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The Relationship between the Manufacturer and the Dentist
T H E R E L A T IO N S H IP B E T W E E N T H E M A N U F A C T U R E R A N D T H E D E N T IS T
By C. N. JOHNSON, D.D.S., Chicago, Illinois
(Read before the annual meeting of the employees of the Ritter Dental Manufacturing Company, Rochester, New York, December 13, 1923)
T
H E success of an institution, to see that the people get the best pos whether it be a business or an sible dental service. The dentist would association, or any kind of an be well nigh helpless to render this serv enterprise whatsoever, is dependent ice without the facilities provided for largely on confidence and cooperation. him by the manufacturer, and, of The good-will of those with whom we course, the manufacturer and the people come in contact in the various activities are both dependent on the dentist to of life is also an essential factor in see that the products supplied by the bringing about success. If there were dealer are properly administered for the more universal good-will in the world, welfare of the people. There is a the machinery of our lives would move mutual dependency that should be recog more smoothly, and we would be happier nized to a fuller extent than it has in and more successful. To bring about the past, and in this connection there good-will, the thing most needful is a has been a constant conviction in my better understanding. Much of the mind that the profession generally has friction of life is due to the fact that not often enough acknowledged its great men do not understand each other. The debt to the manufacturer for the un failure of one man to see the other man’s tiring energy and ingenuity he has point of view is accountable for most displayed in furnishing us with the of the disharmony that mars our inter facilities for making our service more effective and less irksome. It is a pleas course one with another. How important it is, then, that the ure for me, as a practitioner, here and manufacturing interests and the dental now to pay my tribute to the many profession should be brought together splendid men in the manufacturing in the closest possible community of field who have devoted the best energy sentiment and understanding! In the of their lives to the invention and per ultimate analysis, the interests of each fection of instruments, apparatus and are identical. This has not been suffi accessories for the daily use of the den ciently recognized by either party, and tist. The ingeniousness, utility and it has resulted in some lines of cleavage artistic beauty of some of these products which have not worked for the welfare have never ceased to compel my admira of all concerned. tion, and I deem it a most fortunate The essential function of both the circumstance which has given me the dental supply man and the dentist is opportunity and the privilege of making 238 Jour. A .D .A ., March . 1Q24
Johnson— Relationship Between Manufacturer and Dentist this public acknowledgment. There are very few practitioners who, when they reach out to grasp the handpiece of an electric engine, or who turn on the water of a fountain cuspidor, or who adjust a chair to any requirement of the case, ever stop to think of the manifold processes which were neces sary to bring this mechanism to its present state of perfection. If they have paid the price of so many dollars for their equipment, they do not seem to acknowledge any further obligation to the manufacturer. It might be of mutual benefit if they would at times try to visualize all the various steps from the first crude mechanism in the mind of the inventor on down through the numberless refinements to the ulti mate thing of beauty and utility as we see it. It would, I am sure, put new cour age and heart in the dealer if, at times, the practitioner would give expression to his admiration of the achievements of the manufacturer and if he would make some note of the long road of difficulty and discouragement over which the latter has had to travel in order to reach his present status. We are all human, and, after all, it is a rather dull process merely to turn over goods and receive dollars for them, with no further amenities to the transaction. In our professional work, if patients con tented themselves with simply paying their bills and making no comment on the efforts we had put forth on their behalf, it would rob professional life of half its attraction. No man ever died of too much encouragement, and dentists need therefore have no fear of killing off their friends, the manufacturers, with a little of this commodity. And now that I find myself in this contrite mood, I may make further ac knowledgment of the fact that dealers
2.39
have not always found professional men possessed of a high degree of business sagacity. Their ideas of business pro cedure have doubtless often been a sore trial to those who have of necessity been brought into such an intimate relation ship with them as have the manufac turers. This has so impressed the latter that they have in some instances sought to instruct the profession along business lines, and up to a certain point this is very commendable. It will do no harm, and may do much good, to instruct den tists as to the ordinary routine of the business world— the collection of ac counts, the payment of bills, prompt ness, system, orderliness, and the just recognition of a business obligation— all of this is constructive and praise worthy. Between the dealer and the dentist, there can be no question as to the value of this kind of instruction. But there is one particular in which it has seemed to some of the profession that the dealer has unwittingly made a mistake. Quite naturally he has argued that, if the dentist needed instruction regarding his business dealings with the manufacturer, he also needed it with ref erence to his dealings with patients, and forthwith the dealer has sought to impart this kind of instruction. With the best of intention the dealer has overlooked two things: his legitimate function in relation to the profession, and the fundamental fact that the prac tice of a profession can never be reduced to the hard and fast business rules of a strictly commercial pursuit. If this had been attempted from the earliest days of dentistry till now, it is safe to assert that we would today have had no profession at all, but merely a body of mechanics who were inserting so many grains of gold or amalgam at so much per grain, or so many artificial teeth at so much per tooth.
