sources. Some firms are now manufacturing these devices and installing them in other manufacturing plants as a special service. Another industrial technique which in the past has made use of naturally-occurring radium and more recently pile-produced radioisotopes is radiography of welds and castings. The areas of greatest opportunity in isotopes will be in the manufacture and sale of radiation detection and measurement instruments, in the preparation of labeled compounds, and in the administration of services associated with radioisotope utilization. The gross intake last year, for instance, from the sale of radioisotopes by commission facilities was only $174,000. This was about 50% of total expenditures on the production of these materials. Even if the gross receipts had equaled the expenditures, it still wouldn't have been a big business. On the other hand, the manufacture of radiation detection equipment, a $10,000 a year business prior to the war, has grown to a $10 million
a year business and is still growing. The example of a device, such as a radioactive thickness or height gage, which uses only a few dollars worth of a radioisotope but sells for several hundred dollars, illustrates that there is a much greater dollar volume of business in equipment than in the direct sale of the radioactive material. Also, the sale of isotopes themselves is an activity which has necessarily involved much more than just preparation and distribution. At the start of the program, although many workers were cognizant of the potentialities of radioisotopes a s research tools, few people were familiar with the specialized techniques required for their safe handling and use. Increased utilization of these materials has, therefore, depended to a great extent on the specialized orientation of otherwise technically trained personnel. Since last summer the commission has been sponsoring training programs in conjunction with its isotopes distribution program. Several commission as well as university laboratories are now
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open to research people from the fields of medicine, agriculture, science, and industry for indoctrination in t h e special techniques for handling these materials. I t is probable that for the reasons given above isotope production and distribution will remain under government control for a t least the next few years and possibly longer. The associated activities now being carried out by private enterprise will increase because more people will become familiar with techniques and applications and want to use radioisotopes. I t is speculative, of course, but not unreasonable to imagine that tracer studies on the most efficient way t o use phosphate fertilizer will save the farmer many millions of dollars, that tracer studies in medicine will find a way to save many lives now lost to cancer and other diseases, and that through its own tracer studies industry will learn to not only make new products for the needs and comfort of man, but also to make current products more cheaply and efficiently.
two
A Research Directors Viewpoint on Long Range Selling HARLAN TRUMBULL,
B . F. Goodrich Co., Brecksville, Ohio
It i s i m p o r t a n t t h a t s a l e s m e n o f c o m m e r c i a l c h e m i c a l s b e m e n with technical backgrounds themselves. H i g h pressure tactics are definitely o u t , as are t o o m a n y "sociability" maneuvers A N approaching the subject of how best to call the attention of potential customers to new products in commercial chemical development, i t has been compulsory for me to realize the limitations imposed upon one who is a specialist in a large organization. M y experience has been limited to one company, in one industry, to one department of that company—the research department—and most of my time and attention has been devoted to the basic research activities of that company. I t is not my purpose to depart from that experience in reciting to you, for what they are worth, observations on the attempts made by numerous suppliers to interest our research men in their new products. I t is hoped t h a t since these observations cover a period of active growth in the company's manufacture and use of chemicals they may serve to help others who are confronted with like situations. For many years our research department was located in one of the company's largest plants. During that period we in research were led to assume that calls from the new products men of the chemi1434
cal industry were set up to avoid meeting that mythical character of the time—the purchasing agent, to whom most failures to sell new products were likely to be at>tributed. Since our research men were instructed to meet only those sales people who had cleared through the purchasing department, you can easily perceive that these early waters were sailed by wary navigators. Recently our basic research work has been moved to a new location remote from all the company's manufacturing facilities, thus making it necessary for commercial men in the chemical field to study the chart of our company's expanding operations in order to set u p contacts with the appropriate branch of our business. For example, if you have a new chemical material you might with advantage call upon representatives of the B. F . Goodrich Chemical Co., headquarters in the Rose Building, Cleveland, Ohio; or upon some of us at the B. F. Goodrich Research Center at Brecksville, Ohio; or upon one of the numerous technical men at the B. F. Goodrich Co. in Akron, Ohio, where rubber goods manufacture CHEMICAL
is the predominant activity, accompanied by control of functions, development, and testing laboratories. If your company's product presents special advantages in plastics, textiles, or metallurgy, for example, still other men in other parts of the country might be the best point of contact in our company. I t is not my present purpose or function to instruct you as to t h e best approach to various phases of our company's business. That is properly the province of the purchasing department in one of its main divisions. Rather it is m y object to examine with you the function of fundamental research in serving the needs of a large industry and in clarifying how contacts between different companies can be made at the research level to the best advantage. A few examples will serve to define the limiting factors and to point out how benefits may or may not be derivable from meeting the research department of your customer's company. The main function of a research organization is to obtain new and basic information, the life blood of any industry. New information has to originate in the mind of an individual, n o t by caucus or convention or by public rally. This information has to be verified in the laboratory by specialists who are trained to AND ENGINEERING
NEWS
