THE CHEMIST'S PLACE IN SALES AND ADVERTISING' PAUL B. SLAWTER, JR. The House of I. Hayden Twiss, 225 Park Avenue, New York Citv
THE attitude today of the chemical sales and advertising organizations toward the chemist as a salesman or advertising man may be described in a few words. There is plenty of room a t the top. I n the past six months, I have talked with hundreds of people in all phases of chemical sales and advertising. Company presidents have told me that they can't find the right men to fill the jobs open today. Jobseekers, on the other hand, have told me the qualifications for today's jobs are so high-flown that anyone who has them probably doesn't need a job. Employment agencies have revealed an active and increased demand for sales and advertising personnel with chemical backgrounds. Yet a survey of 756 companies in the chemical and allied industries made by my company in January, uncovered only four openings in sales, none in advertising! Management counsel firms, whose job it is t o advise top management on personnel problems, told me that there were openings in the $10,000 to $30,000 class. Most of these openings were for top sales management personnel. One opening was for a chemical company advertising manager payilrg from $12,000 to $15,000. The man who fills this position will have t o be a eombination scientist-salesman-advertising genius-authordiplomat-public speaker and saint. These $10,000 to $30,000 jobs, incidentally, are going begging for want of the right men to fill them. I surveyed personnel managers of chemical companies by letter and by telephone. I talked to advertising agencies which handle accounts in the chemical and allied industries. I found one opening in New York for a copywriter with a chemical background. If you know one who can m i t e like Ernest Hemingway, I can tell him where there's a good job. I talked to sales managers, and I talked to salesmen. My office has become such 5 clearinghouse for employment information that we are thinking- of opening - an employment branch. A sales executive for one of the large solvent manufacturers said: "We aren't putting anyone on in sales right now. We are just waiting to see which way the tide will turn." Most of the salesmen I talked to told me they have come a long way since the market days of World War 11. Some of them are still a little rusty in their selling 1 Presented before the Division of Chemical Education at the 117th meeting of the American Chemical society at philadelphia, April, 1950.
techniques. Some of them had grown fat and lazy. On the whole, they are back on the job, back studying new techniques for selling in the market of today, and they seem to be glad of it. When I asked the sales managers what they were waiting for, which tide they were watching, their answers fell into one of five categories. One was the "international situation." The second was "to see what the Government (or Truman or Congress) will do next." The others were general business conditions, taxes, and competition. Almost everyone was playing a "watch and see" game. One of the predominant characteristics of business today is a hesitancy on the part of the chemical industry to move forward into the land of plenty. In a sense, the situation is an anomaly. Here is an industry that produces a t the rate of $45 billion a year. It develops one new commercial chemical a day. Most of the products that spell profits today were unknown five or ten years ago. Some authorities predict that before long the chemical industry will embrace all industry. Some phases of the industry have grown as much as 800 per cent in the last ten years. But is it increasing its sales and promotional efforts? I s i t changing outdated methods of merchandising? I s it hiring the new sales and advertising personnel necessary to do the job ahead? The answer, on the whole, is no. Realizing the seriousness of the situation in sales, The Salesmen's Association of the American Chemical Industry, Inc., several months ago scheduled a two-day sales clinic a t the Hotel Roosevelt, New York, November 2 and 3, 1950. Between the original plans and the execution of the program material, the North Koreans crossed the 38th parallel. Overnight, the theme of the Salesmen's Clinic was changed from "The Place of the Chemical Salesman in the Postwar Economy" t o "The Chemical Salesman and the Selling Problems of Todav." THE NEED FOR TOP SALESMEN A company president told me that his most important problem today is market research. He wants a new evaluation of all his products. Above all, he wants a market research man with a sales background who can steer the company in the right direction. He will pay when he finds the right man, and he will pay plenty. But read the qualifications: Age: 37 to 42 years, with chemical engineering degree.
