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companies. Mine was Company G. This was marched out into the main road, lined up, and the men placed according to sizes and divided into squads of eight. These squads were placed in command of the nearest available recruit who had previous experience. Then for two weeks from 7:30 to 11:30 or 12, with diminishing periods of rest as the days wore on, we struggled through the formal close formation drills, each day with more and more equipment on our backs. I would not exchange the mere exercise for any other experience I have had since college days. Three hours each morning of invigorating action, the ever increasing appearance of form and cohesion to the company, and the spirit of loyalty and friendship for the men in the platoon began to give us a faint glimmer of what a team is of what makes an army corps.

We were then told that these drills were mere one-finger exercises, the calisthenics of the Army, in no way a part of the real game, except in so far as they accustomed men to the feel of a rifle and to respond to the voice of command. Only one thing is of the essence: to be proficient in battle.

From

Men battle on their stomachs. that day on we spent our mornings in extended order-which is to say in a long line stretched prone across the landscape, a mountain on our weary backs and the Springfield snapping at the visionary foe. We advanced in squads or platoons at top speed for miles-we crawled over ten thousand acres, and we charged, until dizzy, all over the country. This, my friend, is no easy task. It gives you an abnormal respect for the real fighting man. To advance a mile on your belly, or by rushes, carrying thirty-eight pounds, besides shooting an eight-pound rifle the whole way, after a long march, even when no burst of shrapnel enhances the enter tainment, is very strenuous business.

THE DEMOCRACY OF PLATTSBURG

If the average youth throughout the country appreciated in the slightest degree what he would gain in physique, in mental stamina, and in broad democratic association by a month of this citizen soldiery,

there would not be officers or pastures or bayonets enough in the country to accommodate them. I never had even a glimmering conception of what this country is, or by whom it was inhabited, until I ranged alongside a haphazard thousand men from its workshops, and sang in close harmony with them of an evening. They were all boys-impulsive, friendly, eager to know and to learn, gregarious and hearty. The uniform is a wonderful leveller. At the end of a long march when the ranks blew in, dirty and tired and unshaven, there was no human being could tell, and none cared to know, who was the millionaire and who was the plumber. The cheerfulest man was the greatest man, and the sturdiest man the leader. And your squad were your comrades, your chance bunkies your ancient pals, and men came to know in a natural and respectful way dozens of others from distant places, with different views and different connections.

And not the least of it is the discovery by the layman of the soldiers of the United States. We were all enlisted men by rank and by costume, and with the enlisted man we fraternized. Many an hour we spent discussing the details of soldiering with the veterans of our little campaigns, and it should be recorded that we were received by the professionals with a friendly and hearty courtesy, were instructed by them on the ranges and in the march and at odd moments were rendered by them innumerable services for nothing, and treated by them on the manœuvres as comrades and soldiers. This is a very high tribute to their kindness and consideration. Coming from Plattsburg, one no longer views the Army as a mythical and unknown thing, composed of officers and God knows what or who.

Besides a modicum of health and a disturbing sense of ignorance and an enormous respect for the Springfield rifle and the advantage of cover and an understanding of what it requires to become as one of the regulars, not to mention a first lieutenant, we gained a certain amount of definite military information, which it is our duty to impart to our friends at home.

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"IF I WERE GOING INTO EXPORT

TRADE"

A DEFINITE PLAN OF RESEARCH, ORGANIZATION, AND SALESMANSHIP FOR A MANUFACTURER WHO PLANS TO EXTEND HIS MARKET

BY

CHARLES C. CHOPP

UPPOSE I were the president of a successful manufacturing company that had built up its business entirely within the United States and that I had made up my mind to see if we could not extend our business abroad-into South America, for example. What would be the proper course for me then to pursue?"

This question has been asked of me several times lately, so that I have had to analyze carefully my fifteen years' experience in the export field to frame my reply. The first thing I should do would be to select from my own organization the man who had in the highest degree these two qualifications:

1. A complete knowledge of our business, both in its technical and manufacturing aspects and in its general trade policy.

2. The man whose openness of mind and flexibility of temper would seem best to adapt him to work in foreign fields. Such a man might very well be the treasurer or a vice-president of the company. He should certainly be high in the councils of the company and one of the brightest men in it. It may be just as well to pause here and discuss the reasons why I would choose this man rather than a man who was familiar with the language of the countries in which we purposed to extend our trade. The fundamental reason underlying this choice is that your foreign consumer is not buying somebody's knowledge of Spanish-he is buying the American manufacturer's goods. And what he is interested in is not correct pronunciation or idiomatic phraseology of his own tongue but the hard, practical facts about your product. He is going to ask every conceivable question about it-the price of

it, whether or not it suits his climate, if not, how it can be changed, how it differs from your competitor's product and wherein yours is better and why-in other words, he is going to ask the most intimate details about your business and the most technical questions about your processes of manufacture. Mere acquaintance with a language will not supply the place of accurate and intelligent answers to these practical questions. It is easy enough to hire translators and interpreters. It is impossible to hire a complete understanding of your business and its product.

Having selected the treasurer of our company to be its foreign export manager I should direct him to devote as much time as he needed a year, if necessary to research work. By this I mean that he should devote his time to correspondence with the Pan American Union, in Washington, D. C., the National Foreign Trade Council, in New York, export managers of allied and competitive manufacturing concerns, the study of the geography, civilization, and economic conditions of the countries we propose to penetrate-in other words, to a comprehensive study of everything that could be found out about foreign trade in general. Armed with this information, I would then have him undertake more specific research work in those countries themselves. Suppose, for example, our company manufactured pianos and that the market we proposed to enter was South America. A personal trip through the Southern republics should be made to learn, first, whether there are enough people in those countries having sufficient means to purchase pianos to make it worth our while to seek them as a market. Second, to determine whether

our pianos are a product for which there is any demand or for which a demand could be created with a reasonable amount of effort. Third, whether their construction is such that they will stand the conditions of service to which they will be subjected, including the effect of climate upon the mechanism and finish. Fourth, if alterations in the standard design of our pianos be necessary, to meet different conditions of service, and whether those alterations can be made without too expensive changes in our factory.

Suppose, for the sake of the argument, we assume that the answers to all these problems are favorable to our entering upon this trade. The export manager by this time has returned to our factory having in his possession the exact facts about where the market is, what changes we must make in our pianos to meet it, and who the principal distributors in the foreign countries are. His task then is to create an organization for gathering orders from this field and for filling them after they are received. This involves, first, a sales force and, second, an office force. Let us consider the sales force first.

Our export manager has now before him the choice of entrusting the salesmanship of our goods in South America to some reputable exporting agency in New York, or to a combination salesman who handles the products of several allied but noncompetitive lines, or to salesmen who devote their time exclusively to our concern. The first two methods are better adapted to small lines of manufacture. For ours we will assume that it is desirable to have salesmen who sell our goods exclusively.

This raises the question of the qualifications for a South American salesman. I should say without hesitation that the first qualification of a salesman is his ability to sell goods. Knowledge of a Knowledge of a foreign language and knowledge of foreign customs are entirely secondary to the trained habit of persuading other men to exchange their cash for the salesman's product. Salesmanship is the same in all countries and at all times. I have sold paints in practically every country on earth and I have used exactly the same methods and the same arguments in selling

to a man in Stockholm that I used in selling to a man in Key West and to a man in Cincinnati. The two primary qualifications of a salesman of anything, anywhere, are that he shall have a good product to sell and that he shall know human nature.

I should expect our export manager, then, to employ the best salesman he could afford (and I may remark in passing that a good salesman is cheap at almost any price and that a cheap salesman is rarely any good). Preferably he should be a man from our own organization but, failing that, the best man outside of it that could be obtained. This man, however, should devote several months of his time to a careful study of every process of our manufacturing work and also take a course in our office so that he will understand our methods of doing business and our office methods of handling orders. His understanding of factory methods is essential for reasons already explained. His understanding of office methods is equally essential because nothing is more important in the field than that a salesman should send the most accurate and explicit details with his orders so that the home office will not have to guess about any part of it.

Assuming now that an adequate sales representation has been gained in South America, what about the office correspondence? Also the question of credits, the problem of proper packing and shipping, and the questions of foreign tariffs, and foreign exchange. A good share of these problems is solved instantly by employing an intelligent young South American to do the routine office work of invoicing, translating letters of inquiry from Spanish into English and the sales manager's replies from English into Spanish, etc. The whole problem of packing, shipping, routing, etc., can be solved at a stroke by consultation with agencies in New York that have specialized in this business for a score of years and who are perfectly familiar with all the transportation facilities, methods of packing, details of custom duties, etc.

But before everything else in importance I place the preliminary research work and the high intelligence of the manager, and his familiarity with the business.

FOUR SUGGESTIONS FOR THE
PROSPECTIVE EXPORTER

BY

WALTER F. WYMAN

The WORLD'S WORK will publish every month an article dealing with the concrete problems of the increase in our export trade. The magazine is led to do this by the evident widespread interest shown all over the United States in the possibilities of export trade, and the specific interest in this subject shown by the readers of this magazine in the answers to a circular letter sent to a group of subscribers, most of whom are not directly connected with manufacturing or exporting, in all parts of the country.-THE EDITORS.

N PLANNING a campaign to obtain export trade many questions as to the advisability of undertaking such an enterprise naturally arise in the mind of the careful manufacturer. He wants to know just what trade conditions are in the South American republics, what the feeling is toward buying goods manufactured in the United States, what are the best means to bring his products before the public, and whether he should appoint a representative or deal directly with the merchant himself.

Consider the question "What is the attitude of Spanish-Americans toward goods made in the United States and do they want to buy them?"

