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The results presented in this report were developed during research directed by the Manpower and Personnel Research Laboratory of the US Army Research Institute. The focus ot the research was to examine the current sales techniques used by US Army recruiters and compare them with state of the art sales techniques used by industry in the United States. Second, it was necessary to look at how US Army recruiters are being trained to sell and how they are selling in the field. Third, this research report suggests how selling procedures used in the private sector might be offered as alternatives or additions to the present US Army recruiters' sales training protocol.

Over a period of several months, the research team examined the selling procedures used by the US Army in recruiting situations. The team visited field recruiting stations and interviewed USAREC Command staff to determine the presently accepted procedures for recruiting. A thorough examination of the present sales literature was undertaken to determine how the US Army recruiting procedures of today would fit into the full range of alternatives for selling as seen by industry. An area of research interest that was not originally planned for this project but emerged as an area of need and interest was the examination of competing theories of how people buy, or in this case, how people comply with efforts to recruit them into the US Army. Thus, the following stages in the procedure are described in this report: