4. Period of "Help the dealer."—The third and the present period of dealer cooperation is the period of "Help the dealer." Its basis is the idea that dealers must be helped and educated, rather than forced or bluffed. The period came into existence when ad vertisers generally began to realize that the dealer is not a mere distributing machine, but that he is a pow erful force to be reckoned with. In the early days of national advertising, "consumer demand" was as sumed to be a thing of prime importance. If enough consumers could be influenced to want advertised goods, the problem of the dealers would take care of itself. We hear less of consumer demand nowadays. The modern phrase is "consumer acceptance." Na tional advertising is no longer expected to do all the work of making sales. It has been proved in many instances that advertising does not create such an in tense desire for advertised articles that consumers in sist on having those articles or nothing. Dealers can and do switch demand; they can and do exert a tre mendous influence on what consumers buy. The function of national advertising is no longer simply to cause consumers to "demand" advertised goods; its chief function often is to impress advertised goods on the minds of consumers so forcefully that when those goods are suggested to him by dealers, the dealer sug gestions, added to the impression created by the ad vertising, will induce him quickly and with little sales effort to "accept" them.
Of course, consumer acceptance is not the sole pur pose of all consumer campaigns for products sold thru dealers. Yet it is sufficiently universal and suf ficiently important a purpose to color almost all the modern attempts to obtain dealer cooperation. If the dealer is to do his part in inducing consumer accept ance, he must have a degree of good-will toward the manufacturer and his goods which is very differ ent from his former frequent attitude of resentment or indifference.
5. The spirit of sales are many methods of inducing dealers to push advertised goods. At the bottom of all the successful ones, however, there is one common characteristic. The manufacturer who really gets active good-will is the one who convinces dealers that he is willing to help them if they will help him. He shows that the things he asks the dealer to do are calculated to help the dealer at least as much as they help the manufacturer; and, in the most suc cessful campaigns, service to dealers greatly over shadows the manufacturer's desire to increase imme diately the sale of his goods. Of course, whenever a manufacturer really helps a dealer, he creates good will that is bound to result in his favor, and, if the help takes the form of education in better business methods, those methods will help the manufacturer just as much as they will help the dealer.
6. Influence of quality of manufac turer who wants dealer cooperation must first see to it that the quality of his goods is such that the retailer will recognize it and the retailer's customers will be satisfied with their purchases.. The retailer wants
permanent trade; he can get it only when his custom ers are pleased with their purchases and come back for more. Therefore, the first thing the dealer looks for is quality.
7. Profit as an inducement to cooperate.—After quality, the dealer wants profit. The price he pays for goods and the price at which he can sell them must be far enough apart to cover all his expenses of doing business and to leave him a satisfactory profit besides. Many advertising campaigns have failed because the item of profit was overlooked or because the margin allowed was too small. No matter how much a manu facturer tries to help dealers to sell his goods, no mat ter how effective his advertising, no matter how much quality he puts into the line, if the profit is not right the dealer will not cooperate.
8. Importance of quick stock turnovers.—After quality and profit, the dealer wants to be assured re garding the ease with which the goods will sell. Mod ern merchandising requires small stocks and quick turnovers. Besides putting quality into his goods and selling them at the right price, the manufacturer can help the dealer to achieve quick turnovers in two ways : First, he can adopt some selling plan that will make complete stocks of his goods easily accessible to dealers, so they can order frequently and in small quantities. Second, he can help the dealer to move the goods off his shelves. In achieving this second purpose advertising has the chief part. Various methods of inducing dealer cooperation by means of advertising are described in the following pages.
9. Educating the dealer and his sales people.— One of the best ways of arousing the interest of deal ers is to teach them the points of interest about the things they sell. A carpet manufacturer sent to all his dealers and their sales people a booklet entitled, "What I Learned About Carpets." It told in a lively way the experiences of a retail salesman who visited a carpet factory for the first time. Certainly the retailer who read this story could sell carpets more intelligently than he could before, and he would feel a real interest in the manufacturer who had helped him learn more about his goods. Many manufactur ers go to great lengths to interest dealers in their lines by teaching them the selling points. Moving pictures of manufacturing processes are displayed be fore groups of stare employes; booklets are distrib uted; traveling exhibits are routed from store to store; salesmen give lectures to buyers and sales peo ple; and many similar methods are used to obtain co operation by arousing interest.