Leaders All — Elmer Pearson, From Salesman to Chief Executive (1923) 🇺🇸

Leaders All — Elmer Pearson

Because while sitting in a swivel chair in New*York he understands the problems encountered by his salesmen and branch managers; because having been in their positions he understands the problems of their exhibitor-customers; because through his travels over the country he maintains that intimate contact with the men of the trade he established in other years.

From Salesman to Chief Executive

Story of the Steady Progress of Elmer Pearson, Vice President of Pathé Exchange, During a Dozen Years

To travel the route from salesman to the executive head of a large distributing organization means the covering of a lot of ground and the overcoming of a lot of obstacles.

It means the acquiring, too, of a lot of valuable experience, the only way incidentally in which a knowledge of the ways of the trade or any trade may be absorbed — by actual contact with the men who form the clientele of your company.

It conveys, too, to every salesman and employee in that particular organization an inspiration parallelling that residing in the breast of a soldier of Napoleon — that in every knapsack was a marshal’s baton.

That is the story of Elmer Pearson, vice president and general manager of Pathé, who in the latter part of 1910 set forth from the Omaha office of General Film as a salesman.

It was hardly a year later he was called from the road and installed as branch manager, with a couple of years yet to go before he reached the thirtieth*milestone.

It may be assumed his administration of the exchange during his tenure of a year and a half was successful, inasmuch as the books recorded a net profit for the period of $700,000.

As a sidelight on the salaries prevailing in exchanges in those days it is not without interest to note that the top compensation of the Omaha manager in that time was $75 a week.

It was in 1914 Mr.*Pearson first entered the service of the company of which he is now the executive head — as branch manager of its exchange in Omaha.

The following year Mr.*Pearson went to the Selznick [Lewis J. Selznick] exchange in the same city.

V.*L.*S.*E. called him in 1915 to take charge of four*offices, Salt*Lake, Denver, St.*Louis and Kansas*City, with headquarters in the latter city.

In 1917 Mr.*Pearson went to Chicago with Essanay, and in the same year he became the general sales manager of the George Kleine system.

In 1918 and 1919 he served First National, in charge of the Minneapolis and Milwaukee branches.

In the latter year Mr.*Pearson again entered the service of Pathé as feature sales manager.

In practically each of the following years there has been advancement, first to director of exchanges, then to general manager and finally to vice president as well as general manager.

Perhaps it is well to retrace briefly the prior business career of the man whose employment in the distributing field has been as steady as it has been progressive in advancement.

For ten years previous to Mr.*Pearson’s entrance in the film world he had been connected with a half dozen large concerns and in various capacities, starting in his seventeenth year as bookkeeper in a wholesale grocery house.

Then there was a change to the Cudahy Packing Company, where he took up the work of salesman, becoming sale manager.

Other lines of work were in hardware, in a railroad office, with a milling company and with a lumber concern.

Among the cities in which the young man acquired a knowledge of men and things were Hastings and Lincoln, Neb., St.*Louis, Kansas*City and Omaha.

In these various positions Mr.*Pearson had an opportunity to study the business policies of firms in different lines and to acquire among other things the knowledge that gaining the confidence of your customers is one of the first essentials in successful business.

Possibly it was the possession of this trait that was responsible for Mr.*Pearson’s rapid promotion in his initial film position.

When he entered the service of General Film he knew selling as it was practiced in other lines.

If roughshod methods were in vogue in some quarters in motion picture distribution at that time Mr.*Pearson was not influenced by them. He adhered to his training and his inclination, and he gave the exhibitors of the Omaha district a square deal.

And it is the square deal to customers that the head of the Pathé preaches today. He has said privately and he has said publicly that he does not believe an unwilling customer is a desirable customer.

Back in Omaha a dozen years ago he laid down the general rule that if an exhibitor from a small town was limited in profitable film purchases to $30 that that was the figure to sell him on, not a larger sum.

And those were the “happy days” from the viewpoint of the exchange when an exhibitor had to “come through” if he wanted to continue in business.

In conversation recently Mr.*Pearson expressed the view that the cancellation clause in all contracts should be so worded that an exhibitor would be able within two or at the most not over four months’ time to change his entire service.

The opinion was advanced that a contract can be made permanent only as it is reciprocal and mutually satisfactory; that an exhibitor would rather maintain his integrity and retain his self-respect by living up to his contract, and that there would not be nearly so many controversies with exhibitors if all distributors had cancellation clauses that were fair to the theatre owners.

Mr.*Pearson is a firm partisan of the serial, on one occasion calling attention to the fact that in many theatres the best day of the week is that on which the serial is shown.

The Pathé head is a believer in percentage for important pictures where difficulty is experienced in determining in advance just what they will take in at the box office. For ordinary pictures he favors rental.

Reluctance to discharge an employee is one of the characteristics attributed to Mr.*Pearson. It is explained that the Pathé head believes every man who, after investigation is taken on has ability, that it is up to the company to give him an opportunity to make good, to tender encouragement or aid where needed, and that the failure in any instance is in a measure a reflection on the organization.

Another business rule of Mr.*Pearson is that a salesman is more successful where he feels a sense of security in his position.

“No business can be better than its organization. If the organization is big and strong your business is going to be big and strong in just that proportion,” he has declared.

Elmer Pearson is an up-standing type of the go-getter business man. While salesmanship is his long suite he does not neglect the physical side, the preparedness angle of life as it were. He loves the outdoors, and for years has been a practitioneer of golf.

While he is strong on the drive it is said it really is on the green that he displays his skill; that when it comes lo putting, to dropping the ball in the hole and closing the chapter, he is at his best; that he does not permit himself to get out of practice on this particular point of the game.

Which shows that the Pathé chief recognizes the importance of details.

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Collection: Exhibitors Trade Review, 8 September 1923

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