Employes are divided into two classes--the kind that makes profits and
the kind that is on the expense side of the ledger.
The young man who has the foresight and ability to get on the selling
side, the side that brings profit to the house, has the decided
advantage over the young man who is on the expense side.
Book-keepers, stock-keepers, clerks and all other expense employes are
paid far lower salaries than the salesmen and buyers, those who produce
results.
In the newspaper business the editor with his college education has
practically attained his limit of progress when he is 40 years old. He
may get from $20.00 to $80.00 or even $100.00 a week as editor.
The young man in the advertising department may get from $50.00 to
$200.00 a week. He is a producer of tangible results; the editor
produces theoretical results.
In every business the man who sells things, who brings in the profits,
is the man who gets the best pay.
The boss will grudgingly give a dollar a week increase to the
book-keeper. He only thinks what it would cost him to replace the
book-keeper.
The producer gets his increases in $5.00 and $10.00 a week jumps.
The expense employe is in competition with the great army of the
unemployed, and there are multitudes who will work for less money than
the man who is holding his job on the expense side.
The producer, on the other hand, knows how much profit he is bringing
into his house, and if those profits are steadily increasing he may be
sure his salary will increase proportionately. If it does not he can
always get another position by laying the facts and figures before some
more enterprising house.
The producer is seldom out of a situation. If for any reason he is out
of employment temporarily he can go to a good house and work on
commission, or get a small drawing account, and at three or six months
talk salary on actual showing made.
The shrewd business man won't let profits slip away if he can help it,
so the real producer sits in a pretty good seat. He has only to show
what he can do and he will be paid accordingly.
The expense man's only stock in trade is faithfulness, neatness and
amount of detail he can handle. He has little lee-way in the matter of
salary, for thousands are faithful, thousands are neat and thousands
can perform great amounts of detail.
The young man just out of school should have for his ideal that he
shall be a producer first and a proprietor later on. To this end he
should equip himself by spending four or five years acquainting himself
thoroughly with all the phases and departments of the business and
learning the facts about the manufacture of the goods he expects to
sell eventually. All this understanding and preparation will be of
great service when he is a salesman, and greater service when he is a
proprietor.
The writer started wholly dependent upon his own exertions for a
livelihood at fourteen years of age. At fifteen he learned shorthand by
evening study. At sixteen he attended to the correspondence and mail
order department for his employer. At eighteen he was getting $8.00 a
week in cash for his services, and many times that amount in valued
experience.
"One day he got a blank application for a $75.00 clerkship in the Post
Office. At that time appointments were made by political pull and not
through the civil service. The writer took the blank to a relative, who
was the leading politician of the State. He asked for the endorsement
of this senator and received this advice: "Young man, my signature to
this sheet would get you the job, but if you were my son I would not
let you take the place. I will give you some advice, which is
this--never take a political, railroad or bank job. In all these
callings you are in competition with thousands of others. The
compensation is small, the chance to better your position is remote,
and you are a machine. If you want to make a success of life be a
producer, learn to sell things."
This advice was acted on, and the writer remembers it as the turning
point in his career.
It is a sad thing to see the old man working for $40.00 or $50.00 a
month who in the past drew $3,000 or $4,000 a year. Such men were
expense men and not producers.
Moves on the checker board of business are made quickly. The man with
silver hair may be an accountant or confidential man drawing a good
salary. Something happens, his firm goes out of business or sells out,
and our old friend is left without a position. He has been used to the
comforts and associations a good salary allows, and now he finds
himself out of a place and faces the necessity of starting over again,
and his competitors are young and active men ready for the battle of
life.
The old man out of a job goes around amongst his friends. The friend
can do nothing but gives him a letter of recommendation. He is passed
along from one to another until he is foot-sore and heart sick and
weary of it all.
He winds up as a sleeping car conductor, or gets a position as floor
walker or clerk at the inquiry desk.
The producer, be he ever so old or ever so often out of a job, can
catch on again. He gets his job on results and not sympathy.
Business men are on the lookout for producers.
Young man, learn to be a producer.