General Manager, The Chicago Association of Commerce.
Author of “Men Who Sell Things.”
“_The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your own
opinion and content with your knowledge._”
[Sidenote: Business a contest of wits]
This is an era of the greatest commercial activity the world has ever
known. The development of business is one of the marvels of the new
century. A few years ago science, as a factor in commerce, was little
known and less appreciated. The amazing advantages to business of
intellectual attainments were utterly without recognition. Today,
however, business has become a contest in which the quickest
perception wins, thus transforming the counting room into a battle
ground upon which brain matches brain for supremacy and success.
[Sidenote: Success-educated enthusiasm]
Ah, that enchanting word, S-U-C-C-E-S-S. It does not require a magic
key to unlock the door to business efficiency. There is nothing
mystic, nothing mysterious in the applied method of the really
resourceful men in this day of great successes, of marvelous
achievements in business enterprise. The sum total is contained in two
words, words that electrify, nevertheless. EDUCATED ENTHUSIASM.
[Sidenote: Changing conditions make opportunities]
The most formidable barrier to progress has always been the senseless
opposition of those to whom it would be of the greatest benefit.
Changing conditions are the order of the day, for enlightenment has
worked wonders. In olden times, a man of affairs was obliged to guard
his property and his loved ones by building a moat around his house
and posting sentinels in and around his estate. The time is not long
past when, because of prejudice, perversity or ignorance, many men
believed that opportunity knocked only once at any man’s door. Today,
thanks to deeper insight, most men believe that life itself is
opportunity; that the very air we breathe is opportunity; that each
new day presents broader opportunities for accomplishing more because
of better directed energy. This is not alone the accepted dogma of the
man who is making his way in the world. It is the creed, doctrine,
tenet or religion, whichever you may care to term it, of the great
captains of industry everywhere.
[Sidenote: New ideas count]
The more successful the man, the more does he think, study, plan, as a
part of his daily occupation in the development of the affairs in
which he is interested. Newer and better ways to get things done is
the business standard employed today by successful men in all lines.
Only yesterday if a man of genius advanced a new idea, he found
himself ridiculed and his innovation opposed on all sides because it
was a new idea. Today, it is different. The man of ideas counts in the
trend of affairs as he has never counted before.
[Sidenote: Must keep step with changing times]
Everything has a subjective reason. Progress is acting as a mighty
dynamic force in changing men’s viewpoint of life and things. Suppose
the stroke oar on a varsity crew, while in a race against an opposing
crew from a competitive institution, should suddenly stop rowing in
harmony with his associates and begin to row backwards-that crew
would not get very far without trouble. Suppose a lawn mower should be
reversed and forced to run backwards--there would not be much progress
made in cutting grass on that lawn. Varsity crews and lawn mowers must
move forward. Business men must advance with the times.
A great merchant in Chicago tells a good story of his youth. He was a
member of a state regiment of militia. On a certain occasion, his
company was sent out on dress parade. An old maiden aunt, with
considerable colonial blood in her veins, took much pride in her
nephew and his company. While reviewing the parade, she was suddenly
heard to exclaim: “Why, every single man in that company is out of
step excepting my nephew.” Most men who fail to get on in the world do
not realize that success lies in keeping step--in making progress with
changing conditions. They generally make the mistake of thinking that
the world and everything in it is out of harmony with themselves.
[Sidenote: New ideas worth searching for]
A business man of successful experience realizes that ideas--newer and
better principles of conducting business--are of the greatest value,
and he also knows that it pays him to search for them. The same old
way of doing things cannot longer be successfully employed month after
month and year after year as under the old regime. The business man
must be modern, up-to-date. The physician or lawyer finds that to
compete successfully he is compelled to search without ceasing in
order that he may comprehend the advancement in treatments or
procedures. “To the man who fails belong the excuses.”
[Sidenote: Demand for trained men]
President James, of the University of Illinois, was asked if there was
any demand from business houses for college-bred men. His reply was:
“The demand has been far in excess of the supply since courses in
business administration were established in our institution seven
years ago. Each year has brought many more requests than we have men
to recommend.” Ten years ago President James would have been ridiculed
for advancing this new idea for the establishment of a school of
commerce in connection with a university. Today, commercial schools
are a part of the regularly established courses of nearly all of the
great universities of our country. Men trained in the theory, practice
and administration of business will always occupy the best positions
and will always command the greatest salaries.
[Sidenote: Value of new ideas in business emergencies]
All men fail at times in the accomplishment of satisfactory results in
the various enterprises in which they are engaged, without being able
to give an explanation. The principles that have been applied
successfully for many years seem apparently to have counted for
nothing. It is frequently evident that in such cases a very
insignificant thing, a mere oversight perchance, has been the direct
cause of the failure. To be able to put the finger on the precise
cause of the lack of success in one’s method would locate the cause of
the disaster. Then it is that a real appreciation of new ideas is
fully realized.
