"All the rest of the men ought to know about this," said Patterson, and that was the beginning of what later developed into Patterson’s method of training salespeople. It was also the beginning of the sales convention idea. The sales agents’ convention became an annual event and showed the importance of sales in the ongoing success of NCR. Conventions provided a way for the company to communicate its culture to agents, most of whom were far removed from Dayton. The conventions also provided an important forum to discuss strategy and share sales knowledge. In June 1887, nine agents attended the convention held in Dayton. In 1888, 41 of 210 agents traveled to the three-day event in Dayton. Patterson encouraged his agents to pay the rail fare and take time out from selling. "We can assure you that all who will attend, that they will be fitted to sell twice as many registers as heretofore," said Patterson. Part of the convention program was a tour of the factory to observe the building of cash registers. Sales conventions were not confined to the United States. As documented in the minutes of the fifth convention of the European sales agents held April 9-12, 1906 in Berlin, G. H. Wark, the manager for Continental Europe, explained to agents gathered from Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, France, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, Russia, Holland, Denmark and Sweden: "We have called a convention at this time for several reasons. The main one, of course, is to find out how we can increase our business, how we can improve each organization… As other matters are constantly trying to get our attention, we must make up our minds to concentrate on selling. We must learn how the best of our men do it and then teach all the others this best way." 1887—The first documented selling tool… NCR sales agents were required to memorize a 450-word primer based on the successful sales presentation of Joseph H. Crane, John H. Patterson’s brother-in-law, whose sales record consistently topped the other agents at the time. The Primer began when Joseph Crane was asked to sit in on a meeting devoted to the discussion of prices. At the end of the meeting, Crane stated that the price was all right and the product was good, but that NCR salespeople didn’t know how to sell it. Patterson had a stenographer record Crane’s demonstration. Crane said the same thing, word for word, during each demonstration, and the first NCR sales script, "How I Sell A National Cash Register," was introduced at the 1887 agents' convention. Patterson dropped in on agents, to give them a command quiz on the 16-page primer and fired those who refused to learn it or failed to commit it to memory.