Employment Opportunities in the Industry
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Some Useful Advice to Those Who are Seeking Chances in the Road-transport Industry. Haulage Canvassing—a Certain Way to Good Dividends
By Major E. H. B. Palmer,
O.B.E.
THIS article is not intended as a 1 guide to employment; it is just a general survey of opportunities in the commercial-motor industry awaiting those who are returning to Civvy Street. If you have been in a technical branch of any of the three Services, and are able to adapt your training and experience, there is. to-day, an increasing demand, at home and abroad, for the skilled and the semiskilled in factories and assembly " shops," and wherever reconstruction, overhauls, maintenance and repairs are dealt with. You arc, in fact, assured of a welcome in advance, as witness the steady increase in the number of advertisements to that effect in the technical, trade, and the national Press.
The market for storemen, of experience and method, is a firm one. The job is not as elementary as it appears to the uninitiated, and the ability to -combine a certain amount of technical knowledge with a like am.oimt of administrative aptitude, even. at this level, is a definite asset.
There is, certainly, a demand for salesmen. It is a mistaken idea to hold that salesmen must be born, with the logical inference that training is of secondary importance. Thousands of disillusioned men will assure you to the contrary. The object of the true salesman is to satisfy his customer, and the one obsessed -with the idea of putting a " fast one across " is a fool , and a failure.
There is a difference, as wide as the Atlantic, between an honest salesman and the confidence trickster, although many hold that they are picked from the same family tree.
Some Qualifications of a Successful Salesman As-regards qualifications to the gifts
• peculiar to a diplomatic representative. might be added the following recommendations:—The salesman of commercial vehicles must know (a) what exactly he is offering and where he can sell it; (b) its capabilities and possibilities; (c) how they can be applied or adjusted to the requirements of any particular " prospect "; (d) the limit and scope of such application; (e) the cost of such application, which he must be prepared to analyse in the simplest terms.
He will, if he be wise, range himself, throughout the negotiations, on the side of his prospective customer. He will not neglect that most important angle—after-sales service. It is the one sure thing which produces the recommendation from a satisfied customer and is responsible for sales development.
He should have a working knowledge of everything appertaining to the employment of the vehicle. He should, for example, know something of the law as applied to licensing, construction and use, etc.
That is the general idea. Details will be filled in from hard experience— and after many disappointments. A salesman may be born, but—like the rest of us—he has growing pains.
In the administrative 'class there are more " buyers " than " sellers," and the unfortunate thing, here, is that so many who seek such employment have little or nothing to offer in the way of qualifications. To have managed a fleet of lorries for the purpose of 3erving others, regardless of cost, h very different from having to show a profit. To attempt to achieve order out of chaos without a generous supply of clerks and orderlies, is full of dis couragement. If you have been an able administrative officer, warrant officer or N.C.O., well-accustomed to exercising discipline and control, even this, I am afraid, will not persuade a hard-headed employer to entrust you with the profit-earning problem of his undertaking.
A Road Which Leads to the Managerial Chair
The lower grades of administration in the haulage industry are no different -from those anywhere else. The work is clerical, the scope is limited, and the future is obscure. The senior grades are reserved for those who have technical ability, can introduce capital, or' can find the work. Dealing with the third as the least obvious, I have no hesitation in claiming that the road which leads most surely to the managerial chair in the road-haulage industry is that which is travelled by the canvasser.
Aware that the term " canvasser is used to denote the lowest form of animal life in most road-transport undertakings, it affords me the utmost satisfaction to record and prove te the contrary. Here is a chance to earn a really good income without losing one iota of self-respect. Everyone of us has occasion to have something collected, or something delivered, and the scope is literally without limit. There is a better chance for the freelance than for those who represent a limited service. The free-lance can place his orders wherever he likes, and make his own terms.
Get an inquiry for a van on contract, and just see how welcome you will be in every yard where there are four wheels working in co-ordination. There is not a haulage contractor entirely satisfied—he either wants more or he wants it M a different way—and the men who know where to find it for him are amongst those who will"get the money.
Am I overdoing the glamour busi ness? I am not, As a free-lance haulage canvasser I introduced so much trade to a contractor that I was invited to take over management. Apparently, without my efforts, there would have been little to manage. This is not intended as a personal testimonial; its object is to encourage those, who are not afraid of hard work, to go in for something that will pay !solid dividends. If you aspire to a position as a senior administrative executive in the road-transport industry, the surest recommendation is your ability to keep the wheels turning profitably.
I could fill several of these columns with my experiences as a haulage canvasser, but shall content myself with a brief summary of lessons learned—(a) service must be assured and not promised; (b) service can always dematd, and get, a fair rate; (c) never mislead a customer ; never knowingly let him down. You may damage his goodwill and will certainly damage your own; (d) never quote blindly, and whatever you quote stick to it; (e) as a free-lance, place the work only with those who are absolutely reliable; (f) cheap labour in transport is exactly the same as anywhere else—cheap and nasty, The Possibilities for a Canvasser Are Good Well, if I give you any more hints I shill be helping you along a road where the best lessons are learned by experience. Here is a job which you can start to-morrow and, before a month has gone, if you have not booked and placed at least one substantial order, I shall be very surpriced. All you require is courage, initiative, common sense and the ability to use your power of observation. Keep your eyes open and you will find many an opportunity both for booking and placing.
If you wish to play for absolute safety, then ask any .haulage contractor to let you. follow up inquiries, or initiate them. There are no samples to haul about and no cases to open swiftly before you are shown the door.
Wherever vans are idle, and work is waiting to be done, you are the contact, and, if you want to get a footing in the haulage industry, there is no better ready-money way of doing so than as a canvasser.