Business Marketing Advertising

Suppose that you were a sales manager in charge of ten men.

Suppose, further, that it was necessary for you to reduce your force by one man. You have carefully gone over the records of each man and decided that the man to get the pink slip must be either Bill Smith or Jim Jones.
But you are in a quandary as to which of the two men to lay off. Smith’s record shows that his sales volume is $400 a week more than Jones’. On the other hand, Jones operates himself for $50 a week less than Smith.

Your first impulse would be to keep Smith because he sells the most. But if you consider the two men from the standpoint of dividend-making qualifications, Jones would stay on the pay roll and Smith would come off.

As salesmen we sometimes forget that a dollar saved is equivalent to $10 in sales, even in a business where the net profit is ten per cent. It equals $20 where the net profit is five per cent and $40 in the packing business and other low-profit enterprises.

Times are good today. Business comes easily and treasurers are not super-critical of expense accounts. But the time is coming when these figures are going to be translated into percentages and used as a yard?stick to measure the value of men. When that time comes, how will your record compare?