has been given the vote. She insists that the home be in her name and my insurance in her name, so I’ve consented, and further allowed her to carry my religion in her name.

My chief reason for not writing sooner is that I wanted to wait until you had graduated into a “jobbing” salesman, because I knew you would eventually do so, and that with the new job would come new problems to talk about.

Yes, the jobbing game is quite a little different from selling the retailer, and I am glad to note that you have already found that the average jobber buyer is generally a pretty thorough business man, quite cold and calculating, and is more susceptible to quality and price than he is to a salesman’s personality, funny stories or the odor of “moonshine.”

Note you say you think that your company is making a mistake in not accepting cancellations of contracts with certain of their jobbing customers who have been pretty hard hit on sugar declines, and that you’re afraid your company will not do much business with those customers again, on account of refusing to “accommodate” them.

Say—Boy—just how do you get that way?

You think your company should bear “part” of the load, eh? You know one trouble with you aggressive, red-blooded, two-fisted “kids” (as you’ll always be to me, Red) is that you don’t look backward or forward far enough.

Now let’s look back a little. ’Way back last Spring your company came out with their opening prices on the goods they sell for Fall Delivery. On account, primarily, of the experience of the Wholesale Grocers over a long period of years, these jobbers bought, and why? Because they wanted to assure themselves of your company’s quality and against the possibility of an advance in cost after the goods were packed. That was their reason and now, why did your company contract? Because they wanted to assure themselves of a market for a certain per cent of their pack so that their operations would not be so speculative.

You know, no business that is purely speculative is fundamentally sound.

Now this contract arrangement between your company and the jobber was not philanthropic on either side. For years this custom has existed in the industry and has been found to be fashioned along the lines of sound economics. It is not a one-sided proposition by any means, for, if it were, it would not have obtained over all these years. Sometimes it has worked to the advantage of the canners, but just as often it has worked to the advantage of the jobber, depending entirely on conditions beyond the control of either. While both canners and jobbers may have been laying up treasures in heaven for years, neither has so far had sufficient prestige with the management to cause the rain, sun and frost to act just right for the proper development of fruit and vegetables, but under the contract system, both are protected as far as possible to be fair to both parties.

Now, Red, remember the entire commercial fabric of our nation is built up on confidence, and confidence can obtain only just so long as the integrity of the business world is maintained by the recognition of the validity of a contract entered into in good faith between buyers and sellers.