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Article: Wagner sold products by solving problems
- Article from:
- The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee, WI)
- Article date:
- September 25, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1999 The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Robert S. Wagner knew early on that a good salesman was not a
peddler but a problem-solver.
Traveling Midwestern and Eastern states in the 1930s for his
father's firm, E.R. Wagner Manufacturing Co., he asked potential
customers about difficulties in their businesses.
"What would you like to have that you don't have?" Wagner would
say, perhaps over dinner at their homes.
Then Wagner, who was mechanically oriented, returned to his hotel
to draw up his version of a solution. Sometimes it was a simple
design, but often it was something resembling a Rube Goldberg
contraption. Back in Milwaukee he handed the drawing -- maybe on a
napkin -- to the Wagner engineers and told them about a ...