HOME GENTER MERGHANT BILL

FISHMAN

Bill Fishman & Affiliates

11650 lberia Place

San Diego, Ca.92128

Y DAD knew Myron Cohen as a fabric salesman before Cohen became famous as a comedy entertainer. Cohen had to go into show business, my dad told me, because he couldn't make a living selling fabrics. He was so well liked, so humorous, that buyers kept him telling his dialect stories. He couldn't make enough sales calls to sell fabrics.

The Myron Cohen of the building material industry is Harold Isenberg. Unlike Myron Cohen, Harold does not do stories or dialects. His humor comes from business and current events. He thinks funny. He comes at you from left field.

Today, Harold is president of H.S.I. & Associates, Inc., manufacturers representatives. His critique of the stateof-the-art home center merchandising is profound and coated with biting humor.

the sales floor to wait on customers and in the warehouse to receive and handle the goods that the computer tells the company to buy."

I'm all for management information systems, The data captured at the cash register can be invaluable. Even the most unsophisticated buyer can utilize the information if (a) he's shown how and (b) he's not buried in daily bedsheet printouts.

The syndrome in the industry today is that once management makes the decision to computerize, they try to maximize the amount of information their equipment can crunch out. Sometimes it's too much. too soon!

All the selling tools you need from managers manual, sales desk manual, LaBelle tapes, consumer sales and "howto" materlals to cleck diaqrams. lf you want to sell wood -A cleck systems, Erecto-

Pars rhe one ro sell.

Last week during a phone conversation, I told him how computer programmers had infested a retail chain I visited. Harold interrupted, "It's happening all over. Every buyer has a terminal on his desk. But management better buy 'em all Pac Man cartridges for all the good that data will do. Nobody ever trained these buyers to interpret and use it for creative merchandising.

"Even worse," he continued, "retailers are spending fortunes for computer programs and personnel, sacrificing payroll where it's needed most-on

Big Bean Bash

More than 260 people from states as far away as Florida, Wisconsin and New York attended the fourth annual open house at Sierra Pacific Industries, Redding, Ca., for cocktails and dinner including gourmet beans prepared by Ron Hoppe, sales mgr.

The annual Lumbermen's Invitational Golf Tournament followed the next day at Riverview Country Club with over 180 golfers competing for prizes in excess of $3,000.

I've consulted for home center operations where the week-in. week-out advertising is merchandised by the company computer. Sound great? Well, it isn't. The repetition of advertised items is so predictable that customers know how long they can wait until the sale price of each item is again promoted.

Let's keep on developing information systems for our industry, but let's also keep nurturing those merchandising hip shooters who can early on visualize the innovative items that can transform a blah season into a profitable one.

It's the innovator, not the computer, who will continue to bring feet into the home center store. The investment in people will still deliver the best ROI.

Lumber Career Honored

Craig Gaffney, who is retiring from the Bonnington Lumber Co., Oakland, Ca., was honored with a plaque presented at the San Joaquin Valley Hoo-Hoo Club's 35th annual Valley Frolic.

Elmer Rau, a past president, made the presentation in honor of Gaffney's 30 years of service to the club including serving as president and permanent chairman of the scholarship fund raising committee. Don Johnson was chairman of the event which included a golf tournament.