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 GIFT OF 
 Mrs. William L.Oook 
 

BIGGER, BETTER BUSINESS 
 
 Editorials on Constructive Selling 
 
 By 
 
 JOSEPH H. FINN 
 'I 
 
 President 
 NICHOLS-FINN ADVERTISING COMPANY 
 
 CHICAGO — NEW YORK * 
 
 Reprinted from 
 
 CHICAGO HERALD 
 

FOREWORD 
 
 REPRINTED FROM THE 
 
 CHICAGO HERALD 
 
 Joseph H. Finn, President of the Nichols -Finn 
 Advertising Company, who contributes these business 
 editorials in the Chicago Herald, is one of the national 
 authorities on merchandising, advertising and selling. 
 His experience in promoting sales covers almost the 
 entire range of modern business and his editorials will 
 repay every attention given them. Among the important 
 American corporations counseled by his organization 
 are: Great Northern Railway, C. B. & Q. R. R., Wizard 
 Products Co., Mutual Film Corporation, John M. Smyth 
 Co., Schulze Baking Co., Addressograph Co., Goodrich 
 Transit Co., Northern Steamship Co., T. A. Snider Pre- 
 serve Co., Morris & Company, American Film Co. Inc., 
 John Lucas & Co. Inc., Union Passenger Station Co., 
 A. M. Ramer Co., Delta Electric Co., Middle West 
 Soil Improvement Comm., Philipsborn, the outer gar- 
 ment house, Sidway Mercantile Co., American Linseed 
 Co., Kalamazoo Corset Co. The readers of the Chicago 
 Herald may feel fortunate to receive the benefit of his 
 opinions. 
 
THE BIG IDEA IN MERCHANDISING 
 
 EVERY year those who are concerned in securing 
 America's home trade spend more than $1,000,- 
 000,000 in various forms of promotional activity. 
 They spend that amount in merchandising — to sell goods. 
 
 In view of this enormous investment there is small 
 wonder that in leading business enterprises all over the 
 country they are organizing for the highest efficiency, 
 for economic results, not only in the manufacturing 
 departments — the actual production of the merchandise 
 — but in merchandising methods. They are organizing 
 for the production of sales with least resistance, at a 
 right profit; the maintenance of permanent distribution 
 and consumption. 
 
 Scientific management has scope for its farthest- 
 reaching application in modern merchandising. Today, 
 the word merchandising has a meaning not only in the 
 field of trade but to the consumer. He appreciates that 
 merchandising as a means of co-operation between the 
 buying and selling public has arrived at the stage of an 
 actual business science. 
 
 The consumer relies upon the merchandising effort 
 of manufacturers and distributors for convenience in 
 buying, for "making the price right," and for actual 
 information regarding buying opportunities. And all of 
 this, which represents service to the consumer, is a 
 natural, legitimate part of merchandising in its broadest 
 sense; 
 
 H( H: H: 4: 4: 
 
 Formerly in merchandising, mere bigness — the great- 
 ness of the institution merchandised — was supposed to 
 sweep away resistance solely because of overwhelming 
 size. In those days the smaller concern felt at an immense 
 disadvantage in competing with the tremendous multi- 
 millionaire institutions, whose sales organizations were 
 
 Copyright, 1915, by J. Keeley. 
 
supposed • fo ^bp;, unbeatable. Mere brute expenditure 
 dominated th^ii— ^but not today. 
 
 Now it is generally realized that a merchandising 
 campaign does not succeed solely because of the size of 
 the appropriation, but rather because of the big idea 
 upon which it is based. 
 
 This new order of things means a greater necessity 
 for careful analysis than ever before. It means that 
 before merchandising is begun, before advertising pro- 
 cedure is undertaken, before a definite policy of sales 
 promotion is established, the head of a business should 
 give serious attention to the vital, underlying elements 
 which differentiate that business from competition. 
 
 Every business has its individualities, its specific 
 traits, and if it is a good business it possesses special, 
 favorable talking points. It is in connection with these 
 basic features that the merchandiser has to do his hardest 
 thinking and here, if he is wise, he will call in the best 
 constructive "thinking help" he can secure. 
 
 Anyone who has ever attended a factory convention, 
 where the ginger spirit is rife, knows that the number of 
 talking points, the quantity of inspirational salesmanship 
 material, which generates in the heat of business enthu- 
 siasm — based on a really good commodity — is remarkable. 
 Yet to attempt to "bunch'* all of these selling arguments, 
 all of these merchandising appeals, all of this advertising 
 material, would be to confuse the entire promotional 
 effort hopelessly. 
 
 Therefore, in merchandising plans, in summing up 
 selling material, in arranging advertising effort, elimination 
 is the essential thing. 
 
 Tell as your story the one biggest, most humanly 
 appealing thing about your product. This is true in selling 
 to the jobbers, in selling to the dealer, in going direct to 
 the consumer. 
 
 Human nature at best assimilates slowly. Selling 
 arguments are quickly forgotten, advertisements are 
 hurriedly read. 
 
The thought uppermost in the mind of the prospective 
 buyer is: "What is the one reason I should prefer this 
 article to all the others of the same class — not a confusing 
 flood of reasons, b ut the big, upstanding fact which 
 mighty enough to con vmce me P^ " " — ' 
 
 "" And^so 1 say — and commercial history bears out my 
 words — that it is the big idea that makes the merchan- 
 dising campaign. It is the master .selliDg point , in com- 
 parison with which all others dwindle, that carries home. 
 ***** 
 
 This big idea may be in the product itself, it may be 
 in the method of selling, it may be even in the package 
 or container. For example, a famous brand of biscuit 
 probably owes its biggest success not to a quality that is 
 unlike other biscuit, but to the way freshness and purity 
 are preserved because of the protecting selling-package. 
 
