Many people fish with a single hook and line. By this method, however, they can
only catch one at a time.
Long ago, commercial fishermen learned to locate whole schools of fish, drop a
net around them, and draw them in by the thousands.
The mass method is the profitable one. Many farmers use a single plow. It is
effective when you have only a small acreage to till.
Farmers with thousands of acres to cultivate use great gang plows to turn
many furrows at one time.
In modern agriculture, machine methods are used through the whole cycle of
farming. Mass farming is economical farming.
In the early days of the automobile business, making a car was a slow, laborious,
and expensive job, one car at a time.
But today, with modern production methods, we make thousands of cars in the time
formerly required to make one.
Using the great principle of standardization, which has made possible mass
manufacturing, direct mass selling has taken those parts of a sale which are the
same for every prospect, and is handling them on a mass production basis.
Direct mass selling is as practical as mass fishing, as logical as mass
plowing. It is doing for retail selling what mass production
has done for manufacturing.
Thousands of shoppers wanting thousands of things, and many manufacturers
competing with each other to satisfy them.
Manufacturers depend on advertising to make an impression on this market.
And on retail outlets with salesmen to sell the goods.
All manufacturers have the advantage of both these methods.
But retail salesmen cannot reach all prospects with a full explanation and
understanding of the features of a product.
All automobile manufacturers have advertising. All manufacturers have retail
outlets. And all have salesmen.
And this is the job we were asking our retail salesmen to do.
We expected him to sell every prospect, the Chevrolet institution, emergency
performance, engineering features, manufacturing efficiency, durability and
dependability, economy, appraisal, price, appearance, ordinary
performance, and close the deal.
Certainly we were asking our salesmen to do more than any salesmen
could be expected to do.
But remember, there are some of these things only the salesmen can handle.
Every good salesman is qualified to meet and handle any question on appearance.
He is in the best position to demonstrate the car's ordinary performance, and
only the salesman can handle price, appraisal, and close the deal.
But we must help the salesman to handle all these other elements, because any one
of them may be the determining factor in the sale.
We can and do help him with advertising, the most powerful
advertising in the industry.
But competitors advertise too, with clever phrases that cloud the real issues,
and with claims our advertising cannot handle nor effectively disprove.
And the best of salesmen can reach and do all of this selling work with only
a limited number of people.
That was the situation in the automobile business until March 11, 1935.
On that date, we introduced direct mass selling.
With this new method, we are bridging the gap between advertising and retail
selling, beginning where advertising leaves off and continuing to where the
salesman can and will go on.
With direct mass selling, we are going into the dealer's community and reaching
the young people of America, in the high schools and universities, who have so
much influence in deciding what car the family will buy.
We are going into the organized group and all classes of club meetings, and
reaching the influential business and professional men who have
the money to buy our merchandise.
We are going into the great factories, mills, and industrial organizations, and
reaching thousands of men and women on their payrolls, presenting a strong
selling message, which is winning the esteem and goodwill of industrial America.
We are going into the community theaters and selected areas, reaching entire
families in the dealer's community with entertaining pictures that give them an
educational selling on exclusive Chevrolet engineering features.
This completes the circle of community influences built up about the dealership
through our selling work done in the dealer's neighborhood schools, selling work
done among the employees of the industrial organizations, selling work done in
the family showings at the community theaters.
All of these factors, working together, are building up influences in the
community, which no dealer can create for himself, bringing complete and
convincing selling presentations direct to buyers and to those who
influence buying decisions.
Now here is the way direct mass selling actually works. We have gone under the
hood and into the heart of the engine to sell the hidden values which are
responsible for the superior performance of Chevrolet, so that the engine can
develop its full power.
And another thing, with the hot burn gases going out near the spark plug, that
portion of the combustion chamber gets hotter than the rest. So when fresh gas
comes in, it is quickly heated and ignites the instant the spark plug fires.
We have reached into the car and pulled out knee action, throwing it upon a
screen 12 feet high, where everybody can see it, understand exactly how it works,
and why it is such a great improvement.
Now that the front springs are made just as soft as those in the rear, they don't
have anything to do except make the road smooth and the
passengers comfortable.
We have gone down under the car and uncovered Chevrolet's perfected hydraulic
brakes and made plain and understandable just what they mean
in safety to the driver.
We get rid of more heat, and the more heat we can get rid
of, the better the brake.
We have taken the audience into parts of the car where they never could go, and
have shown them Chevrolet's greater advances in engineering design.
Mass selling has told the story of Chevrolet's extra values and is selling those
things the salesman cannot be expected to sell to millions of buyers and those
who influence buying decisions.
Mass selling has told the Chevrolet story with newsreels.
Water from hundreds of wells operated by sturdy automobile engines, pumping 1,200
gallons of water every minute, day and night, would never stop it.
Without efficient shovels like this and sturdy trucks to carry away the rock,
many more years would be required to complete the building program.
And that makes this automobile the only one in existence
with a double turret top.
With institutionals.
And with thrilling, dramatic demonstrations of spectacular emergency performance.
Right now, while we sit in this meeting, mass selling using all the spectacular
resources of sound pictures and animated cartoons in color is helping to sell
great masses of people in the way they like to be sold.