HINTS FOR HAULIERS.
Page 21
Page 22
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
An Occasional Chat on Subjects and Problems of Interest to Those Who are Engaged or About to become Engaged, in Running Commercial Vehicles for a Living.
THERE ARE SOME things that are beyond a joke, as, for instance, towards the close of a. long route march, when the sergeant requests you to " step lively, plea "; no, he doesn't say please ; at any rate, none of mine did. It was:then, in my experience,, that one felt to the fullest extent the degradation of having to carry a dummy rifle. However, those days are long past, and some of us have had visions of better times, of a less strenuous existence. Alas, militarism rears its ugly head in the most unexpected places. Few who know the Editor of this paper would suspect him of such tendencies; _ yet it is quite evident, that the .instinct to bully and terrrorizc is there, but thinly covered by a thin veneer of suavity, and liable to break through the scanty covering at the least sign of opposition. to his august despotism. Even 1, persevering an& industrious—[Sometimes.—ED.1—journalist that I am, have lately heard the rattle of the sword in its . scabbard, have sensed, if not actually, felt, the spur' at the heel of the jack-boot, the excuse for this exhibition of " Prussianism " being, forsooth, that I was devoting too much space to this matter of letterwriting and so on. Ih plain terms, I have been told to " step lively " and get on with it. Argument was clearly futile, and to have put forward .the plea that I had prepared an. ample supply of sample letters such as would ha-ye kept this page going for weeks. .. struck me, all at once, as being rather dangerous with " his nibs "in the present state of mind. How ever, I have managed to ge#, a little of my own way. The letters themselves not ibeing admissible, I have cut off the reading matter, and sent the headings round to the artist--another artist, not the one who did the illustrations of the wagon sides !--and With just the ordinary amount. of luek, you will find them reproduced on. this page—
Good Letterpaper a Business-getter. .
A good notepaper with an artistic heading is half . the battle nowadays. As a preliminary, get your ideas of what you are going to have in the way of reading matter faxed. Don't try to put all you have in your shop down in black and white, or colours either, for that matter, at the top of your notepaper. Be brief and to the point. Above all, don't "swank." ' It is not of the least use your putting, as a heading, " Transport. by Road, Rail, Sea or Air ". when, as a matter of actual fact, your sole vehicle is an old single-cylinder De Dion on which you have built an "orange box' body, particularly as, if you live and have your being in a. small provincial town, half the . people to whom you write will have a perfectly accurate knowledge of your business. In any form of advertisement, there is nothing more essential than the truth. To the novitiate in business, this will come all som,ething of a shock, and no doubt the value of certain advertisements.with which he is acquainted will, judged by this standard, suffer a pretty tremendous slump. It is however, perfectly certain that untruths in advertisement at length come home to roost.
Having made up your mind what it is you wiRlvto say on your heading, go along to a first-class.printer, one who customarily executes work of a'high artistic standard, and get ham to lay out a design, of which YOU will subsequently approve. and afterwards keep to that design as consistently as expansion or alteration in the nature of your business will allow.
The designs which are Lill ustrateci,on this page are 'not to be copied' they illustrate, rather, principles which should be followed, and they illustrate those
principles only to a limited degree, inasmuch as they lack colour,which is essential. I think, although the point is one that may be disputed, an illustrated heading is preferable for this class of business. No. 1 is only applicable, of course, where the lorry is. fitted with interchangeable char-h-bancs and goodscarrying body, or when two Or more vehicles are
kept. The illustrations may be either line drawings, made from photographs, and done in colours to match the rest of the heading, or they may be halftones made direct from the actual photographs. The advice of the actual designer of the ading will, of course, be taken on this point. If the haulier has adopted, as I suggested recently, distinctive colours for his lorry or lorries, the colours should appear on his notepaper.. It is a good plan to include a monogram (or cipher) of your initials. I have tried to design one for Mr. Jones, and if the result is rather crude it. is the fault of the letters and not of the. designer. If your initials are sueh as to lend them• selves, in the hands of an expert, to the making of
am attractive monograna make the most use of it that you can. Have it on your notepaper, your bill heads, on your lorries or char-a-banes, on all your advertisements—in fact everywhere in reason. Have some little wafers made of it and seal your envelopes with them. Repeat the design to a -large scale on your office window. Have one cut in sheet metal and fitted to the front of each of your radiators. Have it always in the same colour, a striking one, and let the colour harmonize with those of your lorries.
• In No. 21 have taken an aeroplane, as being symbolical alike of progress and of rapid transport, as a trade mark, together with the word "transport." Treat this the same way as I' prescribed for the -monogram. On this heading note the terse phrase "Goods conveyed from anywhere, to anywhere, at any time." Some such motto as that is very useful as a. catchword. Judiciously used, it can be made of immense value t as an advertisement medium. '
Similar lines are followed in No. 3, which is for the man with at least two vehicles, one of which must be steam and the other petrol. The combina.tion would be.,very valuable where two men go into partnership, one of them being partial to the petrol wagon, the .other to steam, and having. different premises for the two machines. Better still, it would suit a case where two men, one with a steam wagon, the other with a petrol lorry, have come to a working arrangement to divide the work which may come to both. The word "efficiency," in an oval frame, I have shown here as a motto, again only as an example: there are many words. which would be more applicable. " Petrol or steam " is a good. headline, and the proffer of clear estimates for work to be carried out is • very much appreciated at. the present time, when such facilities are not common. All of this -will be " A.B.C." to most of .rny readers, many of Whom will easily, no doubt, be able to better the auggestions which I have made. The great thing in a matter of this kind, however, is to begin right. It is a little more expensive to start with, but cheaper in the long run. Have your dezign, well thought out, well conceived, well executed, and ,
carried out on good paper. • Besides this personal and . direct communication with potential clients, it is necessary to adaertise. Generally, the best medium. will be found to be the
• local journal. A double column ad., two or three inehes.•-deep, can be arranged on contract for a.,-,few shillings weekly. It rarely happens that such expenditure is not repaid several times over. Supplement it by ,keeping the editor of -the paper informed in regard to anything of interest which may occur in connection with your work. A description of some special load, or of some work of public interest on which you may be engaged, will often appeal to him as being worthy of special mention. If the town or district is a small one, and you happen to be the first Mau to take up motor haulage in the area, get him interested-in it as a new development of trade in the town.
A notice of that kind is of incalculable benefit. As an example : I live in London, where there are really, quite amumber of haulage contractors. At least, there are so many. that, although I know a good deal about them, even I 'do not pretend to know all of them. At any rate, I did know of a certain firin for sonic time before The Commercial Motor publiahed a long and interesting article about him and his work. Until that happened I had not taken much notice of his particular business. Since the article appeared, I seem to have been meeting with' his lorries all over the place., and if I wanted some haulage clone, it is . quite certain that one of the people to whom I would turn would be him to whose businass my attention had been attracted by reading about it in the paper& I do not Say he would get the job. I might not' like his quotation when I got it, or his notepaper might not be suitable ; but, at any rate, he would have the opportunity to quote for the business.
TIIE SEOTCIF.