"We Sholl All Hong Together....."

By G. A. Korlen, President Wbst Coost lumbermen's Associotion

I3enjamin Franklin rnust have been thinking about the lumber industry when he penned that classic phrase "We shall all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

As I look at the gradually shrinking markets for lumber and the reduction in per capita consumption of lumber through the past five decades, I am impressed by the fact that every producing region in the nation has lost business it once had.

Lumber is lumber, whether it is milled at Natchez, Mississippi or Tacoma, Washington. The general public makes little distinction between the various softwoods, and only an expert can tell one hardwood stick from another.

It is obvious, then, that the lumber industry nationally has an obligation of single purposeness-to sell lumber as such. We have got to quit confusing potential lumber consumers with a lot of mumbo jumbo trade talk about grades, characteristics, species, shapes, sizes and condition of moisture.

Lumber is a good product. It comes in many species. It can be cut into many shapes for different uses. It can be used either kiln dried, air dried or as it comes from the mill. It can be sold rough, planed or patterned. It is the greatest and most universally used building material. We should be proud of it.

The lumber industry is being subjected to a mounting pressure from all manner of substitute materials striving to get more of the construction and home building dollar, as D. B. Frampton so ably showed in his recent 22-man committee national survev for the National Lumber Manufacturers Association.

What do you do when business gets tough and you want to keep the mill running at capacit)' and keep your crew employed. Why, bless me, you go to work to get more business' You put a little more sweat in your work. You get more miles to every gallon of sweat. You get the extra order by more intelligent selling.

We can take a leaf or several leaves from the selling tactics of our principal competing industries and add them to our own sales technique, for these people have been highly effective in their campaigns to sell their products.

Take a look at their national advertising. Their advertising copy is colorful, high powered and effective. They keep hammering on the theme that their products will do the job. No confusion in the minds of the public or suggestion that there are several different kinds of their products' They show the finished product. They make it look good.

Lumber is good. We need to advertise lumber and let the retail lumberman counsel with our customers as to what shape, size, weight, species he needs.

Lumber is good. Why then should we as an industry ever raise a doubt that one kind, shape or color of lumber might not do the job? Isn't an attack on any piece of lumber an attack on all lumber ? I recall the old IWW days and the very pointed slogan those red hots sold their members-"United we stand, divided we fall, an injury to one is an injury to a11." Can rve sell lumber by unselling lumber?

Lumber is good. Yet, since 1904 lumber has droppecl in per capita consumption from 504 to 274 board feet. Why? There is one good reason: We just didn't get out and fight for our markets against all comers. We got sidetracked in cliversionary forays into some neighbor lumberman's bacl<yarcl poultry house. It was easier to fight among ourselves.

We are an unorthodox industry. During good times we have more business than we can profitably handle. The result is that we ease down on our selling efforts, we ignore customer needs, we force old-time users of lumber to go to other products because we can make more money cutting run-of-the-mill lumber. We get flabby muscled, our costs go up, and we let poor business practices creep into our operations.

When business gets tough we start screaming like a drowning man when the cold water closes over him. We try to whip up our sales forces into renewed and frantic efforts to get the'business at any cost. We ring doorbells long overrooked, only to find competition has moved in when we failed. We call on a long line of industrial accounts who once used lumber, but, they too no longer use wood products. They tell us flatly that the lumber supply became so unstable and undependable the manufacturers could no longer bank on us.

That's a mighty sorry indictment of lumber. But, it happens to be the truth. It goes much further than even the industrial users. This sorry handling of our customers and indifference to customer needs has hit deeply at some of the construction business. In one state, lumbermen were so indifferent to their business they refused to bid on lumber for schools and much of the school building program of that state has switched over to other materials.

Before you lumbermen get to feeling too sorry for vourselves-which you mighty well should-let me hasten to sa)' that I think there is plenty of brains in our industry to cope with any situation. We haven't had them hooked up in tandem. This lumber team-north, south, east and west-is an unbeatable team if everybody does his job. Our job as lumbermen is to play team ball, play for lumber, work together, bury small differences, and shoot for the big goal.

Jqck Butler tYloyes lo Portlqnd Office of Dqnt & Russell, Inc.

Jack Butler and family are currently in the middle of moving operations, with their destination being Portland. Jack has been transferred to Dant & Russell headquarters at 7ll Equitable Bldg., Portland, Oregon, and for the time being, will be in their buying department.

Jack is a native San Franciscan, and for the past six years, had been covering various Northern California territories, working out of the Dant & Russell Sales Company office in San Francisco.