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Address of David R. Forgan

President of Chicago Commercial Association, Delivered at the International Live Stock Exposition

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Chicago

HERE was a time in the early history of this country when "Independence" was the greatest word on the people's lips; the greatest thought in their minds, the greatest desire in their hearts. But through the unconquerable spirit of the American people that thought and desire became a glorious reality never again to be questioned. Today another word representing a different thought, but one of equal importance to the nation, is not as clearly in the minds and hearts of the people as it ought to be. That word is "Interdependence." Not until that word is better understood by the various sections and classes of this great people will the unrest that is the chief characteristic of the hour give place to the peace and contentment which ought to follow our unrivaled prosperity. When the interdependence of the great city and surrounding country, of the manufacturer and the consumer, of the railroad and the shipper, of the capitalist and the laborer, is better understood and more fully recognized, it will be a happy day for the country.

"No man liveth unto himself," the Bible tells us, and if that is true in the moral sphere, it is eminently true in the business world. All modern business is interdependent. The question is often asked, "how long is this business prosperity going to last?" and the answer which goes nearest to the heart of the matter is "just as long as the agricultural interests are prosperous," for the crop raiser and the stock raiser are at the foundation of the entire structure. Tonight, therefore, the Chicago Commercial Association, composed of 1,300 commercial houses-comprising practically all the business interests of this great city-comes here to gratefully

acknowledge our dependence on the live stock industry, and to cordially welcome you, its representatives, to this great city which you and we together have made great and world-renowned.

We congratulate you on representing the greatest single interest in the country. According to the estimates of the last census there are 150 million head of live stock in this country valued at over $3,000,000,000. What that means to a banker like myself is clearer, when I reflect that the entire stock of money in the country, paper and metallic, in banks, in the U. S. Treasury, in the pockets of the people, and hid away, all combined, is not nearly enough to buy or pay for these animals. Over 16,000,000 head is annually received at the Union Stock Yards of this city, and their value is about $300,000,000. What that means will be clearer to you grain men, lumbermen and wholesale dry goods men, when you reflect that it is more actual value handled than the value of your three great lines of trade in Chicago combined. The relation of this great industry to the continued growth of Chicago is vital.

Over ten per cent of our population gets its living directly from the Union Stock Yards, and perhaps as many more indirectly. Anything, therefore, which affects this great industry, whether adversely or favorably, vitally affects every phase of our commercial and financial life. If it is attacked Chicago should at once assume the defensive. If injustice is attempted towards it Chicago should be indignant. If it is lied about Chicago should denounce the liars and fight for truth and fair play. On the other hand, Chicago should encourage, endorse and support every agency looking to the improvement of

the conditions surrounding the industry, and the betterment of its product.

I know very little about the business of breeding and feeding stock, and you will not expect me to enlighten you on the subject. Indeed, like many others, I give but a daily glance at the newspaper headlines referring to this great market. By these I am sometimes given the startling information that "Sheep soar skyward," or the more ordinary news that "Cattle are dull," which I have always thought they were; or I learn that "hogs decline"-which in view of what you do to them here is just what I would expect, and I don't blame them a bit for declining.

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But a man need not know much to know that everything is a science when you go into it. Our population will increase, but our area of cultivation cannot expand proportionately. stands to reason, therefore, that the only hope of the future is in the study of the science of increasing both the quantity and the quality of the corn and the grass, and of the animals which are fed by them. And so today we have our Agricultural College where our young men are taught scientific farming and stock raising, and we have

this magnificent and truly International Live Stock Exposition where the results are displayed, and where the best incentives to competitive excellence are furnished.

The wide difference in price and profit between scrub stock and the improved breeds of live stock, and the folly of raising the former when it costs no more labor or expense to raise the latter should be impressed upon the farmer and breeder in the most forcible manner. No more effective means of doing this could be found than this great annual display of what is best in that line from all the world.

The men who subscribe to this Exposition, those who work hard for its success, and the exhibitors, especially those from foreign lands, all deserve the thanks of this city and of the country at large.

Speaking for the business interests of Chicago as represented by the Chicago Commercial Association, it is my privilege to cordially welcome you to our city, to bid you Godspeed in your great and important work, and to assure you that we are with you, heart and soul, in all that tends to advance our mutual interests.

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Piccolo Points on Preparation in Salesmanship

By W. N. Aubuchon (Piccolo)

T is said that "Reason is instinct in

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the making." At any rate most of that which we think at a given moment, or of what we say, is prompted by an instinctive and instantaneous adjustment of our accumulated store of ideas, to the solution of the questions at issue.

We do not have time, on the instant, to reason deliberately. To bring to a perfect state, this quick acting instinct or intuition on which we must rely at every turn when prompt decision is demanded of us in salesmanship, there is required that we fill the mind with pertinent facts and reasons beforehand.

This is the work of the hours when we are not making direct application of our intuitions in answering questions, displaying merchandise, and offering argument.

No opportunity which will afford an addition to our knowledge of human nature and merchandise, or the art of salesmanship, should be permitted to pass without drawing from it all the material possible. "The man who knows the maxims of law, knows law."

No man is so capable of meeting opposition, and overcoming it as the man who has thought out the problem long before, has viewed it from all sides, and in his own mind raised objections and answered them.

The very best plan for the salesman, is to take a pen and write out his thoughts pertaining to the subject. Some men will be surprised at the really poor showing they will make of their knowledge, when it is put down on paper. Where they imagine that what they know of their merchandise and of selling goods will fill a book, they find that one small page is about all they can get together.

