MANAGEMENT

Bringing Management to the Field National Aniline officials go to branch office round­ups to bring policy and technology, perk up sales

C H E M I C A L COMPANIES have been among the first to recognize that field salesmen and representatives must be constantly kept up to date. This is dif­ficult to handle impersonally—by mem­oranda to branch offices across the country.

Allied's National Aniline Division solved the problem by bringing re­search and sales executives on a regu­lar basis to the men in the field. Three main purposes are behind these tech­nical and sales meetings:

• To educate. Salesmen arc told about new chemical products, tech­nical developments, and customer re­quirements and interests.

• To stimulate sales effort. Partici­pants discuss branch and company performance, markets, potential new-outlets, customer lists, and sales goals.

• To give company policy. Manage­ment acquaints the sales force with organizational changes, possible ex­

pansions, service improvements, and sales effort plans—advertising, applica­tions' research, and pending publica­tions.

An executive team from New York headquarters has been holding chemi­cal intermediate sales meetings all over the country. Team makeup is impres­sive: director of chemical sales, man­ager of intermediate sales, manager of market research, and the several^prod-uct and application research managers. Meetings have been held in Charlotte, N. C , Chicago, Boston, and New York, with one still to come for the West Coast ( San Francisco in late summer ). Each meeting covers the branch offices in the adjoining areas.

While the over-all divisional goal is naturally to increase chemical sales, some specific plans are spelled out to the branches. Current emphasis is to be placed on developing markets for isocyanates, while continuing to ex­pand sales of maleic anhydride and its

derivatives. Other planned sales ex­pansions are in adipic acid, eyelohexa-none, cyclohexanol, and aniline.

Each of the company's salesmen is technically trained, and goes through a training program in the application and research laboratories at Buffalo, Ν. Υ. Even so, definite changes have been noticed in this year's program, com­pared with 1956. As L. W . Seigle, chemical intermediate sales manager, puts it, "We now have more discussion from our salesmen. Since they have received more background on our prod­ucts and uses, they are able to discuss specifications and customer problems and to raise product problems for our specific discussion which they were not able to do when we started our program. First it was listening and now it is discussion."

Managers Get Pay Boost The average executive in the middle

management class is taking in 5.8% more in salary now than he did last year. A study by American Manage­ment Association shows that three fourths of 6000 men surveyed got raises, half for merit, a quar ter as part of general company salary increases, 7^( for promotion to higher responsi­bility level, and the rest for a combina­tion of two or more of the reasons.

The 6000 are with 207 U. S. and 32 Canadian firms. The managers hold 43 types of posts in middle manage­ment, sandwiched between top policy­making level and that of lower super­visory management.

The association says Canadian firms pay men in this category about four fifths as much as U. S. companies pay executives in equivalent positions. The salary spread seems to be widest for industrial relations managers, narrow­est for sales and production executives.

U. S. companies' middle manage­ment salaries range from about $6000 to $15,000 a year; in large companies they go to $30,000, ΑΜΑ declares. But factors other than size weigh on salary levels: Pay of a plant manager tends to follow the plant's production volume; sales in his district help set salary of district sales manager . Geo­graphical location, except between the U. S. and Canada, appears to be no factor.

Bonuses are nearly as common for middle management as they are for the top. The survey that covered posi­tions in marketing, production, finance, law, purchasing, industrial relations, engineering, and research work found that on the average manufacturing and marketing executives get bigger bo­nuses than do financial, purchasing, and industrial relations men.

Allied Chemical and Dye keeps its salesmen informed on new products, policies, advertising, research, expansions, potential new markets, and several other points. Here Allied's National Aniline Division's L. W. Seigel, manager, chemi­cal intermediate sales, talks to a group of field salesmen in Charlotte, N. C. branch meeting. Ο. Μ. Morgan, National's director of chemical sales, sits in right foreground with back to camera. Others who comprise the training team are the manager of market research; manager, application research, chemicals; man­ager, application research, isocyanates; and the various product managers

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