[Sidenote: Men paid for what they know--not for what they do]
Failure is more often chargeable to a refusal to learn by mistakes how
to avoid them than it is in making them. Experience is a good teacher,
but who can deny the value to be gained in learning from the
experience of others, for we cannot all have the same experience or
the same view of similar experiences. There are many pathways to
success, but the road of individual experience is narrow and rugged.
It is a commonly accepted fact that for every ten dollars a
high-salaried man draws, he receives nine dollars for what he knows
and one dollar for what he does. On the same basis the successful
business man, employing a large force of other men, realizes that his
own greatest worth, as applied to his affairs, lies not so much in
what he can do himself as how much he can encourage his employes to
do. In either case, his own personal knowledge is the power behind the
throne.
[Sidenote: Knowledge in excess of present needs necessary]
The man who would secure the largest net return from his individual
effort in the field of endeavor, and he who would realize the greatest
possible advantage from the efforts of those under his command must,
of necessity, possess knowledge--indispensable perception far in
excess of the needs of the moment. Discernment, like a bank account,
soon runs out if it is overdrawn or if it is not continually
replenished. In business the “checking system” of knowledge is the
sort of account that pays best--not the “savings account system.”
Knowledge that is simply corked up and allowed to accumulate cobwebs
and rust can avail nothing. The sharpest vinegar is procured by
constantly replenishing the old stock with new.
[Sidenote: 90% failures vs. 10% moneymakers]
Reliable statistics prove that only about ten per cent of all people
who engage in business are successful and make money; the other ninety
per cent become insolvent and fail. That is, they do not actually
encounter the sheriff, or go into the hands of a receiver, but they
fail nevertheless to succeed in the sense of making money, and what
other possible reason can anyone have for engaging in business if not
to accumulate money?
[Sidenote: Failures due to lack of intellectual capacity]
Why do so many fail? Ask any credit man and he will tell you that it
is not because of the lack of capital, or other material resources,
but it is due primarily to a lack of intellectual capacity, the sort
of brains that dig and work and sweat until they find a way to
accomplish things; brains that go to the bottom of things; brains that
are always looking for better results; brains that never abandon a
problem until they have found a way to solve it. A friend once told me
that he inquired of the manager of a house employing some three
hundred traveling men how many salesmen they had. The manager replied,
“Three.” My friend asked, “How’s that? I am told your force of
traveling men numbers nearly three hundred.” “Ah, that is quite
different,” replied the manager; “we have two hundred and ninety-seven
traveling men, but only three salesmen.” Quite likely that manager’s
estimate was intended to be taken figuratively rather than literally,
but it serves to illustrate the fact that in this great United States
there are millions of men, young, middle-aged and old, who are content
to plod along in a mediocre sort of way, heedless or unmindful of the
fact that opportunity, knowledge, possibilities, are calling, calling,
calling to them to come up higher. There are hundreds of thousands of
other men engaged in business who sit idly by while their trade, like
the sands in the hour glass, slowly ebbs away, and eventually is
absorbed by their more progressive business neighbors.
[Sidenote: Moneymaking and business literature]
There is still another vast army of business men--salesmen, clerks and
wage-earners of all classes--who are beginning to catch a glimpse of
the dawning of a new business era, the greatest the world has ever
known, an era impregnated with possibilities and opportunities for
those who are ready with wicks trimmed and oil in their lamps. To the
earnest latter class which is really desirous of profiting by the
experience of others, there is no need of elaborating the
possibilities embodied in this course of reading in Business
Administration. This set of books, containing valuable business data
on many subjects, thousands of pages telling the story of success
illustrated by trained men whose names are respected everywhere, is
intended to reach all classes. There is absolutely nothing in print
that can even approach or can begin to compare with it in value as a
reference library for business men or excel it as a complete course of
instruction for any man desirous of making the best of his
possibilities and opportunities in the kaleidoscopic age through which
the business world is now moving.
[Sidenote: Practical ideas best]
The more practical the ideas, the better the basis for good work. Not
long since, business men generally pooh-poohed the idea of employing
in the conduct of their business anything new, which was taken from
the writings and experience of others, such as is contained in this
remarkable series, contributed to by some of the brightest minds in
the business world today. There is, however, in these days
unmistakably a hungering and thirsting for just this new sort of
literature. It fills a long-felt need--fills it exactly, completely,
satisfactorily. Being the author of a work on salesmanship which has
had a countrywide circulation, I have been literally besieged by
business men everywhere asking me to recommend books treating of
successful business methods, and have been chagrined to find how
limited was the supply. The man who formerly was prejudiced against
such sources of information must now step aside and make way for
progress or unite with the popular demand for more education and
better methods.
[Sidenote: Cannot afford vs. can afford]
Show me the man who says he has no patience for such things, and I
will show you a man, like the stroke oar and the lawn mower, who does
not believe in moving forward in progress. Show me the man who says he
has no time to read of new methods and principles, and I will show you
the one who utterly fails to perceive that familiarity with business
literature of this kind means pecuniary advancement. Show me the man
who says he cannot afford to invest in such a set of books, and I will
show you one who apparently CAN afford to waste his energy in
misdirected effort--that energy and effort which are to every
wage-earner and tradesman both his stock in trade and his invested
capital.
[Sidenote: Failures unnecessary]
Someone has said, “There are three kinds of people in the world--the
Can’ts, the Won’ts and the Wills. The first fail at everything; the
second oppose everything; the third succeed at everything.” I would
add a fourth kind--the largest class of all--the Don’t Trys, the
“Oh-what’s-the-use,” “It-doesn’t-interest-me” sort of people. Their
name is legion; their fault is lack of confidence. Knowledge is the
greatest inspiration of confidence to be found on earth. You may not
personally be held in the hope-paralyzing bondage that produces the
“Oh-what’s-the-use,” or “I’m-not-interested” germ, but if you are not,
you are exceptional. Most people are, and that is the reason that such
persons are just about what luck, good fortune or chance make them,
succeeding if fortune favors them, failing if they are left to depend
upon their own resources. Result: Nine fail where one succeeds.
It is very fortunate, indeed, for most men that so much of their
happiness depends upon success. There is nothing on earth quite so
terrible to think of as failure, especially that due to lack of
effort, unless possibly it be the failure of a man who lacks the
courage or initiative to try to make the most of himself, and thus
lets his best opportunities escape him. And this last is really the
most pitiful thing that can befall a man. It is well enough to plan
opportunities, but if we had the wisdom to take advantage of such
opportunities as naturally come to us, results would more often be
found in the balance on the right side of the ledger. And so I am of
the opinion that a clear explanation of why a very large class of
people do not succeed is found in some of these expressions--“I don’t
care,” “I can’t,” “It doesn’t interest me,” or “Oh, what’s the use.”
[Sidenote: Basis of all business success]
One of the great objects set forth in this Business Administration
series is to supply the positive energy which begets courage,
confidence, initiative and success. We want to make you feel the
necessity of doing some reading, a little plain thinking, and to make
as clear as possible the important things that are involved in the
serious but very fine game of business.
With business becoming with each succeeding day more and more of a
science, it is high time to understand what is essential to it.
Speaking of the subject of “Organized Business,” a great authority
recently said, “It is time even for business men to understand
business.” Again, the purpose of this course in Business
Administration is, if possible, to measure the power and principles of
business, to trace their ramifications, define their elements, get
hold of their vital fundamentals, and so comprehend them, both in
technical detail and as a mighty unit. And I am confident we have done
all this. I find that at the foundation, the machinery of business is
simple, but whether it is plain or complicated, all who would succeed
must make every effort to comprehend it thoroughly. All I care to
emphasize at present is the great truth that knowledge, established
and classified, is the basis of all business success. This is clearly
established in this course of reading, and I am trying to incite your
imagination in writing of its merits just as I would endeavor to
enable you to realize it if I could talk to you personally right
across my desk. The observant man can see clearly the things I am
talking about, but to most men the mind’s eye perceives not by
observation, but only when the imagination is stimulated. So I would
stir all men to look earnestly into these things, with a view to their
personal betterment.
[Sidenote: Business axioms simple to understand]
Business is far more than business as it is commonly understood. It is
a science, and it is the eager, practical minds of business men that
we shall endeavor to convince first of that fact, and our reasons for
addressing those principally concerned are especially good. Why? I
have found that in writing about business whenever I was able to make
the principles so plain that business men understood them, everybody
else did, so it is to be expected that if business axioms can be made
simple enough for business men to understand them, everyone will
apprehend them. Everybody. And it is everybody that we are attempting
to reach.
[Sidenote: Knowledge is power]
For nearly thirty centuries men have recognized the concrete wisdom of
Solomon’s proverb: “A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge
increaseth in strength.” Yet we have been slow in making its
application universal to the race. But we are beginning to understand
that the power inherent in knowledge applies as well to commercial and
industrial as to scholastic, political and social life, as well to the
counting room as to the pulpit, as well to the shop as to the
university, as well to the farm as to the bar. Knowledge is power and
is the only source of real intellectual sovereignty that the Creator
has ever entrusted to men.
In conclusion, I would say that these words are addressed to the
business men of America, and this designation includes the banker and
his clerks, the farmer and his sons, the lawyer and the law student,
the financier and the man who sells bonds and stocks, the merchant and
his clerk, the accountant and the bookkeeper, the manager and his
assistants--the ambitious young men of the Twentieth Century type,
contemplating the pursuit of any business, trade or occupation.