 Sets of books have been sold in this day when it is 
 lamentably true that the library is losing its popularity, 
 not by "starring" entirely the worth of the books, the 
 greatness of the authors, the wonderful mental stimulus 
 and improvement to be obtained by the study of literary 
 masterpieces, so much as by the method of sale. The 
 books are sent on approval, without advance payment, 
 and a trifling amount accepted each month. In this case 
 the big merchandising idea is free inspection, price and 
 terms. 
 
 In other cases the big idea in merchandising is demon- 
 stration, which works out exceptionally well in connection 
 with a chain of business houses at preferred locations. 
 
 Take as examples. United Cigar Stores products and 
 Rexall remedies and toilet goods. Both of these concerns 
 are organized to "put over" successfully the best kind of 
 personal demonstrations in their stores and they do it 
 continually with splendid merchandising effect. Here, the 
 big thought is putting it up to the customer in person. 
 
 And, as a vital part of merchandising, advertising has 
 
as its object to impress upon the public mind one big 
 thought. If it has done that it has done its work well. 
 
 No doubt there are many worth-while facts in connec- 
 tion with Prudential insurance. Undoubtedly this pro- 
 position bristles with important selling facts. Yet 
 because this company years ago adopted as its big selling 
 point "strength" and typified this thought by a repro- 
 duction of the Rock of Gibraltar, every schoolboy today 
 associates this with Prudential insurance — a fact that has 
 had not a little to do with the progress of this enterprise. 
 
 The Great Northern Railway, in hundreds of direct 
 and indirect ways, has given publicity to the slogan *'See 
 America First." People have said that this slogan is 
 too wide in application to be of tangible benefit to the 
 Great Northern Railway. True, "See America First" 
 tends to create a desire for American travel which will 
 bring good to other transportation lines as well as the 
 Great Northern. But this company builded wisely. 
 The Great Northern people knew that anything which 
 tends to stimulate transcontinental travel in America 
 will naturally benefit this road. 
 
 ^ 'I* •!* 'i* -I* 
 
 When you compare the division of interest of a many- 
 topic advertisement with the smashing single force of a 
 big idea that stands out and impresses, you will realize 
 why so many businesses hold fast to the one master 
 selling-point that has proved itself right. 
 
 I have said that every good business has within itself 
 this one greatest talking point, in comparison with which 
 all other arguments seem inconsequential. In many 
 businesses this big idea exists but has never been dis- 
 covered or it has never been disentangled from minor 
 talking points as it should have been. In many cases 
 the big idea is entirely concealed and is only brought to 
 light after the most careful analysis and painstaking 
 research. 
 
 The big idea may be in the product itself, or it may 
 be in the sales promotion of the product. In either case 
 it represents the fulcrum of the lever of sales. 
 
Every good business is susceptible to good merchan- 
 dising — good publicity. 
 
 Every good business which will endure has, some- 
 where in its make-up, a big idea on which all selling 
 activities should be centered. 
 
 And fortunate is the business which early discovers 
 and uses in all its promotional efforts this single-barreled, 
 bull's-eye-hitting. Big Idea. 
 
THE GOLDEN VALUE OF COURTESY 
 
 THESE are days of intense business effort. 
 Efficiency engineers are in demand. Business 
 is organized along scientific lines. Waste is elimin- 
 ated — production increased — economy is rigidly enforced. 
 But sometimes it strikes one that while the heads-of- 
 affairs are perfecting to the finest point the mechanics of 
 business, the human element is sadly overlooked. 
 
 It is not a business millennium to arrive at the point 
 where everything is done with machinelike exactness, 
 where mistakes are checked and rechecked against, until 
 there is no possibility for error, and people go through a 
 set of regulated motions daily and yearly like so many 
 automatons. 
 
 Human nature is a great, big essential in business. 
 
 •f* "I* •K T» ^ 
 
 Far more important than business details — upon which 
 stress is wisely laid, but which still remain details — is the 
 ability to meet people on a common human ground, to 
 waken in them responsive interest and friendly feeling. 
 
 A retail store may be conducted upon lines absolutely 
 beyond criticism so far as correct merchandising methods 
 are concerned; employes, from general manager to stock- 
 boy may be so carefully rehearsed in the minutiae of 
 daily transactions that things will run with clockwork 
 precision, yet the whole business may be as bloodless as 
 a mummy. 
 
 Another thing which clogs the wheels of real progress 
 is superdignity. In many offices the reception is so 
 austere and chilling that a prospective customer who 
 may have called in a warmly responsive mood has his 
 ardor dampened, his enthusiasm congealed, before he is 
 fairly across the threshold. 
 
 Copyright, 1915, by J. Keeley. 
 
Such businesses may be in the present, but they are 
 not of the present. They belong back in the kerosene age. 
 Even in modern banking institutions conducted on live, 
 twentieth-century lines, the tip-toeing of side-whiskered 
 dignitaries, the servile obeisance of pussy-footed clerks, 
 the solemn silence over all, has given way to normal, 
 wholesome business activity. 
 
