A city ordinance prohibited dumping coal on the sidewalk except by permit.  Coal men had never tried to have that ordinance changed.  But the salesman-adviser went straight to the city authorities and, by figures showing the expense and waste involved, secured a modification, so that his customer, the coal company, got a blanket permit for dumping coal and gave bonds as an assurance against abuse of the privilege.  Then a little old last year’s runabout was bought and followed the coal trucks with a crew to carry the coal indoors, clearing sidewalks quickly.

This salesman-adviser’s philosophy was as simple as it was sound.  Confidence is the big factor in selling, he reasoned.  Your customer will have confidence in you if he feels that you are square and also knows what you are talking about.  By diligent study of gasoline hauling problems in various lines of business he gained practical knowledge and after that had only to apply his knowledge from the customer’s side of the problem.

“Put it another way,” he said:  “Suppose you had a factory and expected to run it only one year.  There would not be time to get returns on a costly machine showing economies over a five-year period; but if you intended to run your factory on a five-year basis, then that machine might be highly profitable.

“In sales work it was just the same; if you were selling for this year’s profit alone, you’d close every sale regardless of your customer’s welfare.  Let the purchaser beware!  But if you meant to sell on the five-year basis, then confidence is the big investment, and the most profitable sale very often one you refuse to make for immediate results.”

He had a fine following when the draft reached him; and during the eight months he spent in an Army uniform he utilized his knowledge of gasoline transportation as an expert in Uncle Sam’s motor service.  Upon being discharged he returned to his job and his customers, and to-day the concern with which he is connected is taking steps to put all its motor-truck salesmen on this advisory basis.

War shot its sales force to pieces—­the Army and the Navy reached out for men and tied up production facilities; so there was nothing to sell.  But war also gave a clean slate for planning a new sales force.

As old salesmen return and new men are taken on for sales instruction, this concern trains them—­not with the old sales manual, by standard approach and systematic sales argument, but by sending them out into the field to study gasoline hauling problems.  They secure permission to investigate trucking methods of contractors, department stores, wholesale merchants, coal dealers, truck owners hauling interstate freight, mills, factories and other lines of business.  They investigate the kinds and quantities of stuff to be moved, the territory and roads covered, the drivers, the garage facilities.  They ride behind typical loads and check up running time, delays, breakdowns, gasoline and oil consumption.