In the "Long run..."
Burch Continues to Drive Up Chamber Membership

The embodiment of a"people person", Burch has worked about 100 days a year for the past seven years recruiting for the Chamber. His salesmanship skills have netted over 600 new members, averaging about one new member for every day he's worked.

Burch is not a Chamber employee, but a loaned executive from Long-Lewis Ford. Even before the longtime Bessemer car dealership relocated to Hoover nearly eight years ago, it become involved in the Hoover Chamber. His employer's involvement resulted in Burch's involvement, which ultimately turned into an arrangement that Long-Lewis president Dwight Burrell believes is beneficial to all concerned.

"It's been a good thing for everybody," he said,"and it's allowed us to do something for the Chamber." If the first rule of persuasive salesmanship is to know and believe in one's product, Burch has the main requirement down pat. He says persuading others of the organization's merits comes naturally, and that being a Chamber member has been good for him. With a strong sales and public relations background, Burch not only knows the value of a great pitch, he also knows that it's often the second visit that will close a sale. "I always go back and follow up with the people I talk to,"
he said.
According to the Chamber's executive director Bill Powell, Burch is not only one of the best salespeople he's ever seen, but an outstanding person as well.

"Leon has been a tremendous asset to the Chamber, while at the same time being a great ambassador for his actual employer, Long-Lewis Ford," said Powell."On a personal level, his character is certainly above reproach.

He's one of the finest men I've ever been associated with, always conducting himself in a disciplined professional manner, and always looking his best."
A Navy veteran, Burch served aboard the U.S.S. Washington during World War II. He later sold real estate in the Pleasant Grove area and subsequently became associated with Long-Lewis in a public relations capacity. His responsibilities there have since evolved into training sales personnel.
When he's not working, Burch is an avid golfer who has played for over 60 years. Even though a hole-in-one has thus far eluded him, Burch displays the same attitude of perseverance to that quest that has made him such an asset to the Hoover Chamber: "I haven't stopped trying," he said.

Leon Burch has something that most people don't' - a natural kind of charm that makes him a great salesman. And sell, he does. The 79-year-old trouper, sells the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce with astonishing results.

History of Long-Lewis Ford

One of the oldest businesses in the Birmingham-Hoover area, Long-Lewis Ford has been around since 1887, the same year the City of Bessemer was founded. Soon after the acreage that would become Bessemer was divided into building lots, streets and avenues, a businessman named William J. Long purchased property there and established Bessemer Cornice Works. Long later bought out his biggest competitor, Lewis Hardware, and the company became Long-Lewis Hardware.

In 1911, a group of Bessemer merchants, including Long, held a raffle. The grand prize was a Model-T Ford. The winner, a poultry farmer, refused the prize because the popping and backfiring of the newfangled contraption would scare his chickens and keep them from laying eggs.

So Long purchased the car from the winner, took it back to the wagon and buggy department of his store and sold it for a profit. Never one to let a great business opportunity pass him by, Long ordered more Model-T's. In 1915, when Henry Ford began granting franchises to dealers, Long-Lewis Hardware became one of the first Ford dealerships in the United States.

Long-Lewis Ford remained in Bessemer until the dealership moved to its sparkling 84,000-square foot Hoover facility on John Hawkins Parkway in January 1999. Before moving to Hoover, Long-Lewis joined the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce and has since become one of the organization's most valuable supporters.