240
The Journal of the American Dental Association
N o complaint whatever is made here of the intent of some of our dealers to better the condition of practitioners through the agencies referred to. They saw a need and they sought to fill it, and it was not to be expected that they could see the matter from the profes sion’s point of view. The alacrity with which some members of the profession sought to accept their teaching along these lines misled them to believe that the profession generally needed this kind of instruction and welcomed it. It was the most natural mistake in the world, but that it was a mistake is evidenced by the frequent comments we hear against it wherever representative dentists con gregate. Let this one fundamental fact sink into the consciousness of both the deal ers and the dentists—that no line of business procedure can ever be perma nently successful which does not take into account the welfare of both parties to every transaction. This is basic in principle. When dentists are taught that they should demand a certain number of dollars for every hour they practice, and this is all figured out on what seems a perfectly legitimate esti mate, there is only one-half the story told. We may sit down and with pencil and paper prove that it is necessary for us to get a certain recompense for the time expanded; we may build up in our consciousness the conviction that we are entitled to a just compensa tion— all of which is logical and irre futable— but always -and forever there is some one else at the other end of the line. There is the patient. And that patient cannot be ignored. In all of the business instruction to dentists that I have read I have seen almost no refer ence to the patient’s point of view or to the patient’s reaction to a certain suggested line of procedure. And may
it be said in passing that while some men have improved their financial standing by introducing new methods of business management, many others have ruined their prospects in the attempt to carry out some of the suggested methods. Compensation for professional service can never be determined by rule of thumb or figured with pencil and paper. It must be regulated as well by the point of view of the patient as by that of the dentist, and unless the patient can be convinced that it is just and equitable, he will not long remain a patient. This last remark naturally brings up the subject of salesmanship. I do not quite like the term “salesmanship” when applied to professional life, and yet I suppose, in a certain sense, we are all salesmen. But salesmanship in profes sional life is vastly different from sales manship in commercial life, and it should proceed along different lines. Salesmanship in business relates to such a presentation of the good qualities of any article or commodity that the buyer is sufficiently impressed to want to ac quire it. Salesmanship in professional life relates to the power of impressing people with the value of the service we are rendering, and with the fact that it would be to their advantage to have this service. As we are the ones who are rendering this service, it would be manifestly immodest and lacking in good taste for us to magnify to the patient the particular value of the par ticular service we are to render. The only way we can successfully impress people with the value of dental service and make them want this service is by a quiet, kindly, gentlemanly, painstak ing performance of all operations com mitted to our care, without a word of prating about our own prestige. It is different entirely from extolling the vir
Johnson— Relationship Between Manufacturer and Dentist tues of a certain make of gold or a certain dental unit. Vague as this may seem in the minds of practical salesmen such as yourself, I can confidently assure you, on the basis of a somewhat ex tended experience among professional men, that this is the most certain way to succeed in the practice of a profes sion. There are, of course, many minor details necessary in conducting a suc cessful dental practice, but the funda mental basis is the character of the service and the manner of administering it. It will thus be seen how very far afield have been some of the methods advocated in the recent past for acquir ing and maintaining a professional practice. Speaking on the general subject of salesmanship, it would seem presump tuous on my part to offer any sugges tions to a body of experienced salesmen such as are assembled here. And yet I trust that I may be pardoned if I make a few observations, based on experience, as I have looked on from the outside and seen salesmanship con ducted. Successful salesmanship relates, first, to the establishment on the part of the salesman of a perfect confidence between himself and the possible purchaser. The prime requisite for salesmanship is abso lute sincerity of purpose, and not mere glibness of tongue. The prospective salesman should assure himself, as a premise, that he has full faith in the product he is about to sell. If he can not do this, it would be better for him not to attempt that particular job, because sooner or later his prospects will founder on the rocks. No man can go on indefi nitely misrepresenting or misinterpreting his true convictions and achieve a suc cessful career, or be of real service to his house. Loyalty to the concern and confidence in its policy and its products
