"ASSESSING" AN AGENCY DISTRICT.
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The Way to Compile a List of Firms Which Ought to be Customers of Yours.
By" Vim," HOW MANY possible customers for commercial vehicles does your district contain? If only for the sake of self-encouragement, the time and trouble required to get out an assessment would be well worth the spending. The most sanguine amongst us sometimes get tits of depression, when we begin to wonder whether it would not be better to give up the motor business and go in for sehing meat or drapery—forgetting that the " other fellow" has a job no softer than our own.• Viewed from a distance, the most sparsely covered ground often looks rich with vegetation: we are all apt to overlook the point that we can no more judge the state of our friends' affairs by their outward display of briskness and hopefulness than they can judge ours. What we all have to do, if we wish to keep happy, is to count our "pros," not our " cons "—and, in this respect, the process of reckoning up the number of orders for commercials that might be gleaned, supposing we were endowed with all the attributes of perfect salesmanship, is a good cure for the dumps. Besides which, it is a powerful incentive to put forth the best that is in us to make the dream come true.
A Basis of a Sales Campaign.
But an assessment of this sort has a purpose apart from its stimulating effect. It forms, when carefully made, a basis on which a really sound plan of sales campaigns can be constructed. With the figures in front of him, the commercial vehicle agent can decide, in the quietness of his office, the best manner of disposing his forces and of attacking sales " prospects " without wasting powder and shot. Instead of letting loose a horde of circulars on anything and everybody within sight, so squandering postage stamps and stationery, not to mention personal effort, he can handle each class of " possible ' in the best possible way to bring results.
I dare say there are plenty of agents who, on reading this, will be strongly inclined to dub me a theorizer, a retailer of anglicized American hot-air boost material, and an ignoramus who has no idea of the complete state of saturation with motor vans and lorries into which at present their localities have got themselves. Well, I do not mind. Like the ladies and gentlemen who testify in the illustrated advertisements to the efficaciousness of somebody's painremover, I, too, once thought that there was no cure for business stagnation ; but, after trying several doses of this sales' tonic, I found my condition much improved, and now I would not he without a bottle in the office.
The First Analysis of Local Names.
To make up the prescription, proceed as follows:— Procure copies of all the directories covering your district. Quite probably, a single directory published by Kelly, or some other reliable firm, will embrace the whole of the territory. In the classified trades section (make sure that the directory has one, or it is almost useless for this purpose) will be found names and addresses of all the business concerns and tradesmen, arranged under the headings of the industries with which they are connected. Almost all of them' use transport in some form or another, and so almost all of them are, whether they realize the fact or not, potential buyers of motor vehicles of some kind or another.
If motor collection and delivery is helpful to a large greengrocer, it should be equally helpful to a Small greengrocer ; the only reasons that the latter can
have for not adopting the modern means of transport being: (1) the volume or nature of business done is insufficient to keep even the smallest type of commercial motor vehicle profitably employed; (2) he does not appreciate the benefits of motor transport ; and/or (3) he has not the requisite capital to buy a suitable motorcycle combination, parcels car, van, lorry, or whatever would be necessary to enable him to carry out his transport work economically. To start with, then, it may be assumed that, with the exception of professional men whose names are usually included in the classified trades section of local directories, the majority of the firms there appearing are potential customers for motor transport, although special circumstances may render a good proportion. of the potentials unlikely ever to become actuals. Of course, many of the firms will already be users of motor vehicles, but that should make them doubly interesting to an agent, even if they are not customers of his.
From your knowledge of local conditions, go carefully through each trade and strike out all names which you .are morally certain could never be anything more than names. Failing information as to the status of a doubtful name, the street or quarter of the town in which the concern carries on business may be some guide if it owns a retail shop. A wholesale or manufacturing concern is not easy to judge by this rule. Personal inspection of the premises from outside and private inquiries may be required before a decision can be arrived at. In any case1 do not be over keen to strike out a name, for it is better to' approach nine impossibles than to let one possible slip. Moreover, the influence of well-conducted sales propaganda does not cease with the person to whom it is directed; people talk, especially when they can air cheaply acquired learning, on so up-to-date a subject as motor transport.
Compiling the Special Directory.
Having eliminated all useless names, the next thing to do is to compile your own lists from the directory. The compilation of these lists is really far too important a matter to warrant the use of a crude method of treatment, and the most satisfactory plan is to have every name and address typed on 'a separate 5-in. by 3-in, card, which will be kept together in an ordinary card drawer and indexed under the trades. If the special motorcar sales inquiry cards which are now obtainable are employed for this purpose, a record of all the stepS subsequently taken to secure gales can readily be kept on the backs of them. Cards of various tints can be employed to denote, whether the firms named on them are already users or are ,particularly likely to become users, and so on. ' The work of typing out the names and addresses is laborious, but it is unnecessary to have it done in your own office. Any decent firm that specializes in the. production of imitation type-written circulars and envelope addressing will, as a rule, be only too glad to undertake the job at a reasonable fee. 'When the completed list is back in your hands, and you go through the cards one by one, you will discover as you count them up that there is still hope and scope for you in your district if you can only get at the _people they represent and offer them the right goods. It would be absurd to suggest that an assessment on the lines he laid down would be of the slightest real service to an agent who, when he had got it, used it only as an artificial hope raiser, and did nothing practical with it, or to one whose agencies comprised no vehicle below the 3-tonner mark.