only the genuine prospect, who really intends to build a chimney, can leap.

The second booklet is almost equally far from fulfilling the cònventional idea of a manufacturer's catalogue. It describes in simple, untechnical terms, the whole story of the process which lies behind the unfinished chimney, from the mining of the clay, and its grinding, mixing, and cutting into brick, to the drying and burning of the latter and the building of the chimney. A vivid "human interest" tone is maintained all through. The accompanying data sheet asks as many questions as a Federal census in regard to the chimney which, the company assumes, the recipient is planning to build. Where is it located? What about transportation facilities? What type of boilers? What sort of fuel? How big is the chimney to be? What is arrangement of building, boilers and chimney? What are local prices on cement, lime, sand, gravel, broken stone? Naturally, no one is going to fill this in unless he means business.

Follow-up letters form an important part of the Kellogg sales method. Two courteous reminders are sent to the man who has received the first booklet and has not sent in the data sheet. If no response comes to the second one, the prospect is regarded as entirely and thoroughly dead, and is let alone.

After the data sheet has been returned, filled in, the second booklet is forwarded, and the course of the campaign then depends on the size of the order. Sometimes, of course, the prospect sends in the data sheet and still fails to acknowledge further correspondence. Several letters are then written him, and the correspondence ends with a letter which, as Mr. Austin says, "Almost never fails to wake them up." It is modeled, incidentally, on a letter used by the Aeolian Company in a similar trade situation, and reads:

we learn that you have purchased your chimney elsewhere. While we, of course, deeply regret that we were unable to add your name to our list of purchasers, we wish to thank you for your courtesy in giving us an opportunity to figure with you and to express the sincere wish that you may find full satisfaction in the chimney you have bought.

Confident as we are of the quality of our product and anxious as we are to give to our patrons the highest possible class of service, we feel that it is a matter of vital importance to us to know, whenever possible, why we lose a sale; to the end that when we discover that a sale is lost to us, through any shortcoming on our part, we may not be guilty of that same mistake again.

Hence, we take the liberty of asking you to be kind enough to tell us what influence or argument finally induced you to purchase elsewhere-whether it was price, terms, some particular advantage of a competitor's proposition, or perhaps a fault in our service or attention?

We assure you that in frankly giving this information you will do no one an injury, but will, in fact, confer a great favor both upon us and our salesmen.

We trust you will pardon the liberty we have taken in addressing you, and awaiting a reply at your convenience, we remain, Yours very truly,

THE M. W. KELLOGG CO.

yet

If the prospect hasn't bought, he hastens to explain to the company its error in assuming that he has; and if he has bought, he usually writes in telling what sort of chimney he purchased, and why. Even if he has bought, his name doesn't necessarily come off the prospect list.

The problem which the Kellogg company faced-that of weeding out the undesirable or insincere inquirer-is one with which every firm which undertakes to advertise confronts. Not every advertiser will want to solve it in the same way, by preparing an interesting but unimportant piece of historical matter and making the real prospect, the man genuinely in earnest, come back again with the facts about his own problem before allowing the matter to go any further.

However, there are obvious modifications of this idea which are adaptable to a wide range of business conditions; and which are fully as feasible as the Kellogg plan itself.