 Assuredly, pomp and merchandising do not go to- 
 gether. If you create around your business a wall of 
 resistance — built of an exaggerated idea of your own 
 importance — customers will not climb over it. 
 
 He H« He * H: 
 
 Democracy is the order of the day. 
 
 I have visited small offices where the clerk at the 
 information desk must be approached like a royal poten- 
 tate, with a salaam and shoes in hand. I have visited 
 big, worth-while businesses where the "old man" was 
 instantly seeable and a good-natured freedom from 
 pretense and pose permeated the entire establishment. 
 
 More business than many people suppose is built on 
 the solid basis of good nature — contagious friendliness — 
 real courtesy. 
 
 Heaven knows it is an inexpensive virtue, but it is 
 by no means common. 
 
 If I were launching, we'll say, a retail business, I 
 believe that, first of all, I'd get all my salesfolk together 
 and talk to them somewhat like this: 
 
 "We are all human and mistakes are human, too. 
 Not one of us is going through this business routine day 
 after day without a slip. 
 
 "If there were not an error once in a while I would 
 think that there was too much perfection, and I'd know 
 that you had so transformed yourself into selling machines 
 that you had extinguished the vital spark of human 
 intelligence and human sympathy. 
 
 "But there is one mistake that there is no earthly 
 reason for you to make — for which there is no palliating 
 excuse. 
 
"It is the crime unforgivable in this business, 
 "And it is lack of courtesy." 
 
 Indifference and offensive mannerisms on the part of 
 subordinates have lost sales and made business enemies 
 which have represented a deficit of millions of dollars in 
 the history of modern business. Just ordinary politeness 
 frequently makes a bigger showing on the sales slips than 
 thirty-third degree, scientific salesmanship. 
 
 The trouble with a great many salesmen and sales- 
 women who have been schooled in the psychology of 
 selling is that, having mastered the problem, they are so 
 overwhelmed with their own importance that they forget 
 that psychology means plain human nature, and they are 
 entirely too convinced of their own cleverness and their 
 gift of analysis, to make a sale in a plain, human, friendly 
 way. 
 
 Usually the head of the business really stands for 
 genuine, human service to customers — the fine art of 
 courtesy. Frequently the general manager of an institu- 
 tion does much to pass the spirit along. The merchandis- 
 ing manager is thoroughly in harmony with this idea. 
 The advertising man, in his copy, breathes the message 
 of welcome and square, courteous dealing. But some one 
 shies a monkey-wrench in the machinery before it goes 
 much further. It is the result of a lack of harmony — 
 of failure to carry out all along the line the esprit de corps 
 of the institution. 
 
 :(: :{: Hi H^ H( 
 
 It is disheartening — it is certainly discouraging to 
 sales — to enter an institution sort of bubbling with 
 friendliness — the result of the firm's cordial message and 
 sincere appreciation of your trade — and then to be met 
 by an individual who sizes you up disdainfully and waits 
 on you at his or her own sweet time. 
 
 It is "riling" to pause while Kittie and Minnie discuss 
 the new floorwalker and their latest gifts in wrist watches 
 and lavallieres. It is infuriating to have a dapper 
 "Bunker Bean" style of youth insist that your own taste 
 
is bourgeois, and that you should purchase this or that 
 article for the final, indisputable reason that he wears 
 one himself. 
 
 There should be no forgiveness — no punishment short 
 of boiling in oil — ^for the party who fails to cover a sneer 
 when you ask for an article at a certain price, assuring 
 you patronizingly that no one who is anyone thinks of 
 paying less than 49 cents more. 
 
 ***** 
 
 In modern living the opportunity for rubbing the 
 ''subject" the wrong way is a million-fold. Over telephones, 
 on street cars, in elevators, theatre box oflSces — ^yes, even 
 in churches — this "public be squelched'* policy is in great 
 vogue. Somehow it is regarded as the proper professional 
 attitude to be aloof, ungracious, condescending or stolidly 
 indifferent. 
 
 It isn't professional. It is simply proof of abysmal 
 ignorance. 
 
 I honestly believe that if an amount of time equal to 
 that devoted to the perfection of human beings as mer- 
 chandising machines were spent on making merchandising 
 machines human beings, it would mean a tremendous 
 impetus in sales. 
 
 If in every business institution as much appreciation, 
 as full credit, were given the employe who radiates sun- 
 shine, who has unfailing patience and intelligent sympathy, 
 as to the one who masters severe technical difficulties, I 
 am mighty sure that business would go ahead faster. 
 
 Intelligence, initiative and courtesy are three big 
 requirements in selling. 
 
 And the greatest of these is courtesy. 
 
STORMING THE MARKET BY 
 MASTER MERCHANDISING 
 
 THESE are the days of brave business victories — 
 the times when small, timid craft hug the shore. 
 The faint-hearted business man goes out at 
 dawn, scans the horizon, and if even the shadow of a 
 cloud is visible, plans further retrenchment. 
 
 Just because of this condition, courage — supreme con- 
 fidence — accomplishes more today, I believe, than ever 
 before. And the man's-size business man is reaping his 
 just rewards. 
 
 True, there is war in Europe. The Mexican turmoil 
 continues. There are abundant loopholes and excuses, 
 all of which merely clear the field for the real giants of 
 action. 
 
 Now, don't misunderstand me. It is not simply the 
 business of enormous size that is going into the fight 
 today to win. As a recent writer in the Saturday Evening 
 Post clearly proved, "little business is cleaving its way to 
 the fore with the sharp sword of service." Size has little 
 or nothing to do with it. 
 