241
must be the keynote of every salesman’s creed. He must look on the welfare of the house not only in form but in fact as his particular welfare, and must as sume the attitude that whatever injures the reputation of the house injures him, and that whatever reflects on him reflects on the house. He should be a keen student of the industry he is representing and know every angle of it like an open book, and, what is fully as essential, he should make himself familiar with the needs— the real needs— of the people who are to be his patrons. This one fundamental fact requires .reiteration: . no system of salesmanship can ever be permanently successful which does not take into ac count the welfare of the purchaser as well as that of the seller. The really successful sale is the one which leaves the buyer permanently pleased with his purchase, and thankful that he was given the opportunity to buy. The thing that counts for most is the attitude of mind of the purchaser during the days and weeks and months following his purchase, rather than during that one hypnotic moment when the persuasive and ready-witted salesman has induced him to buy. The psychology of salesmanship has been the subject of many able articles, most of which I confess I have never read, and my audience is probably more familiar with it than I. But I am going to venture one opinion: the most suc cessful and serviceable psychology that can be employed is the one which will enable every salesman to look his cus tomer fully in the face year after year with the firm conviction that he has never in any way misled him or ad vised him against his real interests. The best of the world’s business is con ducted on confidence, and confidence is founded not on ingenious argument but
242
The Journal of the American Dental Association
on demonstration. To be able to pre sent the most favorable side of any article is, of course, necessary, but it is also necessary for the salesman to recog nize the limitation of an article if it has one, and to protect his customer against that limitation by explaining, correcting or overcoming it. In some way he must plan so that he may meet that customer a month hence, or a year hence, with the utmost assurance that he will be cordially received. A successful business was never founded on contention, and it is the duty of the salesman to stand between his house and the customer in harmoniz ing any differences which may arise. To this end, the salesman should be an advisor to the house, and should be keenly alert in making suggestions which may work to the benefit of the organization. He may discover a faulty mechanism in a product which the man in the shop has never detected, and which he has no means of detecting un til the product has been subjected to continued practical service. Machinery does not always work out according to the rule of thumb, any more than do our ethical and moral codes. In other words, there is always room for im provement, and the house, I am sure, will be grateful for suggestions which tend to make its products more perfect.
There is one tendency in salesman ship which, I am pleased to note, is apparently passing away, and that is the habit of disparaging the products of other concerns. This was formerly the sheet anchor of many a salesman’s policy, but it is so fundamentally wrong that it has invariably proved a boomerang. It is safe to assert that no successful business was ever built up by trying to tear another business down; in other words, we can not climb to true success over the wrecks of others. It would seem that in the splendid science of salesmanship there is a growing tend ency toward higher ideals and loftier motives, and it is a very healthy sign of the times when an organization such as the Ritter Dental Manufacturing Company brings together in annual con vention its large force of employees for the consideration of subjects calculated to make their work more uniform and their service more efficient. It gives me pleasure to offer my congratulations on the conception and carrying out of this idea, and to express my appreciation for the courtesy extended to me in the in vitation to address you. I can only hope that similar conferences in the future may result in a better under standing between the dental dealers and the profession, to the end that the people whom we conjointly serve may be cared for with increasing efficiency.
