a business without considering whether there is room for it; others because they do not thoroughly establish themselves in the place, making no effort to get a constituency; and yet others because they do not keep the goods that are in demand, or do not renew the stock sufficiently quick, or do not present their goods in an attractive way. Such causes of success or failure as are in the line of this work will now be considered. Here are the rules of an old merchant which he would take for his guidance were he to start anew in business:
12. The Minimum Basis. – Enumerate the entire number of heads of families in the town, village, ward, or neighborhood where you purpose to begin business. Figure out the number of such persons you will require as a minimum basis in order to get on – that is, how many persons or families, spending each on an average a certain amount per day or week at your place of business, you will require in order to make a living. Do not go blindly into your work, trusting to luck. Luck is always on the side of pluck and tact. Determine what per cent. of the people’s patronage is absolutely essential to your success. The first step is to ascertain if such per cent. is likely to come to you.
13. The House to House Canvass. – Make a personal canvass from house to house. Do not trust the work to your friend, relative, or clerk. Nobody can help you so much as you can help yourself. Nobody has your interests so much at heart as you have. Tell people pleasantly that you are a new bidder for their patronage. Inform them what you propose to do. Make them to understand that no man shall undersell you, or give them in any way a better bargain. If possible, take a few samples of your choicest goods with you.
14. The Choice Location. – If you become popular, the people will come to you; but at first you must go to them. Your place need not be central or on a corner, but it must be where many people pass. Step out largely and conspicuously. You could make no greater mistake than to rent a shabby place on a back street. Have out all manner of signs, curious, newsy, and alluring. Do not think to sustain yourself by people’s sympathies. Men will trade most where they can do best.
15. The Maximum Basis. – The maximum basis is the high-water mark. It is the number of persons or families that under the most favorable state of things can be your patrons. All you cannot expect. Kindred, religion, politics, friendships, and secret fraternities, will hold a portion of the community to the old traders. The sharpest rivalry will meet you. Also, you must consider what incursions are likely to be made by out-of-town dealers, and what prospect there is of others setting up business in the place. But you should have an ideal trade toward which you steadily work. Declare daily to yourself, “my gross earnings shall be $-per day,” or “– (so many) persons shall be my patrons.” When you fall below the mark, bestir yourself in many ways.
16. The Personal Equation. – Remember that you yourself in contact with your customers count for more than anything else. The weather of the face, the temperature of the hand, the color of the voice, will win customers where other means fail. Make your patrons feel that you are their friend. Inquire about members of their family. Be exceedingly polite. Recommend your goods. Mention anything of an especially attractive or meritorious nature you may have. Join the church, the regiment, the fire company, and the secret society. Become “all things to all men, if by any means you can sell to some.” Be everywhere in your place of business. Oversee the smallest details. Trust as little as possible to your clerks. The diamond of success is the master’s eye. Remember there is no fate. There are opportunity, purpose, grit, push, pluck, but no fate. If you fail, do not lay the blame upon circumstances, but upon yourself. Enthusiasm moves stones. You must carry your business in your brain. “A bank never gets to be very successful,” says a noted financier, “until it gets a president who takes it to bed with him.” There was an angel in Michael Angelo’s muddy stone, and there is a fortune in your humdrum store. Hard work and close thought are the hands that carve it out.
Chapter III
Money in trade
What Kind of Advertisements Pay – “Don’t Fail to See the Blizzard Saturday Night” – The Keynote of a $20,000,000 Sale – Selling Goods by the Mile – Watches for Bait – How to Get Five – Year Customers – “Trade With Me and Get a House and Lot” – Why Trade at Push and Pluck’s? – Bargains in Buttons Often Means High Prices in Broadcloth.
Thousands fail in business every year when an idea put into practical operation would have tided them over the trouble and opened the road to a competence. This chapter will tell you how to succeed. No man with common ability and industry who puts the half or even the quarter of these ideas into practice can possibly fail. The great thing is to make people buy your goods. But to induce them to purchase you must first of all call attention to what you have to sell. Here are a few of the ways in which this is to be done. The following methods will fairly compel the people to trade with you, but you must bear in mind that as soon as the influence of one device begins to flag it must be immediately succeeded by another.
17. The Interlined Advertisement. – Advertisements are not read unless persons are looking for something in that line. This is because they are all placed by themselves. Your bid for patronage must be put in the midst of the reading matter if it is to attract general attention. Many publishers will not do this, but your chief and only point in appearing in the paper is to have your advertisement read, and it pays better to insert it in a journal with 5,000 readers who will all see it than in one having 100,000 subscribers, hardly 100 of whom will glance at the advertisement. You can afford to pay handsomely if the publisher will give you a line of black-faced type to eight or ten lines of news.
18. The Picturesque Name. – Have a name for your store such as will easily fit everybody’s mouth. “The Beehive,” “The Blizzard,” “The Buttercup,” or “The Bonanza,” are suggestive titles. Many customers are attracted by the talk of their acquaintances, and it is much easier to tell a friend that you bought an article at “The Hub,” or “The Sun,” than to attempt the unpronounceable name of a proprietor, or to give a forgotten number. Successful men in several lines of business assert that they owe much of their good fortune to the happy hit of a popular name.
19. The Pictorial Wreck. – A writer with the gift of a lively imagination can write something interesting in the way of a fanciful battle between customers and goods. Head lines, “Great Slaughter in – (the taking name of your store),” “Wreck of Old Conservatism,” “Smash of High Prices,” “Ruined by the Rush.” Then would follow a graphic description of the charge of customers upon wares in which the store was almost wrecked by the enormous number of people who took advantage of the under-cost prices. People enjoy this kind of pleasantry, and the impulse to follow the crowd is almost irresistible. A certain New York house grew from a small to a great one by this method of advertising.
20. Red Letter Day. – Have a day in which you offer special bargains to the people of a certain town, village or hamlet. Put up flaming posters, announcing “Squashville day,” “Jonesboro Day,” “Bloomington day.”
21. Class Discount. – You may draw numbers of men to your place by this means. Secret fraternities, workingmen’s orders, church societies, wheelmen’s leagues, will be attracted to you if they know you specially favor them. Fortunes have been made by close attention to these great organizations.
22. The Honest Flaw. – Strictly instruct your clerks to tell your customers the precise nature of every article; if the quality is inferior, make them to understand exactly what they are getting for their money; and if there be a flaw, let them be careful to point it out. By such means thousands of people who cannot trust their own judgment in these matters, will be attracted to a place where they are certain to be treated fairly. A. T. Stewart, who began business in a modest store, and who, in the latter part of his life sold $20,000,000 worth of goods every year, declared that this plan was the keynote of his success.
23. The Premium Clerk. – You need clerks who can induce acquaintances to visit your store, cajole visitors
