can shape his appeal in a more personal way. It is comparatively
easy to secure such information where salesmen are calling on the
trade, and many large houses insist upon their representatives'
making out very complete reports, giving a mass of detailed
information that will be valuable to the correspondent.

Then there is a third source of material, scarcely less important
than the study of the house and the customer, and that is a study of
the competitors--other firms who are in the same line of business
and going after the same trade. The broad-gauged correspondent never
misses an opportunity to learn more about the goods of competing
houses--the quality of their products, the extent of their lines,
their facilities for handling orders, the satisfaction that their
goods are giving, the terms on which they are sold and which
managers are hustling and up to the minute in their methods.

The correspondent can also find information, inspiration and
suggestion from the advertising methods of other concerns--not
competitors but firms in a similar line.

Then there are various miscellaneous sources of information. The
majority of correspondents study diligently the advertisements in
general periodicals; new methods and ideas are seized upon and filed
in the "morgue" for further reference.

Where a house travels a number of men, the sales department is an
excellent place from which to draw talking points. Interviewing
salesmen as they come in from trips and so getting direct
information, brings out talking points which are most helpful as are
those secured by shorthand reports of salesmen's conventions.