Partners in Prosperity (1946)

[Music] do you recognize this town this could be your town it's just an average town in an average farming community will call it Henderson because that's really its name Henderson USA like any other town Henderson has its City Hall its fire department high school its main street and people like any other town the people of Henderson don't all live inside the city limits in fact many of its most important people they have out in the surrounding community bike bar for instance will call him Bob because that is his name the businessmen of Bob's town are important in Bob's way of life and he is just as important to them but while Bob does business with many places in his town the most important of all is the feed and farm supply store the things he buys there go a long way in determining the kind of living he and his family enjoy take this purina store for instance this could be any Purina store in any average town serving the needs of people like Bob but wait a minute this isn't just any Purina store in any average town this looks like a profitable and successful Purina store and it is last month this dealer shipped nearly 11 cars of Purina Chows well other Purina dealers sell 11 cars of Purina Chows a month so why is this store so unusual here's why a year ago this business didn't even exist Bob than the other farmers around Henderson had been able to by purina Chows from the former Purina dealer a friendly likeable dealer whose policy was to sell his customers what they asked he took what business came his way but his store wasn't devoted to helping his customers increase their profits his customers got about the same production from their hands their cows their livestock year in and year out this dealer was contempt with one car of business a month of course slots of dealership one car a month but listen in this same market where the same needs the same livestock and poultry the same farmers an aggressive dealer with a helpful customer minded attitude and a vision of the far-reaching needs of farmers like Bob is now shipping nearly 11 cars of Purina chose a month but true story of the amazing growth of this business might sound fantastic but it isn't it could happen in your town how this business grew from one car the first month for nearly 11 cars a month during the first year is a story of unusual interest to every Purina dealer and every feeder the story can best be told by a man we like to call aj because that's his name and because this is a true story but maybe we'd better let AJ tell a story well hell you might call it my story but i like to call it the story of a lot of people working together you see i was born on a farm then years ago i bought a place near henderson to raise livestock there were seven feet stores in henderson but i bought Purina from the Purina dealer because i found that feeding Purina made me more money while I could get all the feed I wanted none of the feed dealers it give me the help I needed with my feeding and management problems their interest in me and all my neighbors ended when they sold us a bag of feed finally I decided to do something on it I talked to arch the Purina salesman I told him of the farmers need for service in this district and how I have decided to do something about it arch told me there might be an opportunity for me to get the Purina franchise in this market I was tremendously impressed with all I helps purina gives its dealers arch told me just what Purina expected its dealers to do and what the dealer could expect from purina he told me over and over again that only by doing all of the things in the Purina checker Dale manual could I expect to reach the goal I had set for myself I had my share of trouble wasn't an easy matter to find the right location get the capital and build the kind of store I needed but finally we got set up I was in business we laid out the salesroom according to Purina specifications in accordance with the checker Dale manual we put out plenty of Charles and other merchandize arranged by departments with open bags and making good use of Purina display materials and fixtures like I told you in the beginning our success is the result of a lot of people working to get it and one of the most important of these I call a real boss my wife her work in keeping our books is a big part of our operation incidentally we use the Purina bookkeeping system at regular intervals we take a financial statement which we discuss with arch or Purina partner this analysis gives us a valuable check on where we're going and what adjustments we need to make to stay on a profitable basis then there's forest and Olin we couldn't operate without these loyal employees our success is their success to none of us myself included has ever missed attending one of pure inas valuable monthly dealer employee training meetings what's more we put into practice the things we've learned we had built an ideal store we had the right people in the organization to do the job the only thing we lacked was the most important thing of all customers we knew the dairyman in our community had a real need for service and help that they weren't getting we knew that our pool tremont in fact all farmers in our community had a need for the service we could give them service they weren't getting from anybody else take the dairyman for instance we have 30 dairies in our market today we service 24 of these how do we do that well it wasn't easy most of these dairyman were buying feed from somebody else but we knew that we had not only the products the program and the service to help them with their problems we had more we had a genuine personal interest in helping them make more money after learning everything I could about the Purina dairy program my first job was to get personally acquainted with all the dairyman in my territory I soon found that they appreciated our interest in them they welcomed our advice and help on their feeding and management problems when they became convinced that we were more interested in helping them make money but in just selling a bag of feed our store became their headquarters in town we tried in every way possible to give them the kind of service they wanted to do the little things that make friends for your store and regardless of conditions to see that they never run out of Chows but most important of all through group meetings we show them our complete Purina dairy program a program by which we could help them with their car troubles and help them make more money we followed up this and other types of group meetings with calls which laid the foundation for our regular sales routes we knew that the secret of building a successful route is to make these calls regularly each week with methodical regularity we now operate two very profitable regular routes each week our plan is to Train another man through feeding advisory a man who will spend full time on these and the other routes we are building we collect valuable proof from the records kept by our customers on the profits they make by feeding Purina this proof brings excellent results when used in our newspaper advertising in fact these proof ads create almost as much interest as our live demonstrations you well folks that's how our business grew from one car month to 11 cars of Purina Charles a month the first year has it been profitable well we're doing two and a half times our goal for the first year I'm not complaining well that's AJ story story made possible by the close partnership continuous collaboration of the Purina salesman and the Purina dealer working together to follow the checker Dale broke [Music] but this is also a story of a lot of other people working together people seriously interested in improving the results they get on their farms and who appreciate the help they get from appearing a dealer and then people who are willing and who are trained to help the folks around the community get better results it wasn't by following one part or several parts of most of the purina checker day of program but by doing them all the whole job that this remarkable growth was achieved that nearly 11 cars of Chows a month are being sold in a market that for years had been shipping only one car a month [Music] Purina prospers only as a Jay and all the other AJ's in the Purina family prosper the people in his store prosper only is the store prosperous and finally it's the community that prospers most of all from this partnership that's why we like to say we're all partners in prosperity [Music]