 This is the success-time of the business with big 
 aspirations and determinations, which, no matter what 
 its size or where it stands, is willing to face the front and 
 fight. 
 
 No matter from where you look at it, the opportunity 
 is here for the manufacturer or seller who possesses the 
 gameness to meet present conditions and overwhelm them. 
 Now, if ever, is the time to storm the market. 
 
 In certain quarters there has been a lull. It is common 
 to hear business men of the class which thrives on doubt 
 and magnifies disaster declare that business is "so many 
 points off." Then they sit down resignedly to compute 
 their losses. This is very human — also it is worse than 
 
 Copyright, 1915, by J. Keeley. 
 
futile. It is an illustration of the spirit which needs 
 eternal encouragement, continual bolstering, to make 
 success possible, even under the most favorable conditions. 
 
 There is a different type of business man, however, 
 representative of the finest stuff of which American 
 commerce is built. These are men who have the power 
 to rebound, men with just the right mixture of shrewdness 
 and optimism, men to whom no day is all sunshine or all 
 shadow. 
 
 They recognize unfavorable conditions, but only to 
 take them wisely into account in formulating ways and 
 means to surmount them. These men, you will note, are 
 not carried away in the mad rush when all signs are favor- 
 able. They know that the law of compensation exists, 
 that in some way, somehow, things will balance up with 
 surprising regularity. 
 
 There is under all business conditions a way to greater 
 sales and profits, if it is only searched out and taken 
 advantage of. This point is sure: it is not along the 
 most heavily traveled road, not in following the other 
 fellow. 
 
 Just at this time, when others are complaining that 
 business is off, when others are planning to defer their 
 efforts just a little longer, wise men, who have the bigness 
 of courage, plan to storm the market. This has already 
 been done by certain wise ones in different lines. They 
 found competition asleep, stole a march and won the bat- 
 tle. Others are planning the same course. They are not 
 many — these cashers-in on present opportunity — and 
 their success is consequently greater. 
 
 There are a dozen different lines of business which 
 I could name where opportunity is ripe and the field is 
 waiting to be conquered by a broadside of concerted, 
 concentrated effort. 
 
 When there is no war cloud on the horizon, when all 
 money is freely in circulation, when confidence is in every- 
 body's heart, the campaign spirit, the vim and deter- 
 mination to achieve the highest success is universal. 
 
 11 
 
Then there is no lethargy, no sleeping at the switch. The 
 game is harder, the results accordingly more divided. 
 But now the race is to the fleet and to the few. 
 
 4c :ic H< H^ ^ 
 
 If you are a manufacturer or distributor of high-grade 
 merchandise, if you are in a position to meet demand at 
 a profit, your opportunity is here and now. Storm the 
 market, generate greater selling energy, right at this time. 
 
 The race of buyers has not ceased to exist. Another 
 year of good crops makes this the most favored of all 
 lands beneath the sun. Buyers are taking courage. Not 
 merely are they spending money for necessities — they are 
 looking with appreciative eyes toward the finer luxuries. 
 
 A bountiful harvest awaits those who are organized 
 to cash in on this profitable demand. 
 
 Real merchandising activity not only bridges business 
 depression; it builds the way to future sales; it revivifies 
 and stimulates. It injects new life and impetus into 
 wholesale and retail trade; it impresses the product upon 
 the consumer at the moment when such an impression 
 will be most clearly recorded. It commands the center 
 of the stage, the glare of the spotlight when there are 
 few other performances to distract. 
 
 One thing to bear in mind is that it is easy to misjudge 
 the mental attitude of the consumer. A little pilgrimage 
 down the main shopping street of any of the leading cities 
 will convince the most cynical that folks are not staying 
 at home guarding the meager hoard concealed in a woolen 
 stocking. 
 
 This year's shopping season is showing a healthy 
 activity. Stores are comfortably filled with actual 
 buyers. Purchases are not hand-to-mouth; neither 
 are they extravagant. They are just normal — made as 
 though the buyer anticipated neither a millennium nor a 
 crash. 
 
 This winter opened with industrial conditions in far 
 better shape. There are few really energetic and willing 
 
 12 
 
people out of a job. Mills and factories are running. 
 The country people are equally prosperous. They are 
 close to the crops and have been quick to feel the returns. 
 Mail order enterprises report an appreciable increase in 
 business over this time last year. 
 
 All in all, the people themselves show greater con- 
 fidence, a truer grasp on optimism and are better boosters 
 than the manufacturers. 
 
 The latter — many of them — are still waiting for some 
 mystic sign, some bow of promise flung across the heavens 
 pointing to a pot of golden sales. 
 
 Meanwhile, a little bit of courage, a willingness to go 
 ahead decisively, a real determination to storm the market 
 by aggressive merchandising effort, by more efficient 
 salesmanship, more powerful and productive advertising, 
 will win unusual results. 
 
 Mr. Manufacturer or Distributor, move your mer- 
 chandise, get the new impulse — NOW. Perhaps never 
 again will there be offered such an opportunity to dominate 
 your field, such a chance to fill the public mind with the 
 quality of your product and do it so economically. 
 
 Advertising is either good for all the time or good for 
 no time. Red-blooded salesmanship is essential twelve 
 months in the year of every year of your business lifetime. 
 
 If you regard a carefully completed, perfectly organ- 
 ized merchandising-advertising campaign as a luxury 
 which you can afford only in the brightest prosperity 
 times, you have a total misconception of the meaning of — 
 the reason for — promotional effort. 
 