By C. N. JOHNSON, D.D.S., Chicago, Illinois
(Read before the annual meeting of the employees of the Ritter Dental Manufacturing Company, Rochester, New York, December 13, 1923)
T
H E success of an institution, to see that the people get the best pos whether it be a business or an sible dental service. The dentist would association, or any kind of an be well nigh helpless to render this serv enterprise whatsoever, is dependent ice without the facilities provided for largely on confidence and cooperation. him by the manufacturer, and, of The good-will of those with whom we course, the manufacturer and the people come in contact in the various activities are both dependent on the dentist to of life is also an essential factor in see that the products supplied by the bringing about success. If there were dealer are properly administered for the more universal good-will in the world, welfare of the people. There is a the machinery of our lives would move mutual dependency that should be recog more smoothly, and we would be happier nized to a fuller extent than it has in and more successful. To bring about the past, and in this connection there good-will, the thing most needful is a has been a constant conviction in my better understanding. Much of the mind that the profession generally has friction of life is due to the fact that not often enough acknowledged its great men do not understand each other. The debt to the manufacturer for the un failure of one man to see the other man’s tiring energy and ingenuity he has point of view is accountable for most displayed in furnishing us with the of the disharmony that mars our inter facilities for making our service more effective and less irksome. It is a pleas course one with another. How important it is, then, that the ure for me, as a practitioner, here and manufacturing interests and the dental now to pay my tribute to the many profession should be brought together splendid men in the manufacturing in the closest possible community of field who have devoted the best energy sentiment and understanding! In the of their lives to the invention and per ultimate analysis, the interests of each fection of instruments, apparatus and are identical. This has not been suffi accessories for the daily use of the den ciently recognized by either party, and tist. The ingeniousness, utility and it has resulted in some lines of cleavage artistic beauty of some of these products which have not worked for the welfare have never ceased to compel my admira of all concerned. tion, and I deem it a most fortunate The essential function of both the circumstance which has given me the dental supply man and the dentist is opportunity and the privilege of making 238 Jour. A .D .A ., March . 1Q24
Johnson— Relationship Between Manufacturer and Dentist this public acknowledgment. There are very few practitioners who, when they reach out to grasp the handpiece of an electric engine, or who turn on the water of a fountain cuspidor, or who adjust a chair to any requirement of the case, ever stop to think of the manifold processes which were neces sary to bring this mechanism to its present state of perfection. If they have paid the price of so many dollars for their equipment, they do not seem to acknowledge any further obligation to the manufacturer. It might be of mutual benefit if they would at times try to visualize all the various steps from the first crude mechanism in the mind of the inventor on down through the numberless refinements to the ulti mate thing of beauty and utility as we see it. It would, I am sure, put new cour age and heart in the dealer if, at times, the practitioner would give expression to his admiration of the achievements of the manufacturer and if he would make some note of the long road of difficulty and discouragement over which the latter has had to travel in order to reach his present status. We are all human, and, after all, it is a rather dull process merely to turn over goods and receive dollars for them, with no further amenities to the transaction. In our professional work, if patients con tented themselves with simply paying their bills and making no comment on the efforts we had put forth on their behalf, it would rob professional life of half its attraction. No man ever died of too much encouragement, and dentists need therefore have no fear of killing off their friends, the manufacturers, with a little of this commodity. And now that I find myself in this contrite mood, I may make further ac knowledgment of the fact that dealers
2.39
have not always found professional men possessed of a high degree of business sagacity. Their ideas of business pro cedure have doubtless often been a sore trial to those who have of necessity been brought into such an intimate relation ship with them as have the manufac turers. This has so impressed the latter that they have in some instances sought to instruct the profession along business lines, and up to a certain point this is very commendable. It will do no harm, and may do much good, to instruct den tists as to the ordinary routine of the business world— the collection of ac counts, the payment of bills, prompt ness, system, orderliness, and the just recognition of a business obligation— all of this is constructive and praise worthy. Between the dealer and the dentist, there can be no question as to the value of this kind of instruction. But there is one particular in which it has seemed to some of the profession that the dealer has unwittingly made a mistake. Quite naturally he has argued that, if the dentist needed instruction regarding his business dealings with the manufacturer, he also needed it with ref erence to his dealings with patients, and forthwith the dealer has sought to impart this kind of instruction. With the best of intention the dealer has overlooked two things: his legitimate function in relation to the profession, and the fundamental fact that the prac tice of a profession can never be reduced to the hard and fast business rules of a strictly commercial pursuit. If this had been attempted from the earliest days of dentistry till now, it is safe to assert that we would today have had no profession at all, but merely a body of mechanics who were inserting so many grains of gold or amalgam at so much per grain, or so many artificial teeth at so much per tooth.
