SELLING: Give the Lady a Toaster

To bring the dying art of salesmanship back to its robust prewar vigor, many a company thinks that the trick is to enlist the aid of its salesmen’s wives. International Cellucotton Products Co. puts out a 48-page booklet on how a wife can help her salesman husband get ahead (“We shall have an unbeatable—a triumphant three-way partnership: wife, husband, company”). Others use such incentives as bonus vacation trips for entire families, in hopes that wives will keep their husbands working their darndest to win them. Last week the Clary Multiplier Corp., of San Gabriel, Calif., announced a new gimmick: a telephone-quiz contest for the salesmen’s wives on how their husbands are doing.

Clary Multiplier, a latecomer (1946) in the hotly competitive adding-machine business, found that its sales ($12,302,975 last year) were slipping. The company started a paid-vacation contest for division managers, then threw in the quiz to “spice up the program.” The names of salesmen’s wives who wish to enter the contest are written on cards, and each week four cards are drawn from a hopper. President Hugh Clary, or some other executive, then phones the wife and asks her how much business her husband has brought in so far that month. If she knows, she gets a free appliance (electric coffeemaker, toaster, broiler, etc.). So far, 17 wives have been called, and every one has had the answer, to the penny. One proudly reported that her husband had passed his month’s quota in only eight days. Overall results: Clary’s dollar sales in May were up 22% over April, 13% over the year’s average to date.