We are prone to give credit to the plan as being the thing that makes a
successful business. It is not the plan, it is the man behind the plan
that is responsible for the success.
The man who has a well-defined ideal, who hews to the line, who
eliminates all deterrent influences, who concentrates his energy on his
ideal, who bends his efforts towards the one thing is pretty sure to
accomplish his purpose.
We often see a man make a marked success in a field that others have
considered barren.
Take a small town, for instance, where there are many retail stores.
The people of the town will tell the prospective merchant that the town
is already overcrowded with stores, that none of the stores seem to be
making more than a bare living, and that it would be impossible for
another store to make a success, on account of the already overcrowded
conditions, yet the right man comes along and starts a store in that
town and makes a marked success.
If the plan were the making of success, all an enterprising business
man would have to do would be to pick out some plan which was
successful and then imitate it.
The great ocean of business has many derelicts on it as a result of
copying plans. It is a part of the law of compensation that the man who
originates a plan and carries it to successful conclusion has a patent
on his business. This patent is his individuality and good business
equipment. The man who steals his plan physically is unable to steal
the mental end.
Since men have recorded facts in the shape of history, we find that men
have made successes of plans and businesses that have been discarded by
their predecessors as played-out plans.
When a plan is presented to you do not calculate the outcome by the
plan, but by the man.
Two banks may start side by side with exactly the same office furniture
and exactly the same business operations. They use the same kind of
money; they make loans on lands or on securities. The operations of
these two banks may be as closely identical as possible, yet within ten
years one bank will have considerable surplus and the other may be out
of business.
If the plan were the measure of success these two banks should fare
equally well, but the fact that they differed so materially is in
itself evidence that the success is determined by the individuals and
not the plan.
The illustration of a bank may be carried into other lines,
merchandising, manufacturing or railroading.