DECEMBER, 1950
Business experience should include a broad background primarily in industrial marketing. Responsibilities: Coordination of: (a) Plans of the various departmental sales managers in respect to sales policies and programs. (b) Sales and expense budgets. (c) Advertising and sales promotion activities. Duties will also include assisting the Vice-president for Marketing in: (a) Developing sales policies for the Marketing Division. (b) Arranging for the development of detailed sales programs. Coordination of the Marketing Division's (c) activities with other phases of the corporation's businees such as research and development. ( d ) Assisting in directing the negotiation of sales contracts, leases, or agreements for products sold by the Marketing Division. (e) Keeping fully informed regarding the Marketing Division's competitor's activities and conditions in the industry. , Personality qualifications to handle the ahove-mentioned responsibilities and duties obviously require a man with leadership, sales ability, and tact. Since the personnel of this corporation spend a good deal of time together, the ability to get along well with associates during both business and leisure hours is essential. Here's another opening: This company is seeking a vice-president in charge of foreign sales operations. The candidate in question should be about 45 years old and have had considerable experience in foreign operations, with particular emphasis on the South American countries. The company manufactures products with an annual volume of approximately $40,000,000 and the Foreign Division is currently doing over $15,000,000 and accounts for nearly one-half the net profits of the entire company. The salary for this job will vary from $20,000 to $25,000. However, 'the candidate will be going in to understudy the present vice-president in charge of foreign operations, and at such time as he is ready to fulfill these duties the salary will naturally be increased. Since this man will be responsible for the profit and loss of the foreign operation, for all investments in foreign countries, for the operations of all manufacturing subsidiaries and the like, the qualified candidate will have extensive experience and unusual capabilities. You tell me where to find those combinations, and I'll tell them where there are good jobs. So far as chemical companies in general are concerned, the only hiring today involves replacements. On the whole, there are few new positions opening up. Most firms did a great deal of hiring two years ago. Since then, the situation has remained fairly static.
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In 1947 most chemical firms brought their sales and advertising staffs hack to prewar levels and added new personnel necessary to handle increased business. Since some of this increased business reflected a period of activity that was far from normal, several firms have had to cut back on their sales and advertising personnel. One large firm with headquarters in New York and a tremendous volume of business in organic chemicals now has only three salesmen. Several of the largest chemical manufacturers in the country have laid off production workers. This, in turn, has had a tendency to cut down on sales and advertising staffs. Whether increased production due to the new armament program will call for their rehiring remains to be seen. Out of a dozen chemical companies surveyed a t random from a list of those with officesin New York, only one now intends to put on additional salesmen. None expect to add advertising personnel, except where normal replacements are needed. The company that will hire salesmen is an organic chemical manufacturer and expects to add some men in the below-$5,000 class and a few in the above-$10,000 class, none in between. A bright outlook characterizes the very nature of America's chemical industry. Growth is the byword, and growth has been the keynote. The industry produces at a phenomenal rate. Mighty du Pont reported recently that its gross sales for 1949 had gone over the $1 billion mark for the first time. Capital invested in major chemical companies is even more dramatic in comparison. Dow Chemical's invested capital is now 1,300 per cent of what it was in 1929; Monsanto's invested capital has increased 1,060per cent since 1929; American Cyauamid 450 per cent; du Pont 250 per cent, and Union Carbide 220 per cent. Most significant of all for prospective employment in sales and advertising are the figures reported for the type of products that are contributing to the record sales figures. Sixty per cent of du Pont's sales in 1949 resulted from products that were unknown or in their commercial infancy 20 years ago. Sharp & Dohme, producer of medicinal chemicals, had a similar experience in 1949. Over 40 per cent of that company's sales were products less than five years old. Mousauto, Commercial Solvents, Celanese and most of the other major factors in the industry all report a growing sales gain directly proportional to the amount of product and market research undertaken. Prospective candidates for sales and advertising positions in the chemical and allied industries will do well to remember these facts. Coordinated laboratory research and product and market development offer the only insurance today for the chemical industry against sales and profit losses. If you want a job in selling or advertising concentrate job-getting activities upon those companies with active research and market development programs. There has been recently a noticeable move to strengthen market research departments in progressive companies. These companies want to see new products developed and old ones improved. Last year there was
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much employment .activit~y in the market research direction. The activity died down for a short period, but now it has been revived. The industry's No. 1 problem, an employment agency owner told me, is the problem of sales executive manpower. Few companies even gave the problem a thought during the war. The situation now is not a normal one from the standpoint of the employment counselor. There seem to be more sales executives ready for retirement now than there have been for years. And many of them do not have capable assistants to whom they can turn over their jobs. What is worse, men in secondary positions today are not qualified for the top jobs that have to be filled. They cannot take on the additional responsibilities involved. In respect to sales executives, the chemical industry is sadly undermanned. A new position has sprung ub since the war, and this new position might give some qualified men an idea about what to look for. Wise company executives are creating the post of vice-president in charge of merchandising. This is a coordinating position designed to help the sales manager who is out in the field-or should he. The jobs which are going begging are the market research and development positions open to men with complete backgrounds in the chemical iudustry. Particularly active is the heavy chemical field. One company in this category has been looking for a market research man for the past ten months.
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
dustry where sales and merchandising are not able to keep up with the progress. The future of surface-active agents, particularly as cleansing agents, is also a bright one. But a bigger selling job must he done before they can ever replace soap, the best known detergent for several thousand years. One of the best dishwashing agents on the market today is a synthetic detergent ~ h i c hmeets consumer resistance because it doesn't exhibit much foam. In the mind of the housewife, foam and cleaning are synonymous. I t will take years of intelligent advertising and promotion hefore she believes otherwise. The petroleum industry has increased its interest in chemicals, offering many new opportunities for sales and advertising. Everywhere you turn the need for intelligent selling is apparent,. For example, there is the pulp and paper industry, an increasing source of ram materials for the chemical iudustry. Its by-products have many interesting po~sibilities. But it will be some years to come before sales and advertising are successful in encouraging the right industries to use them. Synthetic lubricants, synthetic rubber, synthetic waxes, new food products from the chemical laboratory, new insecticides, titanium metal-these are but a few of the products which still have much selling and advertising ahead before they reach the commercial proportions they deserve. What opportunities there are for well-trained personnel with vision! What I am trying to point out is that there is so much work ahead to be done in these fields that I am surprised at our shortsightedness. American efficiency is GROWTH OF THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY so great that we give odds to foreign competition and The chemical industry now rates No. 1 on the heat them a t their own game. Yet I have talked t o American scene. As Fortune magazine pointed out just companies in the heavy chemical business who have recently, to understand U. S. industry in the second great fears that before long Europe will he competing half of the twentieth century you must understand the for their business in our own markets. I have talked chemical industry. I t is almost wholly an industry with food technologists who told me that new disfounded, built, and run by chemists and chemical engi- coveries have revealed the amount of amino acids reneers, men trained in the sciences-in a climate that has quired to maintain nitrogen balance in adult humans. hred some of the best managerial brains in the U. S. They mentioned wonderful new vitamins, new facts Now, just imagine what's ahead for the chemical in- about health and disease, improved world food supply dustry. Try to predict, for instance, where the phar- through chemistry, and how food is related t o human maceutical industry goes from here. Now a t the health. Yet not one of the companies employing these highest point of production and sales in its history, this food technologists was considering the addition of perindustry exhibited a growth of 800 per cent in the last, sonnel to tell and sell the world. ten years, the most phenomenal growth of any industry The paint industry is another one fraught with great in the country. Are we properly staffed for the tre- possibilities. This one hit the billion-dollar sales mark mendous sales and educational job that lies ahead in one year, then dropped off due t o a recession, which, this field? Not a t all. In 1933 we had the sulfa drugs. though short-lived, took its toll. The prediction again They were followed by the antibiotics-penicillin, is for another billion dollar year, and what opportunities streptomycin, aureomycin, chloromycetin, and terra- there are for sales and advertising in this field! The mycin. Ahead of us, we hope, are cures for tuberculosis, year 1949 alone saw such a large number of new specialcancer, poliomyelitis, influenza, the common cold, and ized coatings for peculiar requirements or specific purchildren's diseases. All of these medicinal 'develop- poses that the material for promotion, publicity, and ments must be intelligently promoted and sold. The sales is endless. long-term outlook in this industry is brighter today than The chemical industry is still expanding. It is one of it has been at any time in its history. But the job ahead the most rapidly growing industries in the economy tofor proper merchandising is sadly in need of well-trained day. It pays for its expenditures of expansion from inpersonnel to handle it. ternal sources in 97 per cent of the cases, the other 3 per I can name many other divisions of the chemical in- cent from selling stock rather than borrowing. The
DECEMBER, 1950
biggest increase of any industry in the country is taking place in the chemical industry in 1950. On the whole, the industry expects production to continue at a high rate, employment to bold its present rather high rate, and it expects that 1950 sales will end up about equal to 1949. Most companies are geared to this premise. However, if 1950 sales boom, then what? TRAINING O f CHEMIST-SRLESMEN
Our universities could provide better training for individuals who select sales and advertising as a career. Perhaps we ought to make salesmanship a profession. Ry so doing we might attract more potentially good salesmen. In sales and advertising personnel there is an unbalance which, I suppose, is inevitable. We seem always to have a surplus of poorly trained men and a shortage of the well-trained variety. The demand in recent years has been so high t,hat many incompetent,^ are now employed. I suggest that the educational institutions do a factgathering job on sales and merchandising personnel for the chemical industry, as well as on their jobs. With up-to-date information, the educational forces of this country could insure a balance in the future to make the best use of the people in training. These facts could he used as standards of admission, graduate requirements, new courses, revisions, and advice. This alone would be the best insurance I can think of against a surplus of inferior personnel. The new chemical industry calls for a new type of businessman which Fortune magazine recently called "the chemist-salesman-developer." To produce this type of man our colleges are going to have to make some drastic changes in their approach to selling as a career. Some authorities in the industry believe that it's high time we make salesmanship one of the professions. The trouble with technical education today is that selling as a career is seldom suggested. Many professors look down upon selling and. salesmen. This attitude is transmitted to students who reflect not only the attitude of their teachers but also that of the general public in its misunderstanding of salesmanship. The old notion still lives t,hat anything worth having does not have to be sold and that all salesmen are either peddlers of gold bricks or philanderers or both. Chemical training, of course, is the best background for chemical selling in the chemical century ahead. Unfortunately, the type of student who selects chemistry as a career frequently is not what we call the "sales type." Perhaps there should be a middle ground where
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one could study chemical selling. One of the midwestern universities has such a course, although I have yet to meet one of its graduates. Some of the metropolitan New York colleges offer courses in selling and in advertising. So far, only one, to my knowledge, has offered a course designed especially for chemical selling. This still is in its formative stages. Another is considering a course in advertising for graduate chemical engineers who are studying business administration. And salesmen's associations are giving much study to courses for members and to meetings for t,he interchange of sales knowledge and techniques. New chemical products require the most intense sort of technical service and technical selling before they reach the production stage. Chemical salesmen need a hroad knowledge of many industries. They must know what products are being used at the present. time and what possibilities there are for replacing them. They must be able to talk int,elligently about their own products and about the buyer's business as well. Since the salesman's job is one of service, he must uuderstand production problems in the industries he sells. A most important function of his work is to guide his own research staff by passing on suggestions as to the type of products needed by industry. One of the technical service directors for a large company recently told me that only 30 per cent of the ideas for new products were developed in his laboratory. The balance came from suggestions brought in by the sales force or the technical service department. Chemical selling is unlike any other field because qualit,y and price are not always the major considerations in buying. Many chemical products are sold on definite specifications, so price advantages may not always live too long. The salesman who can sell on service and ideas is the kind most companies are looking for today. This is more true than ever in the chemical industry which is it,s own best customer. Sixty per cent of its chemicals are sold within the industry. Naturally, technically trained men are necessary for intelligent chemical sales. I do not believe that there is anything wrong with the chemical industry that a new concept of chemical sales and advertising cannot help cure. I do believe that whatever will be done in this direction will he done by those who are trained for the job. It is on the proper training of the new chemist-salesman-developer and the subsequent proper marketing of new, efficient products that our future economy depends.
