Page 309 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

or Brown & Bigelow of St. Paul. There are men like John Kabel, of Dayton,
who earn upward of $10,000 a year just traveling about taking “calendar”
photographs. Can you imagine any business more pleasant?

Selling Sales Information

I

N EVERY city there are usually four or five dealers, in various household
products. There is an electrical dealer who sells washing machines and
similar devices. There is usually a utility company selling gas stoves. There is
a store which sells radios. Another sells oil burners. And in the last few years
stores are being established to sell air-conditioning equipment. All of these
business men work on “leads”—that is to say they need to know the names of
people in town who are contemplating buying equipment such as they sell, so
that they can call on these “prospects” and interest them in their particular
appliances.
To get “leads” by a door-to-door canvass is expensive. It costs a lot of

money, and takes too many salesmen, although it is being done. If these
dealers can be shown how they could get such “leads” for less money, so that
they could keep all their salesmen busy calling on known prospects, they
would jump at the opportunity. An advertising man who was out of work,
figured that by making a personal canvass of every house in town, he could
find out from one call what these five dealers make five calls to learn, thus
meeting the first requirement of a successful business-rendering a definite
and needed service.

So he had some blanks printed, on which he listed various questions designed
to secure from the housewife such information as: (1) Do you use a vacuum
cleaner? (2) How old is it? (3) When will you be ready to trade your present
vacuum cleaner for a new one? (4) What make of vacuum cleaner will you
probably buy? He headed up these blanks with the imposing title: “Rockford
Home Equipment Survey.” With about 50 of these blanks in a loose-leaf
binder he started out making his calls. He introduced himself in the following
manner: