Company develops redwood sales strategy

if, areas. They like to show off the beauty of natural wood. That's good for redwood and other woods as well." Bill Baugh, general manager of Snavely Forest Products in Denver, feels that Colorado is good wood country.

Snavely Forest Products is a national wholesale lumber organization based in Pittsburgh. The regional wholesalers operate autonomously but benefit on an administrative level and in part from the buying power and reputation of theparent company.

The Denver headquarters was established in October of 1982 to take advantage of the western shift in population and construction. Although 9090 of their business is in Colorado,

Snavely also sells to retailers in Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming. Snavely/Denver concentrates on specialty products. The major portion of their sales comes from pine boards

Story at a Glance

How a lirm tested redwood sales market...develops increasing volume. . .construction heart sells best. ..B grade makes most money.

and molding. They carry other specialty products including laminated beams and doors.

Baugh explained that Snavely/Denver just began carrying redwood a year ago. Their market research indicated that the demand for redwood was not being met by the competition so there seemed to be room to take advantage of the high profit margins found in sales of redwood. The results of a year's trial have livedup totheir expectations and Baugh says they plan to sell an increasing volume of redwood in the future. The company's overall growth in 1983-1984 was about 3090 and they anticipate continued growth in the coming year.

The Snavely/Denver redwood inventory consists of construction heart, B grade, clear and clear all heart. Finger-jointed redwood is another specialty product they sell.

Most of their inventory is I inch S4S boards that may or may not be milled to pattern before they reach the end user. They also sell pattern lumber in the architectural grades. Construction heart is typically 2x4,2x12 and 4x4 dimension lumber.

Redwood is still a small part of Snavely/Denver's $10 million sales total. In terms of sales, construction heart sells in the geatest volume, but B grade brings the most dollars. Snavely's customers are mostly contractororiented retail yards. Consequently, the majority of the redwood ends up in new construction.

$28.7 Million Telephone Net

The most important business tool used in the distribution of forest products is the telephone. Today there exists an extensive network of telemarketing professionals who in 1982 spent nearly $28.7 million in telephone expenses to market $7.2 billion of forest products. This vast sales network consists of the 34O North American Wholesale Lumber Association firms who participated in their recently completed 1983 Sales Survey.

The telephone expenses are evidence that the NAWLA Wholesaling Network is indeed a vital link in the chain of forest product distribution. The $28.7 million represents savings to both manufacturers and customers alike in the distribution of forest products.

Telephone expenses increased by $7.3 million from 1982 to 1983. This figure represents an average telephone cost per firm of $84,304 in 1983 compared to $59,359 in 1982.

This era of specialization has brought with it a substantial increase in the number of sales and support personnel employed by NAWLA wholesalers. In 1983, NAWLA wholesalers employed 4,345 salesper- sons, and another 10,M2 support personnel, an increase from 1982 when there were 3,?A9 salespersons and 6,088 support personnel.

These totals represent anearly 250/o increase in sales personnel. While part of this increase can be attributed to better volume business, there is a trend towards more distribution yard and remanufacturing facilities, requiring more people to sell products in smaller unit size transactions.

The survey also revealed that more companies are utilizing credit managers and traffic managers, and in larger firms this often means additional support personnel assisting these individuals, In all, approximately 4oslo of those surveyed indicated they have a credit manager on staff, while nearly 3090 had a traffic manaser.

News Briefs

(Continued from page 18)

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