Business Marketing Advertising

Dr. George B. Pegram, dean of the Columbia University schools of engineering, stated in public that whereas a few years ago most of the graduates of engineering schools went into production work, the number of this year’s graduates who will go into sales work will probably be larger than in any preceding year.

“From talks I have had with employers in regard to the use of engineers as sales people,” said the dean, “I find that selling is becoming more and more a matter of training and knowledge. . . . Since the determination of the most economical methods of obtaining a given result is an engineering problem, it is natural engineers are well equipped to sell goods that are bought on that basis.”

Simultaneously with this statement from the dean of one of our foremost colleges, comes an announce?ment from the National Council of Traveling Salesmen’s Associations, comprising a membership of five hundred thousand salesmen, that it is making plans to furnish its members with technical information about the goods they sell.
“We have found,” said an official of the council, “that good-fellow salesmanship is fast becoming a drug on the market. The retailer, for example, is serious these days. He knows that the consumer has a pair of hawk eyes fastened on values, and the fun niest story in the world won’t sell a pair of shoes for six dollars when someone else is offering them for five. The salesman who is unable to show the buyer that the value is there, is entirely out of luck.”

No matter what you are selling, you will get more business, and build bigger for the future, by develop?ing as much as possible the engineering view toward your work. Put your own personality into the back?ground. Get your facts firmly fixed in your mind, so that you can marshal them quickly and at will. Be sure of yourself and your knowledge.

And above all, remember that engineering means solving problems.