 Keen merchandising plus live advertising is a means 
 of best meeting every business condition, of filling business 
 gaps, of bridging business crises. These twin forces offer 
 you, if you are at the head of a legitimate business, 
 an opportunity to storm the market and win success 
 while competition nods. 
 
 And, I honestly believe, "never so much so as now." 
 
 13 
 
HARMONIZE THE SELLING EFFORT 
 
 EVERY year the game of selling grows more difficult 
 because competition assumes more serious pro- 
 portions. Time was when the manufacturer of 
 a quality article could go out and sell on merit alone. 
 There was so much inferior merchandise, so much trickery 
 and subterfuge were resorted to, so common was the 
 tendency to "put something over" the buyer, that goods 
 which really possessed worth and which were offered 
 honestly on a fair deal basis were rare enough to command 
 hearty support. If distribution was right, the goods 
 largely sold themselves. 
 
 It was in that former day that the fallacious philosophy 
 was framed, *Tf you are making mouse traps and making 
 them good enough, even in the heart of a wilderness, the 
 world will wear a path to your door." 
 
 The buying world is not wearing paths anywhere, so 
 that you could notice it. The only paths that are being 
 worn are leveled by the modern mouse-trap maker — and 
 his counterpart in other lines of production — who smooth 
 the way and pave it with good, hard labor to the doorstep 
 of the distant consumer. 
 
 Salesmanship has become more and more a man's 
 game — a big man's game — calling for unfailing initiative, 
 ceaseless vigilance and actual productive work. The 
 old-time "substitutes" for genuine salesmanship have 
 vanished in Time's discard. 
 
 "Good-fellowship" — in the sporting acceptance of the 
 term — moist evenings and sea-going cabs — no longer plays 
 a stellar part in the closing of large contracts. Today, to 
 be a real salesman, a clear brain, steady nerves and 
 bounding health are vital requisites. Today, buying is 
 done by comparison, investigation and analysis, and the 
 salesman must be able, every minute of the time, to prove 
 
 14 
 
his proposition — to do the sum without recourse to the 
 answers in the back of the book. 
 
 In the "old days" every salesman was a free-lance as 
 to method. Men went "upon the road,*'journeyed more 
 or less at their own sweet will, talked what came into 
 their minds, and succeeded or failed according to the 
 amount of business they could annex on a friendship 
 basis. But there are fewer "friendship links'* in modern 
 business. 
 
 In the olden times, the selling and merchandising plans 
 were so loosely made that it was not uncommon for one 
 salesman to cross another's trail, for two men from the 
 same house to be working on the same "prospect," each 
 in blissful ignorance of the fact that the other man was 
 calling. And it was most likely that these two salesmen 
 were presenting lines of talk which absolutely conflicted. 
 
 Then scientific merchandising came — and organized 
 salesmanship. It took a long time to uproot some of the 
 old traditions. There was strenuous opposition, especially 
 from "star" salesmen who refused to be harmonized with 
 the new, concerted plan of action. 
 
 In many businesses today there is still need for better 
 selling organization. But the new generation of sales- 
 men — not necessarily the younger generation, mind you, 
 but representatives of the new-thinking type of business 
 boosters — are strong for the organization policy. They 
 have not lost their individuality or submerged their per- 
 sonality. They march under the harmony flag. They 
 are the go-getters of today. 
 
 As I emphasized in a previous article, there is almost 
 invariably one big idea, one master merchandising thought 
 in every business. When this one big idea is located it 
 should become the basis of all salesmanship on the proposi- 
 tion. It should become the dominating argument of 
 every salesman. It should saturate his every solicitation. 
 And all additions made by a firm to its selling staff should 
 multiply by so many man-power the spread of this 
 integral sales idea. 
 
 IS 
 
One need know nothing of the laws of physics to 
 realize that friction means lost motion. The only value 
 of selling-force lies in delivered power. And it is the wise 
 man-of-business who makes sure that every member of 
 his promotional organization — be he merchandise mana- 
 ger, sales chief, advertising manager or individual in any 
 of these departments — is a smooth-working unit, lubri- 
 cated with loyalty. The whole sales organization should 
 be "built like a full jeweled watch," each part working 
 with perfect "compensation" into the other. 
 
 Especially is it essential that the sales department and 
 the advertising department should work with absolute 
 oneness of purpose. Formerly this was a serious friction 
 point. Often the sales manager believed that every 
 penny of promotional money expended in channels other 
 than his own department was a dead loss to the concern. 
 He was prone to bristle at the very word "advertising" 
 as the new-fangled means of separating "the old man" 
 from his capital. 
 
 On the other hand, the advertising manager frequently 
 was more jealous than zealous. He overestimated the 
 importance of his position, overestimated the importance 
 of advertising. With a pleasing little case of animosity 
 such as this brewing in about 50 per cent of all large 
 businesses, harmonizing the advertising and selling 
 departments in those days resembled an effort to fraternal- 
 ize a pair of strange bulldogs. 
 
 But time has mended matters. Now the sales nlanager 
 knows that the business of the present and future is, to 
 a large extent, the advertised business. He knows what 
 advertising does in creating consumer-sales, what its 
 co-operation means in the work of his men upon dealers. 
 Furthermore, he has found that a good advertising 
 manager is the best working partner he ever had, or 
 could have. 
 
