One of the necessary qualifications of an efficient business man in
these days of industrial literature seems to be the ability to write,
in clear and idiomatic English, a 1,000-word story on how efficient he
is and how he got that way. A glance through any one of our more racy
commercial magazines will serve nicely to illustrate my point, for it
was after glancing through one of them only five minutes ago that the
point suggested itself to me.
"What Is Making Our Business Grow;" "My $10,000 System of Carbon-Copy
Hunting;" "Making the Turn-Over Turn In;" "If I Can Make My Pencil
Sharpenings Work, Why Can't You?" "Getting Sales Out of Sahara," etc.,
are some of the intriguing titles which catch the eye of the student
of world affairs as he thumbs over the business magazines on the
news-stands before buying his newspaper. It seems as if the entire
business world were devoting its working hours to the creation of a
school of introspective literature.
But the trouble with these writers is that they are all successful.
There is too much sameness to their stuff. They have their little
troubles at first, it is true, such as lack of coördination in the
central typing department, or congestion of office boys in the room
where the water cooler is situated; but sooner or later you may be
perfectly sure that Right will triumph and that the young salesman
will bring in the order that puts the firm back on its feet again.
They seem to have no imagination, these writers of business
confessions. What the art needs is some Strindberg of Commerce to put
down on paper the sordid facts of Life as they really are, and to
show, in bitter words of cynical realism, that ink erasers are not
always segregated or vouchers always all that they should be, and
that, behind the happy exterior of many a mahogany railing, all is not
so gosh-darned right with the world after all.
Now, without setting myself up as a Strindberg, I would like to start
the ball rolling toward a more realistic school of business literature
by setting down in my rough, impulsive way a few of the items in the
account of "How We Make Our Business Lose $100,000 a Year."
All that I ask in the way of equipment is an illustration showing a
square-jawed, clean-cut American business man sitting at a desk and
shaking his finger at another man, very obviously the head of the
sales department because it says so under the picture, who is standing
with his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, gnawing at a big,
black cigar, and looking out through the window at the smoke-stacks of
the works. With this picture as a starter, and a chart or two, I can
build up a very decent business story around them.
[Illustration: "A square-jawed American business man, etc., shaking
his finger at another."]
In the first place let me say that what we have done in our business
any firm can do in theirs. It is not that we have any extraordinary
talents along organization lines. We simply have taken the lessons
learned in everyday trading, have tabulated and filed them in
triplicate. Then we have forgotten them.
I can best give an idea of the secret of our mediocrity as a business
organization by outlining a typical day in our offices. I do this in
no spirit of boasting, but simply to show these thousands of
systematized business men who are devoting themselves to literature
that somewhere in all this miasma of success there shines a ray of
inefficiency, giving promise of the day that is to come.
The first part of the morning in our establishment is devoted to the
mail. This starts the day off right, for it gives every one something
to do, which is, I have found, a big factor in keeping the place
looking busy.
Personally I am not what is known as a "snappy" dictator. It makes me
nervous to have a stenographer sitting there waiting for me to say
something so that she can pounce on it and tear it into hieroglyphics.
I feel that, mentally, she is checking me up with other men who have
dictated to her, and that I am being placed in Class 5a, along with
the licensed pilots and mental defectives, and the more I think of it
the more incoherent I become. If exact and detailed notes were to be
preserved of one of my dictated letters, mental processes, and all,
they might read something like this:
"Good morning, Miss Kettle.... Take a letter, please ... to the Nipco
Drop Forge and Tool Company, Schenectady ... S-c-h-e-c--er--well,
Schenectady; you know how to spell that, I guess, Miss Kettle, ha!
ha!... Nipco Drop Forge and Tool Company, Schenectady, New York....
Gentlemen--er (business of touching finger tips and looking at the
ceiling meditatively)--Your favor of the 17th inst. at hand, and in
reply would state that--er (I should have thought this letter out
before beginning to dictate and decided just what it _is_ that we
desire to state in reply)--and in reply would state that--er ... our
Mr. Mellish reports that--er ... where is that letter from Mr.