The South American continent is almost as large as the North American; vast mountains and rivers divide the country into sections whose people are utterly unlike in tastes, characteristics, and even in speech. Though Spanish is the language of the majority, Portuguese is spoken in Brazil.

Therefore it should be borne in mind that in studying the attitude of the South American countries it is hardly fair to classify them under the one title "Spanish-Americans;" each nation must be considered separately. Thus proUnited States feeling may be the keynote in Peru while the opposite may hold true in Paraguay, due, possibly to the same act of the United States Government. If If the product be in the nature of a luxury it can readily be seen that there would be no more sale for it in the region of the Andes Mountains or in the sparsely settled dis

tricts of the Amazon than there would be a market for such luxuries in the Canadian Northwest or Labrador. But the big cities would use these goods just as much as our great metropolises. So that domestic methods in selling apply similarly to foreign fields of endeavor.

A second important point is whether the Latin-American dealer will buy goods unknown to him, and what inducements may be necessary to make him do so.

Once more it is a question of common sense, and the answer is to be found at home. Certain localities will take up new ideas where others will not. Western merchants are more apt to take up new schemes than are the conservative New England ones. So the characteristics of the countries must be studied, but first of all, and this holds good in any locality, the article which is to be sold must offer more advantages in selling than the goods the dealer already carries. No dealer is going to burden himself with an unknown stock unless it can be definitely proved to him that it is to his advantage and profit to do so. And if there is no demand for the article the manufacturer must set to work and coöperate with the dealer in creating a demand. Such a demand, once created, automatically shows the dealer that it is to his advantage to carry such articles, and he determines to keep a sufficient quantity of them on hand to meet the demand. For creating a demand for the product, advertising, in the local papers chiefly, must be indulged in. Then samples must be generously used, and window displays

for the stores, until the public's attention has been aroused.

A third and important point to be raised is the advisability of appointing an exclusive agent to represent a firm, or whether it is preferable to sell directly to merchants themselves.

The class of articles to be sold must decide this question. If the products are automobiles, sewing machines, phonographs, or other high priced articles on which there would be a good profit for the agent himself, then the exclusive agent plan is the better; but on lower priced articles, which are more or less staples, the profit which the agent would make, would be so small that his desire to sell them might be problematical, and it is preferable to sell these directly to the merchant, aiding him, as has been said, with advertising and samples. In the appointment of an exclusive agency careful consideration should be given to the extent of territory over which the agent is supposed to sell. He should not be given sole representation over an area which he could not cover. No sane manufacturer would give a Boston wholesale or retail merchant the agency for the entire United States except on proof of his ability to cover the territory, yet cases are of everyday occurrence in which even the most careful manufacturers give the agency for all Brazil, or all Venezuela, even all South America, to a firm who probably could not sell goods outside of their own city. It is indeed a temptation for a firm who has never made a single sale in Brazil to agree when a dealer in Manaos sends in an order for $500 worth of goods on condition that he be given the exclusive agency for his republic for ten years. The manufacturer, knowing that in the ten years preceding he has never made a sale, and feeling that the order and implied promise of far larger ones is a godsend, seldom bothers to consult his atlas. Even if he does, and of course finds that Manáos is a thousand miles up the Amazon, he blinds himself to the impossibility of the would-be agent's covering the entire country-all because the order cannot be shipped unless the manufacturer agrees to the terms. A short cable offering the agency for Manáos alone would have, no

doubt, been the correct solution. The merchant as a rule generally asks for more than he can handle. Furthermore, the agency should begin with a small yearly guarantee but with a promise of increase based on the volume of future sales, an agreement which stimulates the dealer's interest in selling the goods. But in considering the volume of sales made by the various agents the condition and size of the population of the territory which each represents should be given due heed. One could hardly expect an agent in Cohoes to sell as much as in Chicago, nor could one expect the sales of the agent in the little town of Waracapuri in Colombia to equal those of the agent in Santiago, Chile.

The question of samples is a most important one and deserves careful investigation. The sample is a great sales argument, but it must be effectively employed. By means of a sample a dealer can easily test and determine the merits of a product and its value to him in handling it. But the sample is no magician's wand to turn a rabbit into a gold watch or an inferior product into a superior one, as some manufacturers seem to think. Its chief value lies in the fact that it demonstrates at once the qualities of an article which make it superior to its competitors, or else it calls attention to some new convenience in size or shape of package. And in sending a sample specific reference should be made to the particular points of advantage of the product and not to the whole.

Furthermore, the size of the sample should not be too small. One manufacturer of food products complained bitterly that his miniature samples were money wasted, for although he had sold goods to a number of dealers in South America and supplied them with samples for gratuitous distribution he had not received a second order. Investigation proved that the smallness of the sample was the reason for the failure. The remedy was the use of a full sized package instead of the miniature sample.

However, if a manufacturer desires to introduce goods which are of such a type that time alone can prove their advantages, it is money wasted to distribute samples; instead, advertising, testimonials, and technical arguments should be used.

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