check and weigh the evidence. Progress in industrial research is promoted b y limiting the number of men on a given project, by selecting them because of their special aptitudes for the work, and by giving them what they need in the way of apparatus and materials. Their needs include adequate shop facilities, the aid of testing and evaluation laboratories, and a generous provision of the apparatus and materials needed in their work. I t is of even greater importance to ensure that these men are not going t o be disturbed b y frequent interruption of their programs. Indeed, by the essential nature of their work, it is distracting and burdensome t o permit these men to have a heavy schedule of visits from the outside. If possible, contacts with outside agencies should b e channeled so t h a t they are handled b y specific staff members whose function i t is t o serve others o n the research staff. For example, the technical service and evaluation laboratories that serve basic research in large companies should make frequent contacts with the supplier's representatives. Even more frequent contacts will be involved by those staff members who exercise purchasing and maintenance functions. B u t for the men doing basic research work, these outside contacts should be on a purely voluntary basis. The best point of contact for men engaged in research leading to new- discoveries is with other scientists. The best of the outside contacts are those in which each man can talk about current progress in scientific research without too many restrictions. If road blocks are interposed or if the sales representatives can not talk on the advanced front of technical information, scant success is likely to result from these visits. Here it is timely to point out that when you present your products to research groups you do so only through highly qualified scientists with as few restrictions placed upon them as possible. A few cases, both good and bad, of contacts between a selling organization and a customer's research laboratory are cited in the following examples. The first case is that of a firm selling an electron microscope to industrial research laboratories. T h e field representative who visited the customers was a specialist in research who knew all about the instrum e n t and could pass on detailed information regarding its construction and use, thereby ensuring prompt returns from and intelligent appreciation of this valuable aid for research. This type of contact makes for enlightenment* with a minimum of friction, with obvious two-way benefits since there is a well-organized basis of mutual advantage t o both organizations. Another example involves the purveyor of a particular t y p e of colloid mill who was called in to give specialist's information to other specialists in this field. The sales representative had been trained in research and was quite familiar with the technique and objectives sought by the V O L U M E 2
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customer. Y e t , in addition to the specialized knowledge which he was asked to supply h e gave unsought information as to how t o furnish and equip the whole laboratory. His recommendation obviously covered too much territory. The third is an example of underestimating the market potential involved in a sales-research contact. Several years ago a growing chemical organization, with a large research laboratory and a cheap basic raw material, made a splendid effort to cover completely the type of technical information which would interest other research men. They not only originated new compounds but they had a roster of information regarding the physical and chemical properties of these compounds very neatly codified. These data were carefully edited and attractively assembled s o that the customer could get a maximum of information with a minimum of effort. About the only thing lacking in this arrangement w a s that when the customer asked for a sample of the material which had b e e n described t o him, the supplier could n o t comply with the request since t h e available supply of the novel chemical had b e e n used u p in making the tests. Fortunately the intrinsic merit of this company's products resolved the issue. They were obliged to expand their pilot plant facilities in order to keep up with the customer's interest. This incident affords a unique example of modesty on the part of a salesman in presenting his company's product.
Hazards jrom High Pressure
Salesmanship
I w i s h to mention another example of h o w n o t to present a new product. In the recent critical shortage of rubber which confronted our nation, all chemists in this country, and particularly those in the rubber industry, were impressed with the strategic necessity of making synthetic rubber work in t h e rubber factories. So great w a s this urgency that for the first time in history companies pooled their information w i t h that of the government agencies in order to make synthetic rubber work. I n this time o f stress a sales representative appeared with a new product which was said t o expedite the processing operation and speed up the fabrication of resulting articles made from American rubber. I t was, of course, not hard for the salesman to prevail upon other people to run extensive factory trials of his material with that k i n d of representation made for his product. But he did not tell the customer that his material gave off fumes which were toxic. Even in the face of strategic war emergency the use of dangerous and poisonous chemicals i s not tolerated because t h e risk "to personnel is not worth taking. H a d the contacts been set up between two research men representing buyer and seller respectively, t h e tests on a more limited scale c o u l d have reached a like conclusion with m u c h less liability. T h e sales repre• M A Y
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sentative has to be well-informed on hazards attending the use of his company's materials. If you are going to present a new product to a group of research chemists in various industries, do not attempt to crowd your efforts into a too limited field in which there is standing room only. The fact that the field is crowded is of itself ground for suspicion in the minds of scientists. In general, scientists are not impressed by the type of publicity that sells cigarettes or mouthwashes, and men trained to discover new things are much more likely to shun than to embrace a product that is over-advertised. This extends to more than the field of new chemicals. Many chemists of my acquaintance have stated that they will not smoke one of the more popular brands of cigarettes because the advertising seems to them to be moronic. N o one knows better than the research chemist that new things are not originated, and elusive techniques are not mastered, by extrovert selling tactics. To the creative mind loud sales patterns suggest weakness in the texture of the selling group and divert attention from the nature of the product to the undependability of the man who is trying to do the selling. In this field of approach, reputation and character count in every instance more than oratory and generous gifts of liquor and entertainment. A talented salesman states clearly that there are many things which he does not know about his merchandise, and will never try t o cover his ignorance with a line of talk. After all it is the product and not the salesman that is up for sale. An experienced friend of mine in the commercial chemical field assures me that competition is not between people but between products and processes. An authentic specimen of a new material often serves to impress the scientist even more effectively than carefully arranged trade literature, since the research man likes to feel and handle new materials and appraise their attributes by the direct approach. If your sales development man can carry a few specimens of your new products with him for use as part of his display and even to be left as samples, i t creates a favorable impression upon research men. Research chemists are trained specialists in the techniques of identification and authentication of materials. Do not betray your company's interests by giving research men an impure specimen or one that bears a faulty label, since they remember these instances of imperfection in arriving at a fair record of your performance. Your standards of purity must be established with the best tools of analytical chemistry and of modern physics. If you know the limits of purity, disclose them. If you know the specimen to be impure or variable in properties, it is seldom ready to be discussed outside your own organization. It seems unlikely that the data pertain1435
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