It might have been possible to demonstrate the superior construction of his motor truck; but competitors would meet point with point, and customers were not interested in technicalities anyway.  He tried service as an argument; but that was largely a promise of what motor trucks would do for people after they bought them, and competitors could always promise just as much, and a little more.

Company reputation?  His company had a fine one—­but motor-truck purchasers wanted to know the cost of moving freight.  Price?  No argument at all, because only one other concern made motor trucks calling for so great an initial investment.

So Thick-Specs, being naturally serious and solid, began to dig into motor trucks from the standpoint of the customer.  He got permission to investigate delivery outfits in many lines.  Selling a five-ton motor truck to many a business man was often equivalent to letting Johnny play with a loaded machine gun.  Such a vehicle combined the potentiality of moving from fifty to seventy-five tons of freight daily, according to routing and the number of hours employed; but it involved a daily expense of twenty-five dollars.

The purchaser could lose money in two ways at swift ratios, and perhaps unsuspectingly:  He might not use his full hauling capacity each day or would use it only half the year, during his busy season.  Or he might underestimate costs by overlooking such items as interest and depreciation.

Thick-Specs’ first actual sale was not a motor truck at all, but a motorcycle, made by another company.  Within three months, however, this motorcycle added two big trucks to a fleet of one dozen operated by a wholesale firm.  That concern had good trucks, and kept them in a well-equipped garage, where maintenance was good.  But at least once daily there would be a road breakdown.  Usually this is a minor matter, but it ties up the truck while its puzzled driver tries to locate the trouble.

When a motorcycle was bought for the garage, drivers were forbidden to tamper with machinery on the road—­they telephoned in to the superintendent.  By answering each call on his own motorcycle—­about an hour daily—­the repairman kept equipment in such good shape that valuable extra service was secured from the fleet each day.

The salesman-adviser did not originate this scheme himself, but discovered it in another concern’s motor-truck organization; in fact, this is the advantage the salesman-adviser enjoys—­acquaintance with a wide range of methods and the knack of carrying a good wrinkle from one business to another.  He brings the outside point of view; and, because modern business runs toward narrow specialization, the outside point of view is pretty nearly always welcome, provided it is honest and sensible.

In another case he had to dig and invent to meet a peculiar situation.

There was a coal company working under a handicap in household deliveries.  Where a residence stood back from the sidewalk coal had often to be carried from the motor truck in baskets.  This kept the truck waiting nearly an hour.  A motor truck’s time is worth several dollars hourly.  If the coal could have been dumped on the sidewalk and carried in later, releasing the truck, that would have saved expense and made more deliveries possible.