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Expand your customer service with our customer service. Now all of the popular details used in construction can be milled right here at our Los Angeles yard, so the lumber you get is ready to go on the job site. No sending it out or laying the chore off on your customer. It saves him time and money, and gives you an extra that can be built into the order for additional profit.

Our re-saw and milling facility is equipped to give you rough or finished sur- faces, details for decking and siding, trim and specialty items. When you add this to a vast inventory of dry Western Red Cedar, Hemlock, several species of decking, Douglas Fir and Lam-Loc Pecky Cedar, it makes money sense to call Fountain first.

Ed Fountain Lumber Co.. 6218 South Hooper Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90001, (213) 583.1381.

ED FOUNTAIN LUMBER COMPANY

DAVID CUTLER editor-publisher EDITORIAT

Don't turn off the ignition

A S THE economy begins to slip toward what lA we all hope will be a mild and brief recession, alert managers are thinking ahead for ways to cut costs. There are always a number of areas within any business that can be trimmed, but when the red pencil reaches the column for advertising, you had better think long and hard before making any slices.

A man who has some strong views about the necessity of advertising during a recession is a man whom you might not expect it from; Elliott M. "Pete" Estes, an engineer who rose to become the current president of General Motors Corp.

Estes'views are, as you might expect, direct and to the point. "It is very difficult when you have a period like the 1974 recession and we're not making a dime or laying off people all over the place. You have a tendency to want to say, 'You can't prove those dollars on advertising mean anything.' But I'm one guy who's going to fight for those dollars in that period more so than when things are rolling."

He puts his money where his mouth is, too. Even though Chevrolet has been a household word for decades (and it became so because of a constant, uninterrupted flow of advertising), GM recently spent record sums during a campaign to introduce the corporation's new XCar line. Does the line, "First Chevy of the '80s", ring a bell?

As they say, nothing happens until a sale is made, and advertising is an extremely important part in making that sale happen. It is the essential foundation to help any company communicate with its customers, so that the sale can occur.

For ongoing profitability, now is not the time to be red penciling away the momentum that has been built. Review your advertising program so that you can achieve the maximum return on those precious dollars. Consider increasing your budget as a way to add clout in the escalating battle for the sales that are out there for the aggressive merchant and marketer.