Sales stick better than orders. Those immortal words appear in the April 1931 issue of Southwestern Telephone News, and are a prelude to a fairly comprehensive treatise on new customers and the retention thereof. I’ve got to say that this article brings back certain unpleasant memories for me, recollections of all the over-analyzed sales training that I was subjected to during nearly 25 years in the newspaper business. Southwestern Bell employees were undoubtedly hammered with this sort of thing, but I have to admit that there’s some good information here, along with a measure of motivational propaganda, of course. For you, the vintage telephone collector/historian, the article might prove illuminating as it reveals, indirectly, the secret to Bell’s success… they provided a valuable service to the customer.

Two pages of the article are presented here in the form of jpg images. The article was continued, but that page is missing from my copy of the magazine.
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