Mellish, Miss Kettle?... The one about the castings.... Oh, never
mind, I guess I can remember what he said.... Let's see, where were
we?... Oh, yes, that our Mr. Mellish reports that he shaw the
sipment--I mean _saw_ the _shipment_--what's the matter with me? (this
girl must think that I'm a perfect fool) ... that he shaw the sipment
in question on the platform of the station at Miller's Falls, and that
it--er ... ah ... ooom ... (I'll have this girl asleep in her chair in
a minute. I'll bet that she goes and tells the other girls that she
has just taken a letter from a man with the mind of an eight-year-old
boy).... We could, therefore, comma,... what's the matter?... Oh, I
didn't finish that other sentence, I guess.... Let's see, how did it
go?... Oh, yes ... and that I, or rather _it_, was in good shape ...
er, cross that out, please (this girl is simply wasting her time here.
I could spell this out with alphabet blocks quicker and let her copy
it) ... and that it was in excellent shape at that shape--er ... or
rather, at that _time_ ... er ... period. New paragraph.
"We are, comma, therefore, comma, unable to ... hello, Mr. Watterly,
be right with you in half a second.... I'll finish this later, Miss
Kettle ... thank you."
When the mail is disposed of we have what is known as Memorandum Hour.
During this period every one sends memoranda to every one else. If you
happen to have nothing in particular about which to dictate a
memorandum, you dictate a memorandum to some one, saying that you have
nothing to suggest or report. This gives a stimulating exchange of
ideas, and also helps to use up the blue memorandum blanks which have
been printed at some expense for just that purpose.
As an example of how this system works, I will give a typical instance
of its procedure. My partner, let us say, comes in and sits down at
the desk opposite me. I observe that his scarfpin is working its way
out from his tie. I call a stenographer and say: "Take a memo to Mr.
MacFurdle, please. _In re_ Loosened Scarfpin. You are losing your
scarfpin."
As soon as she has typed this it is given to Mr. MacFurdle's
secretary, and a carbon copy is put in the files. Mr. MacFurdle, on
receiving my memo, adjusts his scarfpin and calls his secretary.
"A memo to Mr. Benchley, please. _In re_ Tightened Scarfpin. Thank
you. I have given the matter my attention."
As soon as I have received a copy of this typewritten reply to my
memorandum we nod pleasantly to each other and go on with our work. In
all, not more than half an hour has been consumed, and we have a
complete record of the negotiations in our files in case any question
should ever arise concerning them. In case _no_ question should ever
arise, we still have the complete record. So we can't lose--unless you
want to call that half hour a loss.
It is then almost lunch time. A quick glance at a pile of carbons of
mill reports which have but little significance to me owing to the
fact that the figures are illegible (it being a fifth-string carbon);
a rapid survey of the matter submitted for my O.K., most of which I
dislike to take the responsibility for and therefore pass on to Mr.
Houghtelling for his O.K.; a short tussle in the washroom with the
liquid-soap container which contains no liquid soap and a thorough
drying of the hands on my handkerchief, the paper towels having given
out early in the morning, and I am ready to go to lunch with a man
from the Eureka Novelty Company who wants to sell us a central
paste-supply system (whereby all the office paste is kept in one large
vat in the storeroom, individual brushfuls being taken out only on
requisitions O.K.'d by the head of the department).
Both being practical business men, we spend only two hours at lunch.
And, both being practical business men, we know all the subtleties of
selling. It is a well-known fact that personality plays a big rôle in
the so-called "selling game" (one of a series of American games, among
which are "the newspaper game," "the advertising game," "the
cloak-and-suit game," "the ladies' mackintosh and over-shoe game,"
"the seedless-raisin and dried-fruit game," etc.), and so Mr. Ganz of
the Eureka Novelty Company spends the first hour and three-quarters
developing his "personality appeal." All through the tomato bisque aux
croutons and the roast prime ribs of beef, dish gravy, he puts into
practice the principles enunciated in books on Selling, by means of
which the subject at hand is deferred in a subtle manner until the
salesman has had a chance to impress his prospect with his geniality
and his smile (an attractive smile has been known to sell a carload of
1897 style derbies, according to authorities on The Smile in Selling),
his knowledge of baseball, his rich fund of stories, and his general
aversion to getting down to the disagreeable reason for his call.
