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Big companies must have volume to meet their overhead. They have to support a hierarchy of high brass, promotion hotshots, cost accountants, billing clerks, and laboratory and research staffs which give the company prestige but serve the customers very vaguely. Throughout the organization there is harsh emphasis on sell, sell, SELL. To put firecrackers under the salesmen's coattails, meetings are held at which the most unblushing Babbittries are enunciated. Contests are conducted, with prizes for the fiercest go-getters. Lectures and literature analyze the prospects' sales resistance, and how to break it down. A favorite theme is snob appeal—keeping up with the Joneses. This type of training produces glib spielers who have learned their tree patter in the company's sales seminars. They might as well be selling automobiles or brushes door-to-door. Nowadays the big companies hire all too many of this type in their frantic pursuit of business volume. But for treemen tried and true, fancy sales techniques have no charm. Short of the direct question to men who solicit your business, "Have you yourself worked in the trees?" a sound rule for judging them is: the less they talk, the more you can believe them. |
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