Men and Methods

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 254, 23 July 1929, Page 15

Men and Methods

BUSINESS PLANS AND IDEAS (Conducted by " OBSERVER")

The first principle of business is that price is total cost plus profit. You must make a profit if you would survive. • ■ * • Business Analysed. Business has three elements—the buyer, the seller, and the commodity. It requires three kinds of ability—the manufacturer, the salesman, and the financier, states Herbert N. Casson, the English authority -on business methods. Wherever any business has grown to be widely known, you will always _ find that it has had these three principles well marked out. It has had men who know how to manufacture, and men who know bow to sell, and men who know how to use the banks. Business is a co-operative thing, and it i, can only grow up when it has the three different elements—the making, the selling, and the financing. Business is exchange. I make a thing, you make a thing, we exchange it—that, is business. I make a thing, and keep 1 jt—that is not business. Manufacturing is business only when you both make and sell, when you exchange with the other fellow and the money comes in. So you have to think of yourselves, and also of other people. If you make things only to please yourself, that is not business. You have got to be thinking of the other man all the while. You must get the public’s point of view. In business there must be these two points of view, otherwise the business would not go on. . Getting Them to Look. In the window of a chemist’s and druggist’s shop two girls in nurses’ uniforms were busily trying to catch and hold the interest of passers-by. They were demonstrating a toilet specialty. 'Almost no one stopped before the window. Helf an hour later the display was holding the attention of nineteen people who pressed up to the window. The shop s manager had seen how badly things were going, and had supplied one of the nurses with a black mask for her face. The simple idea—it had absolutely no connection with the demonstration-had caught the curiosity of the crowd. As a res 'd’the watchers were patiently learning the special attractions of the specialty while they curiously watched the black-masked giri. • ' * • . Service for callers. Who that has moved about in business circles does not know the irritation and worry caused by waiting for - appointments and interviews! You think to vourself, “If I had only known that Mr. Jones was going to keep me waiting ten minutes I could have made another call on my way up. Now it’s too late to go back and I shall probably miss good business.” A well-known London merchant, who receives callers every day, has thoughtfully made a provision which goes far to" alleviate the position as far as his own house of business is concerned. In the waiting room is a writing table with blotting pad, ink, and pens and scribbling paper. There is also a telephone and directory, and on the wall, where every caller can see it, is a card bearing these words: "This writing table and the telephone are provided for clients and other callers who cannot be seen immediately, and their use is freely invited in order , that other urgent business may be attended to.” Needless to say, this act of consideration is much appreciated. Summer Sales. The habit ,of special buying tit the outset of the summer season is becoming greater and greater every year, and a writer has suggested that retailers fail to take full advantage of this opportunity in the way of building up a special trade campaign. Stores content themselves with routine announcements of “summer specials,” “reduced prices'on clothing,” and similar captions. The selection of the types of merchandise suitable for emphasis in connection with early summer sales is far less limited than it is even at Christmas, for clothing, shoes, millinery, men’s hats? luggage and cap supplies do not ordinarily bulk large in the average December gift budget, but are matters .of prime importance to anyone who wishes to secure the full benefit from the early summer season. There are the best possible prospects for such articles as wicker furniture, summer, nigs, cool draperies, and other things with which to make the heated season seem a little less torrid, regardless of whether the home is in the city or the country. The hardware store or department can offer electric fans, electric refrigerators, washingmachines; radios, and labour-saving equipment for the kitchen, while even the grocer and the chemist have real opportunities in connection with foods adapted to hot weather use at home and the proper outfits of sunburn remedies, _ first-' aid kits, and the like, to say nothing of cameras, films and stationery. '

“To stop advertising would be to stop growing. Customers, like other friends, must be cultivated to be kept.”—Roger W. Babson. Averages tell results. How often you find that a rather dull and slow man will produce more than a brilliant fellow, because a brilliant fellow will work perfectly for three hours and make a record and then he will slack and think of his record for a couple of days. Coeoa is to-day one of the main commodities, and the formation of a London Cocoa Trade Association last month causes surprise mainly by drawing attention to the fact that no such association covering quite the same ground was already in existence. The object of the Association is to safeguard the Interest of London’s raw cocoa trade. “Personal Clothes.” “In making an office man’s vest or coat, I would provide especially designed pockets for particular pens, pencils, and so forth —even including one or two pockets lined with moisture-proof oil-cloth, for stamps,” states a tailor in an exchange. “The various-sized pocketbooks, bill-books, and similar articles the man used would each be provided with a proper-sized pocket. Besides, I would look up the pocket requirements of the principal trades and professions in my town and announce that I was prepared to make garments to meet the requirements of each.” • • • “ Thone Your Wife.” An English grocer once hit upon an original idea that increased his turnover to a considerable extent. As his establishment was situated in a business district , of a large city, many of his customers were men. He therefore decided.that it would be worth, while to make a special effort to secure the trade of business men passing his store. He therefore installed an extra telephone in a convenient corner, and had placards printed which read: “ ’Phone your wife. Possibly she has forgotten something.” A few weeks after this service had been installed, the grocer noticed that-, several customers made a practice of telephoning their homes before embarking on the suburban-bound tram or bus. • » • Spending for Prosperity. If the men of the country are cannily saving in the matter of clothes, we may look for a corresponding pinch-penny state of affairs in the cycle of business. Ijn times of depression, coats cannot be excused from duty because the cuffs and pockets are worn smooth; and dresses must be cleaned, dyed, and made over instead of being thrown aside. In the wartime boom, a writer reminds us, “silk shirts” had a great vogue with labouring men, and women’s silk stockings established themselves as a necessity.” It may be that women should be urged to curb their expenditures, give up frills and furbelows, and follow the example of the economical men. On the other hand, it may be well to warn the men that unless they give up their too-saving habits in the matter of dress, and spend a little more money they cannot expect prosperity to exist. ■ ' '* * * Seeing is Believing. “If I sold package goods I would try to remove the impression consumers sometimes have about package goods—that the weight includes the package,” writes a correspondent in “System.” “I would display in my window a reliable scale on which a box full of my product had been emptied. The scale would, of course, balance exactly at the net weight claimed for the goods on the package. Alongside the scale would be an appropriate sign, perhaps reading something like this: ‘Look at the scale.’ “Todd’s tobacco is not weighed in the tin, as you can see. There are just exactly two ounces net weight— all tobacco. “These facts I would also place in a prominent space on the package itself, with an offer to make gopd any shrinkage.”