The only trouble with this system is that I have done the same thing
myself so many times that I know just what his next line is going to
be, and can figure out pretty accurately at each stage of his
conversation just when he is going to shift to one position nearer the
thing he has to sell. I know that he has not the slightest interest in
my entertainment other than the sale of a Eureka Central Paste Supply
System, and he knows that I know it, and so we spend an hour and
three-quarters fooling the waiter into thinking that we are engaged in
disinterested camaraderie.
For fifteen minutes we talk business, and I agree to take the matter
up with the directors at the next meeting, holding the mental
reservation that a central paste supply system will be installed in
our plant only over my dead body.
This takes us until two-thirty, and I have to hurry back to a
conference. We have two kinds of "conference." One is that to which
the office boy refers when he tells the applicant for a job that Mr.
Blevitch is "in conference." This means that Mr. Blevitch is in good
health and reading the paper, but otherwise unoccupied. The other kind
of "conference" is bona fide in so far as it implies that three or
four men are talking together in one room, and don't want to be
disturbed.
This conference is on, let us say, the subject of Window Cards for
display advertising: shall they be triangular or diamond-shaped?
There are four of us present, and we all begin by biting off the ends
of four cigars. Watterly has a pile of samples of window cards of
various shapes, which he hangs, with a great deal of trouble, on the
wall, and which are not referred to again. He also has a few ideas on
Window Card Psychology.
"It seems to me," he leads off, "that we have here a very important
question. On it may depend the success of our Middle Western sales.
The problem as I see it is this: what will be the reaction on the
retina of the eye of a prospective customer made by the sight of a
diamond-shaped card hanging in a window? It is a well-known fact in
applied psychology that when you take the average man into a darkened
room, loosen his collar, and shout "Diamonds!" at him suddenly, his
mental reaction is one in which the ideas of Wealth, Value, Richness,
etc., predominate. Now, it stands to reason that the visual reaction
from seeing a diamond-shaped card in the window will...."
[Illustration: "The problem as I see it is this."]
"Excuse me a moment, George," says MacFurdle, who has absorbed some
pointers on Distribution from a book entitled "The World Salesman," "I
don't think that it is so important to get after the psychology of the
thing first as it is to outline thoroughly the Theory of Zone
Apportionment on which we are going to work. If we could make up a
chart, showing in red ink the types of retail-stores and in green ink
the types of jobber establishments, in this district, then we could
get at the window display from that angle and tackle the psychology
later, if at all. Now, on such a chart I would try to show the zones
of Purchasing Power, and from these could be deduced...."
"Just a minute, Harry," Inglesby interrupts, "let me butt in for half
a second. That chart system is all very well when you are selling
goods with which the public is already familiar through association
with other brands, but with ours it is different. We have got to
estimate the Consumer Demand first in terms of dollar-and-a-quarter
units, and build our selling organization up around that. Now, if I
know anything about human nature at all--and I think I do, after being
in the malleable-iron game for fifteen years--the people in this
section of the country represent an entirely different trade current
than...."
At this point I offer a few remarks on one of my pet hobbies, the
influence of the Gulf Stream on Regional Commerce, and then we all say
again the same things that we said before, after which we say them
again, the pitch of the conversation growing higher at each repetition
of views and the room becoming more and more filled with cigar smoke,
Our final decision is to have a conference to-morrow afternoon, before
which each one is to "think the matter over and report his reactions."
This brings the day to a close. There has been nothing remarkable in
it, as the reader will be the first one to admit. And yet it shows the
secret of whatever we have not accomplished in the past year in our
business.
And it also shows why we practical business men have so little
sympathy with a visionary, impractical arrangement like this League of
Nations. President Wilson was all right in his way, but he was too
academic. What we practical men in America want is deeds, not words.
X