Foreword EVERY DAY MORE THAN 1@000 small businesses bolt their doors. According to experts like dun Bradstreet@ poor management ranks first among the causes for these small business quits. INDEPENDENT PETROLEUM MARKETRS ?C typical small businessmen ?C are becoming increasingly aware of their management problems. They are operating in an economy marked by rising costs and falling prices. Yet to keep pace with their competitors@ they must every be on the alert to improve their services to their customers. The public insists on more accommodating service designed to meet individual@ local preferences. This offers independent merchants like petroleum jobbers an opportunity to learn how to take advantage of their greater flexibility to meet the public's requirements. THE JOBBER MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE program@ officially endorsed by the NATIONAL OIL JOBBERS COUNCIL@ provides that opportunity. From its inception@ the program has worked to strengthen the industry position of independent oil marketers by making them more efficient and resourceful in handing the problems they face as owners and managers. Oil jobbers@ through their state associations@ have been quick to recognize the value of Management Institutes. Since 1952 when the first Institute was held the Texas@ 13 states have organized one or more. Eight are considering or have made definite plans to hold them@ while only 8 states have made no plans. In all@ more then 800 oil jobbers have attended Institute sessions since 1952. They are part of a growing movement that has done more to stimulate@ encourage and excite oil marketers than almost any other single development in the past 20 years.* THE PERSONNEL TRAINING COMMITTEE@ Division of Marketing@ API@ has prepared this handbook on Jobber Management Institute to encourage the development of the Institute program and to familiarize marketing executives at all levels of the industry with the tremendous potential for growth and profit that it offers. JOBBER MANAGEMENT INSTITUTES are the logical and most recent development of the growing study of business that began in the early 1900's. The first of these projects looked into the reasons why business failed. THE DISMAL ??30's saw these studies intensified as businessmen realized that despite our fabulous productive capacity@ millions in this country were out of work because we did not understand how to distribute the goods we produced. Instead of emphasizing consumption and distribution@ we emphasized our productive power. It was then that experts from many different fields began to examine the management problems of the more than 4 million independent small business proprietors throughout the nation. Sources of equity capital@ causes of business failures@ essentials to success ?C these were just a few of the management problems studied by such organizations as the FEDEAL RESERVE BANK@ COMMITTEE FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT@ DUN BRADSTREET@ U. S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE and most recently@ the U. S. SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION. *See page 16 for list of Institutes held since 1952.