How often a strong argument comes to the mind when one is not with the customer and how carelessly the salesman permits the useful thought to flit by without registering it. If he would merely write it out at the moment in a memorandum book, it would be impressed upon his mind and become an available part of his stock.

"Too much trouble. I prefer to rely in the ordinary manner upon my memory." But memory is a treacherous servant, unless it is bound by hard and fast terms in the contract. We do not remember enough of the right kind of argument, and failure is so often due to forgetting the right thing to say at the right moment, that it is time we waked up to the need of binding our memory to serve us properly.

Is it worth ten days close study of a proposition, to be able to sell during the next ten days as much as we would ordinarily sell in three months? I think so.

I always find that I can talk up a proposition to a buyer more smoothly, earnestly and convincingly after I have given time and thought to elaborating an advertisement or a booklet dealing with it.

In writing it out, there is a need of discriminating between the important and the unimportant features of the merchandise. There is need of explaining its values, its advantages, of showing in plain words how and where it can be sold at a profit.

The uninformed and ill-prepared salesman expends too much time on the unimportant features and is likely thereby, to completely lose the thread of his argument. He either forgets the important parts or neutralizes their effect by tiring the customer.

Nearly every proposition has its few vital points. The salesman should, as much as possible, confine himself to these and to supporting argument.

Perfected intuition is perfected art, and by studious development of the intuitive, a salesman can arrive at the highest point in skill of which he is capable. Intuition is not all a matter of heredity. Nearly every salesman repeats his mistakes again and again. This shows thoughtlessness. It shows that his mistakes were either not known to him as such, or had not been analyzed. A mistake is a benefit only when it has been given intelligent attention after it has been made.

It is not necessary to know all the mistakes we can make before choosing a course, but it is necessary at least to know that the one we choose is not altogether a mistaken one.

We cannot inform ourselves from within, on all matters, we must gain our knowledge from without. We cannot, in the nature of things be our own educators, but must obtain our education from others and from our contact with our surroundings. We know nothing whatever "out of our own heads." Many salesmen, serving the thought that they "know what they know," of their own power of reasoning, and giving no credit to the real forces operative for their education, absolutely shut the doors of their mind against improve

ment.

This is the cause or one of the causes for such a large percentage of ineffectiveness among salesmen. They are like the old farmer, "a good fellow but somewhat 'sot' in his ways."

Of course the customer is 'sot' too, but if the salesman is as slow as the customer there is no hope for him.

A man must be a little ahead of his trade to accomplish the best for himself.

"I am too tired to give thought to such things when I have finished my day's work." Then make it a part of the day's work.

"All this rot about salesmanship makes me weary anyway. It is written by a lot of fellows who have nothing to do but gather up and print stuff of something they don't know anything about." Has it made the salesman think? Think more and better than before? Yes. Then what matter who writes it if it has helped the salesman who reads it, and it has!!

A man's character is made up of what he approves. If the salesman is too tired to think, then he should welcome the aid of the man who will think for him, and let him approve or disapprove.

So when an employer does a little thinking in his leisure and writes the salesman his views or instructions, should the salesman not consider the fact that the employer has had more time to think than he? Why not profit by the work of the man who has time to become an expert in his business of thinking?

The salesman will say that he is thinking all the time. But he is half doing it. If he is doing it right, let me say, he is also selling a lot of goods, because right thinking will lead to right acting and skill. If he is thinking right, he doesn't need so many reminders as he receives from his house, because there is nothing in the world that will shut off instructions from the house so quickly as an abundance of orders sold at the right price.

"But why tell us all this? We know it now, it doesn't help to sell our goods." Yes it does. It will do it if it merely makes you think, or know that there is something to think about. It will help wonderfully if it causes you to catch and make a record of your valuable ideas as they go flitting through your mind, when you are leaning back in your chair or are at the table or on the

cars.

It will help if it stirs you up to an effort to write a treatise on real salesmanship based on your own experience just to show the fellows who are now

writing that they don't know anything about it.

Many a man has been indebted to a fortunate phrase for his greatest success. The phrase may express the clinching ideas in a manner that will arouse a whole series of activities beneficial to the salesman.

How is he likely to find this fortunate phrase, this lucky joining of words? By reading matter bearing upon his work.

Preparedness in salesmanship is less in the line of merchandise than in the ability to properly present it. Thought stores enable a man to display ability. If he wants thought he must seek where thought is recorded.

Nothing can come from motion but another motion; and from a thought but another thought. Thought isn't grown spontaneously. It only grows from seed thoughts well cultivated.

The unconscious motive in all action is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. The salesman can arrive at the point of real pleasure in selling merchandise only by enduring a certain amount of initiatory drudgery and pain.

Learning the minute details of many lines of merchandise is drudgery of the

worst sort, but it has got to be done and should be done before a man goes out on the road, instead of taking lessons after he goes out at the expense of hotel bills, the customer's patience, and the employer's charity.

Now suppose a salesman in reading this, acquires a thought about thought, how it springs into being by being born of another thought. Can he not use the idea as an argument with his customers? If it is of value to the salesman it will be of value to the custo

mer.

Suppose a salesman is aroused to a belief that there is something in the word salesmanship besides twelve letters, will he not begin to assemble his own experiences for review with the purpose of learning their real value?

If he becomes more expert it will be because he becomes a better observer, and when he gets into the habit of making observations carefully, he also acquires the habit of teaching his customers what he learns. This method of giving customers the benefit of observation is good salesmanship. It arouses the customer's interest in the personality of the salesman and this meansmore than half the battle.

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NEW HOME OF THE INDIANA FARM STAR, INDIANAPOLIS.

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