The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-10-02
NEWSPAPER ADS
 PROPER METHODS
 ID PROMOTE SALES
Judge voorhis Tells of Suc- cess of Stock Sale of Bir- mingham Water Works
 Company

Will newspaper advertising sell
 stock in a public utility during a
 period of serious depression when
 unemployment is general?
 That was the question confronting
 the Birmingham Water Works com
 pany six months ago, and accord ! ing to Judge W. R. Voorhis, general
 counsel of the American Water
 works and Electric company, and
 one of the officials of the local
 utility, the answer is decidedly in
 the affirmative.
 To back up his assertion that
 newspaper advertising is the proper
 method to be employed in a campaign
 of this kind. Judge Voorhis points to the fact that Birmingham people have ivested in the past few months
 the Birmingham Water Works com rany.
 Relying largely upon newspaper advertising. this company has dis posed locally of 80 per cent of it's issue of $700,000 desired for improve
 ments and extensions and the sales. instead of decreasing. are continuing
 at an increasing rate, The result of
 the experiment has been highly sat- isfactory, according to Judge voor- n fry n yba day.
 Learned Some Things
 "We have been doing some ex- perimenting in Birmingham and we have learned some things that will be valuable to us and will help other companies in which we are interest er," Said Judge Voorhis. We have
 learned that the only successful way for utility to deal with the pub lie lis to be perfectly frank and to invite their criticisms. Then, all complaints must have careful atten-
 ton from an official with authority and the complaint must be rectified at once. It is surprising how many things which are destined to create friction between a utility and it's pa- irons can be rectified with very lit- tie trouble.
 0When I came to Birmingham sew eral months ago to help in floating S7OO.000 in stock for improvements and extensions of the water works, knew we could follow the usual procedure and sell the stock in New York. Then the profits of the com panv would go there in dividends. l knew that Birmin gham people had enough money to own their own water works and I could see no req son why they would not buy our stock if it appealed to them as a good investment. I knew that large
 sums had gone out of Birmingham for investment in foreign securities from which this community got no benefit in the way of improvements and I believed if the peopie were told about this stock and the affairs of the company, they would invest. Use the Newspapers
 ..We decided to use the newspapers extensiyely in telling the public all aLout inc affairs of the company. Fxerv fact about it's management and | ifs finances was published and re- published and soon the inquiries De- gan to come in. We dld not employ
 any of the usual type Of stock saiesmen. The sales manager had never sold any stock in his life. He was meter tester. The salesmen were just ordinary business men. But they found that the people already knew the facts about the stock. The idea of telling the public every thing about the company Impressed them. as did the idea of investing their money at nome where it would do the most good and where they would become owners of their own utilities instead of sending the money out of the city.
 .As a result of this newspaper campaign, We have already soid without any high power stock selling more that $500,000 of this issue of 1 s700,000, or to be exact, about SC per cent. As result of this. more
 than s5oo.0oA has already been spent