OPERANNG OPPORTUNITIES

WALLY LYNCH

Paid Associates

PO. Box 741623 Dallas. Tx.75243

1/\ UR thanks to Ray Nunn of Sims\/ Moore Lumber Co., Frisco, Tx., for introducing us to the work of Arthur A. Hood, one time editor of the Americ'an Lumber Magazine. Hood also conducted management workshops for lumber dealers. In January 1955, at one of his programs, he talked about 20 things to do belore cutting a price. In the notes provided to the attendees he outlined what to do when laced with a price lower than yours on a competitive material list or job.

Though written almost 35 year ago, the inlormation is as applicable today as it was when first published. Here is the essence of what he presented.

I)ON'T GET PANICKY.

Hold the conviction that your price is right. liear of price is the weakest point in selling. Be confident and your customer will respect you.

GET ALL TT-IE T]ACTS.

Check the quantity, quality and service figured by competition.

ASK TUE CUSTOMER TO BII REASONABLE.

Persuade him to make allowance for differences in your specifications or service that justily your price.

I]E T:LEXIBLE. Adjust your quantities, qualities and services 10 those of competition and refigure.

F'INI) OUT IF' CUSTOMER IS BLUFFING.

Check to see if the lower price is real or a figment of the buyer's too fertile imagination. Many a competitive price named by a customer was never quoted by competition.

WHY IS THE PRICE LOWER?

Find the "goodie in the nut" ol the competitive price. It's nearly always there.

MODII-Y THE SPECIFICATIONS.

Then you and your cut-price competitor are not figuring on the same thing.

SELL WHAT YOU HAVE.

F'eature your exclusive brands and those things you do that no competitor can duplicate.

ENLARGE SPECII.'ICATIONS AND SERVICES.

This will shift the basis of comparison.

SELL THE PACKAGE.

Add installation or erection labor to all or a part of the specification and take the sale out of competition. Develop a package price.

(To be c'ontinued next nonth)

FREE OFFER

Art Hood's list of comoetitive services and ways competitors can chisel and skimp on them is available to those who send a stamped. self-addressed envelope to Wally Lynch, Paid Associates. P.O. Box 741623. Dallas. Tx. 75243

Stores Ready For Home Depot

Home centers in Monrovia, Ca., are bracing for the expected effect a new Home Depot will have on their businesses.

Smaller than the average Home Depot at 88,000 sq. ft. and housed in a building with arches and arched windows, the operation is expected to have the most impact on a Builders Emporium across the street. Ironically, BE was part of a Monrovia redevelopment project as is Home Depot whose purchase of land was subsidized by the city.

Joel Santee. Arcadia Lumber manager, notes that while both stores advertise items at cost or below to attract customers. there's not much difference between them in price or service.

Ron Thorton, Myrtle Avenue

Lumber and Hardware manager, expects his business to drop off for a while. "When something's new people are going to try it," he said. "We don't like it, but we're expecting it."

Stores in nearby Pasadena also expect to feel the opening ofthe new warehouse store. Jeff Throop, George L. Throop & Co. v.p., says he'll keep customers who need lots of help and don't want to wait in a checkout line. "They have their part of the market and we have our part of the market."

Japan Plywood Ban Hit

The American Plywood Association strongly supports the Bush Administration's action in placing Japan on the "Super 301" list of countries maintaining unfair tariff and nontariff barriers to U.S. products.

We are pleased by the President's decision to include forest products on the list," said APA president William T. Robison. "We have no interest in perpetuating a trade war with Japan. However, extensive negotiations and discussions over the past 25 years have not led to a significant opening of the Japanese market for structural panels."

He said that the U.S. structural panel industry has demonstrated that its products are badly needed in Japanese construction, "but progress has been excruciatingly slow."

A small but growing cadre of Japanese builders, Robison noted, "sees the advantages and cost savings of U.S. building methods utilizing 4 x 8-foot construction systems, but these progressive builders are thwarted by Japanese government regulations that encourage labor'intensive activities and penalize Japanese consumers."

Robison claimed that with removal of the tariff and nontariff barriers now applicable to U.S. structural panels, homes utilizing U.S. methods and materials could be built in Japan "at 30 to 400/0 less cost than with conventional Japanese methods."

Little Ghange In China Sales

Political upheavals will not have a great immediate impact upon western lumber markets in the People's Republic of China because there has not been a lot of lumber business there anyway.

In all of 1988, according to the Western Wood Products Association's F.xport Report, only 5.036 million board feet of processed U.S. lumber went to the PRC. That was down from 1987's 9.267 million board feet U.S. to China shipments. Depending upon what happens over there, long term prospects of future business may be affected. Although the Chinese mindset has (Please tum to page 38)

Pay'N Pak Chief Retires

Dave Heerensperger, chairman of 120-store Pay 'N Pak, Kent, Wa., has retired from the chain he helped build into a half billion dollar-a-year company.

Heerensperger joined the company in 1969 by merging his own six store electrical chain with a fledgling I I -unit Pay 'N Pak. A leveraged buyout of Pay 'N Pak in 1987 netted him about $13 million.

Though Heerensperger is only 53, he thinks it's time to concentrate on personal interests. "lt's not as much fun for me," he said. "They need more of an accountant now. a bean counter, to get the debt paid off. The job to me has become very boring. I've become a jail keeper."

Millwork Night For Architects

Four Sacramento, Ca., area millwork companies wined, dined and educated more than 50 architects at a recent Millwork Evening at Union Planing Mill, Stockton, Ca.

The event featured a tour of Union's mill, a barbecued steak dinner, and presentations by Ray Fox and Jim Sargent, Weyerhaeuser Co., Sacramento; Victor Vandenberg, Western Door & Sash, Oakland, Ca.l Tony Lazarraga, Valley Plastics, Stockton, and Bernie Barber, Woodwork Institute of California. Fresno.

Dick McClure, Union Planing Mill, termed the June 29 special event for the Sierra Valley chapter of the American Institute of Architects "a grand success," explaining with a straight face, "all the architects in our area now know everything there is to know about the millwork industrv. "

Simpson Updates Door Plant

Simpson Door Co. has begun a $ l0 million modernization project to upgrade and expand it's 77 year old McCleary, Wa., door production lacility.

The project includes the construction of 45,000 sq. ft. of new buildings and the installation of state-of-the-art equipment for manufacturing stile and rail doors. The work is scheduled for completion in 1991, according to Del Orren, general manager.