240
The Journal of the American Dental Association
N o complaint whatever is made here of the intent of some of our dealers to better the condition of practitioners through the agencies referred to. They saw a need and they sought to fill it, and it was not to be expected that they could see the matter from the profes sion’s point of view. The alacrity with which some members of the profession sought to accept their teaching along these lines misled them to believe that the profession generally needed this kind of instruction and welcomed it. It was the most natural mistake in the world, but that it was a mistake is evidenced by the frequent comments we hear against it wherever representative dentists con gregate. Let this one fundamental fact sink into the consciousness of both the deal ers and the dentists—that no line of business procedure can ever be perma nently successful which does not take into account the welfare of both parties to every transaction. This is basic in principle. When dentists are taught that they should demand a certain number of dollars for every hour they practice, and this is all figured out on what seems a perfectly legitimate esti mate, there is only one-half the story told. We may sit down and with pencil and paper prove that it is necessary for us to get a certain recompense for the time expanded; we may build up in our consciousness the conviction that we are entitled to a just compensa tion— all of which is logical and irre futable— but always -and forever there is some one else at the other end of the line. There is the patient. And that patient cannot be ignored. In all of the business instruction to dentists that I have read I have seen almost no refer ence to the patient’s point of view or to the patient’s reaction to a certain suggested line of procedure. And may
it be said in passing that while some men have improved their financial standing by introducing new methods of business management, many others have ruined their prospects in the attempt to carry out some of the suggested methods. Compensation for professional service can never be determined by rule of thumb or figured with pencil and paper. It must be regulated as well by the point of view of the patient as by that of the dentist, and unless the patient can be convinced that it is just and equitable, he will not long remain a patient. This last remark naturally brings up the subject of salesmanship. I do not quite like the term “salesmanship” when applied to professional life, and yet I suppose, in a certain sense, we are all salesmen. But salesmanship in profes sional life is vastly different from sales manship in commercial life, and it should proceed along different lines. Salesmanship in business relates to such a presentation of the good qualities of any article or commodity that the buyer is sufficiently impressed to want to ac quire it. Salesmanship in professional life relates to the power of impressing people with the value of the service we are rendering, and with the fact that it would be to their advantage to have this service. As we are the ones who are rendering this service, it would be manifestly immodest and lacking in good taste for us to magnify to the patient the particular value of the par ticular service we are to render. The only way we can successfully impress people with the value of dental service and make them want this service is by a quiet, kindly, gentlemanly, painstak ing performance of all operations com mitted to our care, without a word of prating about our own prestige. It is different entirely from extolling the vir
Johnson— Relationship Between Manufacturer and Dentist tues of a certain make of gold or a certain dental unit. Vague as this may seem in the minds of practical salesmen such as yourself, I can confidently assure you, on the basis of a somewhat ex tended experience among professional men, that this is the most certain way to succeed in the practice of a profes sion. There are, of course, many minor details necessary in conducting a suc cessful dental practice, but the funda mental basis is the character of the service and the manner of administering it. It will thus be seen how very far afield have been some of the methods advocated in the recent past for acquir ing and maintaining a professional practice. Speaking on the general subject of salesmanship, it would seem presump tuous on my part to offer any sugges tions to a body of experienced salesmen such as are assembled here. And yet I trust that I may be pardoned if I make a few observations, based on experience, as I have looked on from the outside and seen salesmanship con ducted. Successful salesmanship relates, first, to the establishment on the part of the salesman of a perfect confidence between himself and the possible purchaser. The prime requisite for salesmanship is abso lute sincerity of purpose, and not mere glibness of tongue. The prospective salesman should assure himself, as a premise, that he has full faith in the product he is about to sell. If he can not do this, it would be better for him not to attempt that particular job, because sooner or later his prospects will founder on the rocks. No man can go on indefi nitely misrepresenting or misinterpreting his true convictions and achieve a suc cessful career, or be of real service to his house. Loyalty to the concern and confidence in its policy and its products
