Document DDm7vYVoGO77EDrXVQ9LB4Xb4

SELLING SAFETY (cont.) sturdy new ladder, for such falls are a common cause of injury at the workplace. Your salesperson should also actively promote safety precau tions and products to your paint and body shop customers, for they deal with many potentially hazard ous materials. Promoting fireproof paint and solvent storage cabinets should be a must, as most auto motive paint products are extreme ly flammable and should be kept well away from flame and spark sources. Additionally, such cabinets help avoid the potential safety hazards of scattered odd lots of paints and solvents in outof-the-way, unsupervised areas of the shop. Safe handling and protective gear can also be promoted to body shop customers in the form of ap proved safety lights, gloves, gog gles and air system filters, masks and respirators, as many paint and body shop chemicals can be harm ful to inhale. Additionally, solid knowledge on the part of your outside salesper son of the various products you have to sell can help them promote safety. For example, a working knowledge of lifting equipment, combined with keen observation, will enable your outside sales person to recommend a particular piece of equipment to assist in many of the lifting activities that your customer's employees nor mally perform. Such a suggestion, along with instruction on safe use and operation of the lifting equip ment, can serve as a preventative measure against employee back injuries from improper lifting methods or attempts to lift a tooheavy load. (Back injuries, by the way, are one of the most common injuries occurring at the work place.) Knowledge of batteries and fa miliarity with the safety precau tions that should be exercised whenever working on or near a bat tery are other areas that deserve attention. Again, protective clothing and goggles are a must. Another safety-related concept that deserves your outside sales 22 person's attention is the active promotion of first aid kits and fire extinguishers. A well-stocked first aid kit is a must for any workplace, as is an easily accessible fire ex tinguisher along with the common knowledge of how to operate it. Then, to keep these safety precau tions an ongoing practice, your salesperson can occasionally check to make sure that the sup plies in the first aid kit are main tained and that the fire extinguish er is operational and ready for use should the need for it arise. To kick off your safety-related products campaign, you may want to advertise and hold a clinic for your dealer customers and their employees, reviewing safety data, instruction and information on many of the items and materials your customers work with daily. Then, you can suggest the variety of safety-related products that you have to offer as possible remedies to potentially hazardous situa tions. To help you and your outside salespeople (as well as your own employees!) develop a knowledge of safety products and practices, you might want to refer to OSHA's Handbook for Small Businesses (OSHA 2209).* This book can pro vide you with much helpful infor mation concerning what safety factors to look for that you can develop into sales opportunities, as well as advice on promoting and getting employee cooperation with the safety concept. If you are sincerely interested in expanding your existing market opportunities while improving customer relations by demonstrat ing a concern for their safety, then you should by all means investi gate the potential profits that lie in actively promoting and selling safety and safety-related products. *A copy of OSHA's Handbook for Small Businesses (OSHA 2209) can be obtained by writing: U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA, Office of Public & Consumer Affairs, Room N-3641, 3rd & Constitution Avenue N.W., Washing ton, D.C. 20210. NAPA INSURANCE NEWS NAPA GROUP INSURANCE TRUST: To serve you more effi ciently, your NAPA Group Insurance -Service has instituted a new claim system. In order to help speed up payment of insurance claims, claims should no longer be forwarded to the NAPA Group Insurance Trust offices in Schaumburg, Illinois. Instead, all claims should now be "certified" by the individual in your store who handles the insurance program for your store. These claims should then be sent directly to the John Hancock Claim Office in your particular area. By now, you should have already received a letter from the NAPA Group Insurance Trust offices ex plaining this new claim payment system and providing you with the address of the John Hancock office where your claims should be sent. If you have not received this informa tion, or if you have any questions at all concerning your NAPA Group In surance program, do not hesitate to call your NAPA Group Insurance Service toll-free at 800-323-6898. (Illinois jobbers call 312-884-0602.) NAPA SAFETY GROUP INSUR ANCE: For thirteen years now, your NAPA standardized Safety Group Insurance program has proven reliable, providing specialized coverage to suit the needs of the NAPA Jobber. This program is de signed for your convenience -- one insurance company with offices locat ed nationwide to serve you with local claims and loss control engineering. Since the NAPA Safety Group In surance began, dividends returned to NAPA Jobbers now total $2,590,902 -- a sizeable savings in insurance costs. And for 1980, because of NAPA Jobbers' safety practices, the following dividends were distributed: Worker Compensation 30.1 % Property & Casualty 4.7% This was a distribution of over $800,000. Make sure you utilize your NAPA Safety Group Insurance program. For more information, contact: NAPA Safety Group Insurance P.O. Box 95406 Atlanta, Georgia 30347 Or call toll-free: 800-241-3202.