 The advertising manager, too, has experienced a 
 change of heart. He has come to realize that his is a 
 
 16 
 
part — a most important part — but nevertheless only one 
 division of the whole. He realizes that advertising needs 
 the co-operation of live, human salesmanship. He has 
 discovered that the best advertising of the day is not the 
 kind that is prepared in the solitudes, but in the actual 
 field, in contact and co-operation with the selling depart- 
 ment. 
 
 Modern merchandising campaigns are often the result 
 of months of preliminary work. The heads of the busi- 
 ness, the sales manager, the advertising manager and the 
 advertising agent give to these conferences the best that 
 each has. The entire merchandising procedure is carefully 
 laid out, the market is studied, the demand is analyzed. 
 Accurate information is secured on per capita consump- 
 tion; competition is weighed with full allowance for its 
 strength; inquiry is made into the relative prosperity of 
 different territories. 
 
 Thus the entire advertising campaign is shaped in 
 advance. And from the beginning all sales-effort ham- 
 mers away at one spot, literally shattering resistance. 
 
 In the most advanced type of modern enterprises 
 there is no longer lost motion in seeking to align the 
 different promotional departments of a business. They 
 are aligned to start with. And — in perfect co-operation — 
 they win. 
 
 17 
 
A MERCHANDISING TALK 
 TO THE CONSUMER 
 
 WHAT interest have you, as a consumer, in the 
 merchadising of what you buy? 
 This may strike you as a somewhat unusual 
 question. 
 
 Your natural impulse probably will be to reply, 
 "None at all." 
 
 And on this subject of merchandising methods your 
 position logically is a passive one. 
 
 You assume, and rightly, that it is the business of a 
 manufacturer or distributor of a product to make it easy 
 for you to buy, to make the price one that will represent 
 true economy to you, to bring his product to your atten- 
 tion through dealers and through publicity. 
 
 It is plainly to the advantage of the man who sells to 
 plan his merchandising so aggressively that you will be 
 inspired to buy — will find it to your advantage to keep on 
 buying. 
 
 But merchandising considered from the consumer's 
 point of view as a genuine asset to the buyer — well, that's 
 a different proposition. 
 
 Let us determine whether, after all, you don't share 
 with the manufacturer in the benefits of his merchandising 
 message, which you receive in many different forms. 
 
 Your grocer or druggist may pass the tidings to you. 
 You may read it in public print. In any case, it is buying 
 news, and it is interesting to you. 
 
 There is no disputing the fact that nothing is so appeal- 
 ing to those of us who are wholesomely, normally selfish 
 as that which conveys a suggestion of personal benefit. 
 
 We are affected by merchandising, whether consciously 
 
 Copyright 1915, by J. Keeley. 
 
 18 
 
or unconsciously, with this idea of personal benefit in 
 mind. We welcome business tidings. 
 
 In a few isolated cases in the past, newspapers and 
 other publications have tried the experiment of filling 
 their columns with "pure" reading matter, to the exclusion 
 of business announcements, with the mistaken theory in 
 mind that the reader pays only for such "pure" reading 
 matter and should not be compelled to have business 
 facts forced down his or her throat. But that this was a 
 mistake was proved by the fact that the experiment was 
 quickly discontinued. 
 
 The readers objected, showing that they placed a 
 proper value on the importance of buying news, as well 
 as of the world's more distant and impersonal happenings. 
 
 An eastern publication had a misunderstanding with 
 a leading department store in its city. This merchant 
 withdrew all advertising patronage from the paper in 
 question. The result was an enormous falling off in the 
 circulation of the paper, showing that a large number of 
 people actually bought the paper to keep in touch with 
 this store's offerings. 
 
 :{c :ic 4: 4^ H< 
 
 It is an old but true story — that of the brilliant 
 commentary on American business literature made by 
 Rudyard Kipling. An American friend mailed him a 
 package of magazines, and in order to economize in 
 carriage charges, tore off everything except the text pages. 
 
 Kiphng wrote: "Next time send the advertising 
 pages and keep the rest. I can write the stories myself." 
 
 Modern business literature is literature. It is the 
 product of some of the ablest writers in the country. It 
 has human appeal — the cardinal virtues of brevity, force 
 and conviction. 
 
 Commercial art today is on a remarkably high plane. 
 Thus, the merchandising message is of interest to the 
 consumer because of its intimate personal import, because 
 of its interesting, seasonable news, its literary and artistic 
 worth. 
 
 19 
 
But, most of all, you should be interested in modern 
 merchandising methods, in promotional publicity, because 
 it represents a definite service to the consumer. It is 
 the modern means of connecting the demand with the 
 supply, of guiding the purchaser to the best and most 
 reliable merchandise, of saving him money. 
 
 In this advanced day, selling campaigns must be 
 legitimate, truthful in statement; the goods must back 
 up verbal and printed promises. And manufacturers 
 more than ever have come to realize that square dealing 
 is good business, that only quality goods mean "repeat" 
 sales. And a repeat sale, dear reader, in merchandising 
 vernacular, means a voluntary purchase for a second or 
 subsequent time because you find the article absolutely 
 as represented. 
 
 Aggressive merchandising and vigorous advertising are 
 the best proofs that a manufacturer believes in his goods. 
 They are the best guarantee a customer can have that 
 the manufacturer will keep the quality up. 
 
 Linked with the history of successful merchandising 
 and advertising campaigns, is the history of improved 
 merchandise. Most of us do not need to strain our 
 memories to recall the time when men's ready-to-wear 
 clothes were mostly of the comic valentine variety; when 
 to wear "hand-me-downs" was a mark not only of 
 depleted purse but of willingness to bear the slings and 
 arrows of all men who wore normal garments. 
 
 Ready-to-wear clothes were then on a par with imita- 
 tion diamonds. They were apparel that proclaimed the 
 man to his utter disparagement. 
 
 Then came a revolutionary campaign of clothes 
 merchandising and publicity, and, in the same step, came 
 quality clothes. Today bankers — high-salaried men — 
 professional men — do not blush to wear one of the well- 
 known brands of ready-tailored clothes. 
 
 Take food products. When food publicity was in its 
 infancy, adulteration ran riot. Then the housewife was 
 
 20 
 
not to be blamed for making her own bread, putting up 
 her own preserves, for cooking on Saturday the family 
 supply of baked beans. Pure food advertising came, and 
 along with it came pure food manufacture. 
 
 Canners and preservers adopted the most rigorous 
 standards. They insisted on materials that were above 
 suspicion. Their processes were right, their product clean 
 made. And American women responded right willingly. 
 Food advertising, advertising that invited inspection, 
 that proved purity, made all this possible. 
 
 Go through the whole list of everyday household, 
 personal and business requirements. You will find that 
 in every hour of your daily life, in almost every human 
 action, you make use in some way of advertised things. 
 You quickly prove that your life is guided by merchan- 
 dising and advertising, whether or not you have ever 
 realized it before. 
 
 You buy crackers in package form, you wear rubber 
 heels, you shave with a safety or use certain advertised 
 toilet accessories. You probably eat an advertised cereal 
 for breakfast, drop advertised sugar in your advertised 
 coffee, spread toast made of advertised bread with 
 advertised butter. Your home is decorated with adver- 
 tised paint products. 
 
 Advertised books are in your advertised bookcases. 
 You hunt with advertised guns and shoot advertised 
 shells; fish with advertised rods and reels. From cellar 
 to garret your house is supplied with advertised, labor- 
 saving, comfort-bringing appliances. You ride in adver- 
 tised trains over advertised roads and tour in advertised 
 automobiles. You smoke advertised tobacco, chew 
 advertised gum. You witness advertised amusements in 
 advertised theaters. 
 
 So, advertising permeates and flavors your whole life. 
 Your children are cradled in advertised bassinets, they 
 ride in advertised go-carts; and, finally, you are tucked 
 
 21 
 
away in an advertised casket, and your family lives 
 prosperously on the payments of advertised life insurance 
 policies. Advertising is with you always. 
 
 And here's another thought for the consumer to bear 
 in mind in thinking of advertising: 
 
 There is no other modern force that has proved such 
 an economic factor in reducing the cost of buying and 
 selling. 
 
 Because of advertising, and consequently increased 
 markets, manufacturing costs are lower, distribution 
 channels are wider, sales flow in stronger streams. 
 
 And all of this — the direct result of the enormous 
 demand created by and through advertising — means 
 lower selling cost, the more economical purchase of 
 necessities and luxuries by the consumer. 
 
 Advertising pays. Aggressive merchandising pays. 
 
 That's a big, indisputable fact in modern business. 
 
 And to this I want to add, as emphatically as I can 
 say it, that — 
 
 Advertising and merchandising j)ay the consumer. 
 
 22 
 
TERRITORIAL MERCHANDISING 
 
 HUMAN nature, I have become convinced, is pretty- 
 much the same, regardless of latitude and longi- 
 tude. The Icelander and the Patagonian have 
 much in common. And anything that is really worth 
 selling has sales opportunities almost everywhere. 
 
 True, the pink sporting sheets at Gus the Barber's 
 have been declared poor media for the sale of religious 
 literature and Palm Beach suits will merchandise slowly 
 in Alaska. 
 
 On the other hand, the most enthusiastic patrons of 
 the wildest Metropolitan gaieties are ruralites from the 
 hinterland, while the city folk ecstatically admire Nature's 
 solitudes. 
 
 Which is all by way of saying that Reggie Van Alstyne 
 of Broadway and Timothy Tassel of Winnamac, Ind., are 
 brothers beneath the skin, and that Palmyra Prim of 
 Boston and Gertie Orangeblossom of Southern California 
 have tastes and ambitions more similar than you might 
 surmise. 
 
 So the merchandiser of a new product, at the inception 
 of a new selling campaign, can secure pretty convincing 
 evidence as to how a proposition is going to take hold in 
 other places when he tries it out in one. 
 
 Of course, there are exceptions. There are instances 
 where the verdict of one section of the country reverses 
 the judgment of another section. But they are rare. 
 Given a fair measure of average national prosperity, a 
 staple that sells in one part of the country can be made 
 to sell with equal success in the extreme opposite corner. 
 
 The new merchandising, the modern way of minimizing 
 all risk of heavy loss, of providing in advance for every 
 variety of difficulty, is in accordance with correct mer- 
 chandising science. It is Territorial Merchandising. 
 
 Copyrisrht, 1915, by J. Keeley. 
 
 23 
 
Territorial merchandising, by which is meant covering 
 the country from a comparatively small beginning — 
 increasing the expenditure and dimensions as methods 
 are determined right and experience guides the way, is 
 the wisest way to build success. 
 
