There are two ways of attacking the business problem. One is to take
advantage of opportunities already brought into existence by the laws of
chance or the work of others. The other is to make advantage by the
creation of opportunities which would otherwise never have existed.
The first can be done by any person of average intelligence. It calls for
no ingenuity. Its only demand is the time and effort necessary to buy
goods on the one hand and sell them on the other. The second calls for a
really high-grade of business ability. The man who can do it well has his
success reasonably assured.
Business is ordinarily assumed to be subject to the law of supply and
demand. It happens to be true, however, that the matter of supply and
demand is more or less subject to conditions which can be either created
or altered by human interference and guidance. The selfish and designing
have long ago discovered means of so manipulating market conditions as to
make supply and demand a negligible factor. Such, of course, is not the
kind of business method which will be allowed to permanently survive.
There is a more worthy way of dealing with the question of supply and
demand to the advantage of business. It often happens that, because of
lack of public education or because of undeveloped or abnormal community
conditions, demand for a given product has not yet been stimulated. The
business specialist who has a really worthy article to market should be
able to diagnose the situation, see what the hindering conditions are, and
take steps toward that adjustment of things which will give rise to a
normal demand. He need not be powerless in the face of the fact that
people do not desire his product. Neither can he blame the public for rot
needing it. He must make the public need it, make it see its need, and
then supply it.
In all the history of American business, probably no better example of
this sort of thing could be found than the action once taken by
James J. Hill at one stage in the development of the Great Northern
railway system through the Pacific Northwest. Mr. Hill, by the way, was
a notable example of real commercial genius. Having a positive mind, he
could plan, adapt, and build. The railway system which he developed stands
as an enduring monument to his wonderful ability.
After the first lines of the Great Northern had been built and had been in
operation for a while, Mr. Hill discovered that they were carrying very
little livestock. There seemed no demand for that particular form of
railway service. Looking into the question, he found a very definite
reason for the fact. The farmers of the Northwest had never taken up
stock-raising.
No one was to blame. The situation simply constituted a condition to be
met. There was no reason why the farmers of the Northwest should not turn
their attention to livestock. The country was good for grazing, and the
range was almost limitless. The only difficulty was the fact that
livestock had never been introduced into that section.
Mr. Hill began applying his remedy by doing the farmers a kindness. He
bought several thousands of blooded cattle and hogs, and gave them to the
farmers owning land along the right of way. There were two results. The
first was that the Northwest rapidly developed into a leading
stock-raising country, enriching the section and indirectly benefiting
the railroad in many ways. The second was that within a few years the
Great Northern was breaking the record among the railroads for the
carrying of livestock. Finding no demand for the services of his road,
Mr. Hill had created one.
This example serves to show up the true business man in his real character
as a commercial engineer. His function is a larger one than the slavish
routine of mere buying and selling. It is rather that of helping to build
that larger and better commercial world in which all business will be at
its best because all people are at their best.
Other engineers plan great mechanical projects. He plans and executes
great commercial projects. The results of his work are no less magic than
the results of theirs. The ability of the civil engineer is tested by his
power to remove the impediments and bridge the chasms that lie in his way.
The ability of the commercial engineer is tested in the same way. He must
penetrate the hills of prejudice and bridge the chasms of unconcern.
There are some enterprises which may at times succeed by force of chance
or circumstance. The only sustained and creditable success, however, must
come from intelligent promotion. One has little ground for satisfaction
over a mere random success. It is real achievement that brings enduring
satisfaction.
It takes somewhat more than merely mental power, however, to plan and
execute great commercial enterprises. The promoter must not only have a
good mind, but it must also be of the affirmative type. Only the
constructive thinker makes the great general, the great leader, or the
great engineer.
There is as much of a place for originality in business as in any other
field one could enter. It is sometimes avoided on the ground that it is
prosaic and humdrum. It is not so for the person who senses its
opportunity and enjoys the process of working out its larger
possibilities. It offers a practically unlimited opportunity for the
building of one’s powers into the fabric of an altogether necessary
social institution.
Considered from this point of view, business is infinitely more than mere
exploitation. Many have conceived the idea that it is nothing more because
a great many selfish and misguided men have never really tried to make
anything more of it. Fundamentally, however, business is a form of
public service.
The market place was one of the earliest developments in our social
scheme. Theoretically it is a means for the exchange of values to the
mutual advantage of the parties to a transaction. The assumption of any
person who enters a legitimate line of trade is that he has an article
needed by the public. It follows that the degree of his public service is
commensurate with the wideness of the sale of his product.
In taking steps, then, to create a legitimate demand for whatever he has
to sell, one does not need to hesitate on the ground that it reduces his
work to the level of mere exploitation. If he is in business as a public
servant, then the larger the service he can render the better it is, both
for him and for his patrons. The service of his patrons and his own
success are commensurate because they are mutually dependent upon one
another. Good business spells more than profit for the business man. It is
also a help to the public, and a means of progress in the world.
There need be no fear, either, that most of the possibilities of business
have been exhausted. The real world of commercial opportunity has hardly
more than been entered. Our own country is still largely undeveloped in
the use of many helpful products. There are backward communities to be
informed and cultivated. Whoever undertakes this process is a positive
factor in the making of civilization, for the need of these communities
is the greater need concerned. It would be a blessing to them to have a
demand for the tools of more efficient life and work created among them.
Then there are all the vast spaces of the world as yet largely untouched
by these more advanced methods of civilization. There are more people
waiting to be taught the use of means to comfort and efficiency than there
are to manufacture and deliver the products to these prospective
purchasers. Business men should support every sort of civilizing influence
as a means of creating a demand in far countries for what they have
to sell.