SALESMEN AND THE COMING SHOWS.
Page 20
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By "The Inspector."
QUITE A NUMBER of salesmen and assistants will, no doubt, at the present time, be considering the advisability, of polishing up their wits and replenishing their stores of information, in preparation for the flood of inquiries of all kinds with which they will have to tussle at the forthcoming Olympia Shows.
Very few of these people will be called upon, I should imagine, to undertake duty at both the exhibitions, and, indeed, the individual who is as competent to sell a Rolls to a duchess, as 4 flatplatform-wagon to a dye works proprietor, must be an extraordinarily well-informed and competent salesman.
It takes a very different class of salesmanship to handle the commercial-vehicle business, as compared with that possessedly the man who can sell big or little touring cars. Each type of salesman has to be armed with entirely different sets of facks, and be trained on very different lines. The writer takes the view that the best salesman for commercial vehicles is the man who has taken. some part or other in making or running them at one period of his career. He should also have fairly expert and detail knowledge of the performance of all competitive types; and a reasonable knowledge of the history of earlier models, many of which are still more or less in satis factory service, is not to be disregarded.
Many of the salesmen at the coming shows will have the first opportunity that has occurred for a number of years of taking part in an exhibition of this magnitude and one of such an international character, Moreover, the Show is timed fortunately to take place at an exceptionally critical period of the history of the industry. The day of the overwhelming" boom," to use a misleading term, is undoubtedly over. Production is getting down to more solid lines, and is not now embroidered with fantastic schemes for imaginative outputs. True, we are not yet at the end of the multitudinous adjustments that are constantly necessary in cost departments, on account of revisions of labour rates in the hundred-and-one industries, upon which commercial-vehicle production as a whole depends; and this instability of price list schedules is a disconcerting factor for even the keenest of salesmen: it is disturbing to the buyer and seller alike. As an offset, however, to these disconcerting factors, we must not neglect to take full cognizance Of the very important effect which the increased costs of competitive methods of transport are bound to have upon the industrial-motor-vehicle industry in all its many forms.
The community, as a whole, has no,t yet realized, apparently, what an expensive luxury transport by rail is going to be in future ; particularly as regards goods haulage. It is not the additional id. or id. per ton mile: it is the effect in round figures on traders' and manufacturers' balance sheets foss the year that is going to be instructive.
Once again, there is a set off even to this advantageous happening, and that is the further and sensational rise in the cost of petrol which has just been • notified as the present article is being written.
Yet, it remains, after summing up all these facts, that the Olympia Show for heavy vehicles in London in 1920 will be held at a period that can hardly be more useful from our own points of view. Many of B26 us have not had an opportunity of getting together at all, excepting in such rather far-away instances
as the Royal Agricultural Show at Darlington, since the war. There is plenty of opportunity for comparing notes in connection with the various cranmittees of the trade associations at headquarters, but, after all, the names that figure on these committees afe all more or less the same time after time, and a much wider discussion and exchange of views between those who are otherwise too much occupied to be able to give time to this form of activity can but bes of the greatest advantage to the industry. There are dozens of questions before us, with puzzling problems hanging to them s and, while most of us are pre-occupied with labour troubles, production troubles and the difficulties of sales departments, we have had little opportunity to hear .what the other man thinks, excepting through the medium of an occasional letter in the technical-Press.
As may be gathered, I feel very hopeful indeed of the considerable all-round advantage that will accrue from the coming display in October, and the salesman will have a good deal on his shoulders if he is to turn these circumstances to the best possible account. Competition is very keen and the advantages and disadvantages of all the many models and types will, it is safe to conjessure, be debated very strenuously by men who know what it is to run vehicles, and what it costs to run them on the road. The user will be a very-practical factor in the situation.
The salesman must be prepared to meetthe user, who knows very certainly what he is talking about, and, generally speaking, in addition to his knowledge of the various chassis constructional features, ha must be prepared-to talk " coachwork " from a very technical standpoint. Nine owners out of ten, if they have a machine of first-class reputation, are satisfied not to worry too much about chassis components, but, if they have views as to coachwork and its dimensions, .form of construction, material, shapes and models it is very certain that they will want to. discuss them to the fullest possible extent.
Generally speaking, the salesman who only has one model to talk about will have a less-easy task than the man who has in his paCket a list of machines capable of undertaking a great variety of tasks.. The commercial vehicle user knows enough about his business as a rule to be able to counter any. suggestion out of handrthat he can do just as well with a 30-ewt, machine when a four-tanner is what he is really looking for. So too, with the motor coach proprietor: he knows just what he wants in the matter of seating. He will have strong ideas on pneumatic tyres and luxury upholstery, whilst an to colour he knows better than most salesmen what it is that attracts hi S own clientele in his own particular part of the country. The salesman need not bother too much to load himself with statistics as to steel specifications and co-efficients of engine efficiency, but he must be able to talk in ascertained costs per ton mile, mileages of tyres, ,petrol consumptions, wages of drivers, new taxation proposals and a hundred-and-one other things of that sort.
Lets of people think it is-the easiest possible thing to take on the commercial side of any branch of the motor-vehicle industry. In our own branch, there is not the -added joy of possible demonstration riding and driving: it is hard graft frcnia beginning to end: there is only room -for the man who knows his job