241
must be the keynote of every salesman’s creed. He must look on the welfare of the house not only in form but in fact as his particular welfare, and must as sume the attitude that whatever injures the reputation of the house injures him, and that whatever reflects on him reflects on the house. He should be a keen student of the industry he is representing and know every angle of it like an open book, and, what is fully as essential, he should make himself familiar with the needs— the real needs— of the people who are to be his patrons. This one fundamental fact requires .reiteration: . no system of salesmanship can ever be permanently successful which does not take into ac count the welfare of the purchaser as well as that of the seller. The really successful sale is the one which leaves the buyer permanently pleased with his purchase, and thankful that he was given the opportunity to buy. The thing that counts for most is the attitude of mind of the purchaser during the days and weeks and months following his purchase, rather than during that one hypnotic moment when the persuasive and ready-witted salesman has induced him to buy. The psychology of salesmanship has been the subject of many able articles, most of which I confess I have never read, and my audience is probably more familiar with it than I. But I am going to venture one opinion: the most suc cessful and serviceable psychology that can be employed is the one which will enable every salesman to look his cus tomer fully in the face year after year with the firm conviction that he has never in any way misled him or ad vised him against his real interests. The best of the world’s business is con ducted on confidence, and confidence is founded not on ingenious argument but
242
The Journal of the American Dental Association
on demonstration. To be able to pre sent the most favorable side of any article is, of course, necessary, but it is also necessary for the salesman to recog nize the limitation of an article if it has one, and to protect his customer against that limitation by explaining, correcting or overcoming it. In some way he must plan so that he may meet that customer a month hence, or a year hence, with the utmost assurance that he will be cordially received. A successful business was never founded on contention, and it is the duty of the salesman to stand between his house and the customer in harmoniz ing any differences which may arise. To this end, the salesman should be an advisor to the house, and should be keenly alert in making suggestions which may work to the benefit of the organization. He may discover a faulty mechanism in a product which the man in the shop has never detected, and which he has no means of detecting un til the product has been subjected to continued practical service. Machinery does not always work out according to the rule of thumb, any more than do our ethical and moral codes. In other words, there is always room for im provement, and the house, I am sure, will be grateful for suggestions which tend to make its products more perfect.
There is one tendency in salesman ship which, I am pleased to note, is apparently passing away, and that is the habit of disparaging the products of other concerns. This was formerly the sheet anchor of many a salesman’s policy, but it is so fundamentally wrong that it has invariably proved a boomerang. It is safe to assert that no successful business was ever built up by trying to tear another business down; in other words, we can not climb to true success over the wrecks of others. It would seem that in the splendid science of salesmanship there is a growing tend ency toward higher ideals and loftier motives, and it is a very healthy sign of the times when an organization such as the Ritter Dental Manufacturing Company brings together in annual con vention its large force of employees for the consideration of subjects calculated to make their work more uniform and their service more efficient. It gives me pleasure to offer my congratulations on the conception and carrying out of this idea, and to express my appreciation for the courtesy extended to me in the in vitation to address you. I can only hope that similar conferences in the future may result in a better under standing between the dental dealers and the profession, to the end that the people whom we conjointly serve may be cared for with increasing efficiency.