 Many a potential captain of industry, the head of a 
 concern which has in it every true success-quality, hesi- 
 tates because he is not in a position to go aggressively 
 after the National market. He stands still, feeling 
 incompetent and inefficient, simply because he has not 
 the financial seven-league boots of his longer-established 
 and more heavily financed competitors. Perhaps he 
 attempts to spread merchandising effort thinly over all 
 the country, when he might make a worth while showing 
 in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin. 
 
 This centralization of effort in one part of the country 
 at a time permits mobilizing your sales force, concentrating 
 the best fighting men, centering the advertising fire in a 
 single spot where you can accurately gauge results. 
 
 It means dominating the situation — establishing a 
 permanent dent where it will do the most good. It means 
 gaining a wonderfully valuable first-hand idea of the 
 market — an intimate study of distribution channels. It 
 means an opportunity to correct mistakes before they 
 have become costly. It means normal growth — sym- 
 metrical development. It means going fast by going 
 with reasonable slowness — in the right direction. 
 
 It does not require a fortune to launch a territorial 
 advertising-merchandising campaign. In large part, a 
 campaign of this kind can be made to finance itself. 
 
 It is the best way I know of to start the conquest of 
 the American market. 
 
 Modern merchandising is business building. This 
 being true, there is a valuable lesson in studying the way 
 houses, bridges, walls and skyscrapers are built — stone 
 upon stone — piece upon piece — beam upon beam. No 
 sane builder would try to cast the framework of the 
 
 24 
 
Woolworth Building in a single mold. It would make for 
 neither economy in production nor efficiency in structure. 
 
 In just the same way, the most scientific — the safest 
 method of covering America with a merchandising propa- 
 ganda, is to take it section by section, broadening as 
 distribution broadens — focusing the efforts of your 
 business on the restricted area you are working, getting 
 there on the firing line yourself, advertising with sufficient 
 force and concentration to dominate the local situa- 
 tion — to raise the product to a place of prominence — to 
 hold it there in the public eye for a sufficient length of 
 time to create a lasting impression — in brief, to sell a 
 territory and sell it right — to intrench your name and 
 your brand unforgettably with the trade as well as the 
 consumer. 
 
 This is the kind of merchandising that means lasting, 
 profitable trade — the kind of merchandising that any 
 healthy business can do. If the methods are correct — 
 the work thoroughly done — you can build up a system 
 of profitable trade units that in time will cover the 
 country. 
 
 I am strong for National merchandising and publicity 
 when they are the result of logical, complete territorial 
 development. 
 
 This is frequently not as spectacular a campaign as 
 a vivid advertising flash across all the heavens. 
 
 But territorial merchandising, properly carried out, 
 means a fixed star of demand. 
 
 And Haley's comet — though a seven nights' wonder — 
 was soon forgotten. 
 
 25 
 
APPLIED MERCHANDISING 
 
 The Nichols-Finn Way 
 
 Mr. Finn's observations on merchandising, re- 
 printed in this book, throw a helpful sidelight on 
 the basic beliefs and every-day activities of the 
 Nichols-Finn Advertising Company. 
 
 We are Merchandisers first. We have not a 
 great deal of time to indulge in high-brow pro- 
 fessionalism applied to advertising. We presume 
 it is all right. 
 
 We are more concerned with the interesting 
 phenomena of sales in the making. We are organ- 
 ized to co-operate with Big concerns, and con- 
 cerns which possess the elements of Bigness, in 
 the production of result-winning campaigns. 
 
 Here are some of the outstanding reasons why 
 Nichols-Finn should work to best advantage in 
 connection with the sales and advertising depart- 
 ments of your business : 
 
 Our present connection with representative 
 sales and advertising successes ; keen analyses of 
 marketing conditions; reliable knowledge of dis- 
 tributing avenues; correct understanding of the 
 relations of cost and price; demonstrated results 
 in ^^Merchandising Advertising'' — effective deal- 
 er work; ability to chart a course that will avoid 
 the rocks of trade-resistance; firing-line-sales- 
 experience ; close-hand knowledge of media, meth- 
 ods and men. 
 
 The Nichols-Finn Idea represents the new 
 spirit in Advertising and Merchandising — the 
 intensive production of real profits. 
 
 26 
 
EXPERIENCE IS ESSENTIAL 
 
 Modern business is too far advanced — compe- 
 tition is too active — for you to accept as a business 
 guide one who has never trod the road himself. 
 
 Nichols-Finn experience insures safe, sane 
 methods. 
 
 We render a personal service in the full mean- 
 ing of that term. This organization will never be 
 allowed to grow beyond the point where the prin- 
 cipals of the business are personally concerned in 
 deciding every vital problem in connection with 
 every campaign produced. Yet the scope and 
 variety of our business give us breadth of vision, 
 depth of understanding — enable us to keep a con- 
 stant finger on the pulse of Business Today. 
 
 In no other way can you gain such a complete 
 and intimate knowledge of Nichols-Finn service as 
 by a visit to our Chicago office. The latchstring is 
 out — no matter how remote may be your idea of 
 doing business. 
 
 Advertising agency claims necessarily sound 
 alike on paper and in **road'^ solicitation. The 
 place to judge an agency — what it has done — 
 what it is doing — what it is organized to do — is 
 at the agency itself. 
 
 We cordially invite you to call — or we will call 
 on you, if you prefer. The proof awaits you. 
 
 NiCHOLS-FiNN Advertising Company 
 
 222 S. State St. /^M^ 200 Fifth Ave. 
 Chicago (TJSnwQ New York 
 
 27 
 
isss 
 
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