Show ROADSIDE MARKETING by T J delohery BOYS ARE GOOD SALESMEN 64 TONT ON T send a boy to do a mans ajob job may be good advice at times but numbers of farmers have found that boys can do as good if not a better job of selling produce direct to the consumer especially Is this true of town deliveries where the youngsters are known in the corn com and neighborliness and friend ship breaks the ice tee with the right kind of training jn in salesmanship boys become very good merchants some of then them when they learn their vegetables are on a par even with the best farmer merchants being more willing to do everything to please and accommodate customers in some counties roadside market ing Is a part of the boys and girls 4 club work and agriculture teachers who use vegetable and fruit growing as a class room subject are carrying their teaching further by having their students open up road side and other markets war lots for the pro duce grown many of these teachers in preparation for the marketing work have studied roadside markets and have obtained college bulletins and other literature the gist of which they pass on to their pupils selling as a rule Is left to the boys showing their adeptness for this work the others spread the word of their market among customers thus making customers which older people might fall to interest up in milwaukee county wiscon biscon sin william hawthorne who won the state gardening championship in club work and who learned about sell ing to city consumers while carrying on the project Is now on his own with two rented acres tor for outdoor vege table production during the winter season he keeps his trade supplied with what he grows in the green house he leases william makes deliveries on his bicycle mrs airs frank A burford of warren county illinois sells home made coun try butter to 60 families in town deliveries Il veries require a little too much time 4 boy salesmen considering she does her own housework so she has hired margaret swanson her granddaughter to help her margaret who Is quite a candy maker increases her earnings by sell ing her sweets to the same people she packs the candy in half pint paper containers the children were always running to hirry harry kleek tor for permission to sell magazines perfume and other things to neighboring farmers permission was refused of course but when the wholesale price of eggs got down to where klecks kleck s flock gasn wasn t paying and he began to think out loud to his wife about new markets the youngsters chorused let us sell them to people to in town eggs were d efferent from perfume or magazines people needed good eggs such as kleck klock produced so he let the kids try their nand liand and what a suc they made of the job jobi I 1 now ow kleck sells all of his eggs to con sumers and instead of dell delivering verIng them the people drive out to his farm outside of emporia han nan ile gets a margin over wholesale too he paid the youn youngsters aters 10 per cent for selling robert james had to lease a larger farm because he needed more vegetables to keep up with the demand created by two boys who sold his produce from house to house now he has a crew of ten youngsters ranging from twelve to sixteen years of age who have pushcart routes of their own making the routes average 12 blocks both sides of the street when J tt R bobbins robbins house to house milk route got too big for him to ban die and supervise his farm ark and find yet too small to hire another truck and driver he turned to boys to deliver his product the youngsters not only supplied his customers but op crating in localities where they lived soon had people in several porter county indiana towns buying not only milk but fruit sausage vegetables and eggs each boy works two to four blocks I 1 use paper milk bottles said mr ur kobbins robbins hence there are no re turns our relationship with the boys Is 13 strictly busl business ness that Is im con scantly giving them information on salesmanship to read and I 1 keep close check to see that they don dont t become involved in their accounts my aly boys are a bright lot and I 1 think they appreciate not only the opportune opp ty ef of making money but learning something which will help them when ben they are old enough to shift for themselves A milk route offers a good chance to study human nature and there Is every indication that the natural smartness of the boys Is helping educate them along business lines 0 1933 western newspaper union |