KEEP THE FLAG FLYING.

Thames Star, Volume LXV, Issue 18241, 15 July 1931, Page 2

KEEP THE FLAG FLYING.

REWARDS OP BUSINESS COURAGE. A salesman of advertising service dispassionately comments on the question of advertising in dull times. "This jjraetice of closing down on advertising expense in lean times baffles me. The habit of conservation in depressed periods is ingTaini.'d in the mentality of most British business men. I have a certain amount of respect for that. I mean, it is all right to put a watchdog on overheads, to seek for economy in manufacturing processes, and to ginger up the sales force to keener activity and greater production—which brings me to my point. "As I said to a manufacturer the other day when he told me he was going to stop advertising for three months: 'Are you going to sack your salesmen, or send them for a three months' holiday?' "It is just as ridiculous to cease selling by the printed word as it is to cease selling by the spoken word simply because things are not flourishing. Salesmen not only take orders for to-day; they •constantly build up an edifice of goodwill and sales possibilities for the future. Every sales manager knows that if you take a man off his ground for a few weeks a competitor's man will jump in and reap, to some extent, the fruits from the other fellow's cultivation. To get back is as hard a job as starting all over again. "So it is with advertising. Three months lopped off the end of a 12months' plan means nine months' money almost entirely wasted. Those courageous and far-sighted advertisers who keep the flag flying in spite of had weather are the ones who succeed, earn dividends and security in their markets."