Success in Business.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 144, 3 June 1911, Page 1 (Supplement)

Success in Business.

BY SIR THOMAS LIPTON. VTBREK essentials fw success are I.L temperance, civility, ana punctuality. An intemperate man, of course 1 cannot be relied on. A man who is not equally civil and polite to every client o’ - customer, whether they be rich or poor, lias little chance of becoming a successful man. Then he who is no! punctual is generally the man who does not care or trouble to stick close to his business. Beginning work at an early age, 1 left Glasgow for New York, m the hope of finding shorter avenues to fortune than the Old Country afforded. I_got experience, at any rate, in New \j>ik city, on a South Carolina plantation, and elsewhere. I got a little purse together, too —enough to take me bac.c to Glasgow and my parents, to better chose position was the mainspring of my effort and ambition. # ;> “ Never despair: keep pushing on I ’ was my motto during all that time of struggle. No successes have been ‘Avoeter to me than those early ones whi:h my parents shared with me. It was in High Street. Glasgow, that I opened the first of the provision marts which are now numbered bv hundreds through England, lieland, and Scotland. It iras a success from the beginning. Policemen had to be engaged to regulate the crowd or purchasers that came from early morning till late at night. The reason for that unusual favour I attribute to the fact that people, though hungry, like to be amused Consequently, 1 employed an artist to draw big effective comic cartoons from my own suggestions dealing with local events. Then my pnee tickets had legends such as “ Fail in; i rices ” and “ Down again,” illustrated with someone tumbling into a basket of e_ r gs or into a keg of I also exhibited, among other devices, tat pciicemen made of butter, looking over butter walls at butter, dairymaids. Not least among the attractions that added to the popularity of . m y ress. was the hand, dressed in Ueylo" costume, which played in firont of the procession of drays that brought my tea from the wharfs to my stores in Lancefield Street. Hie great I made were also a big ’ draw. One of these, weighing about four tons, was sent to the Noith Bridge branch, Edinburgh, and caused quite a sensation, chiefly owing to the fact that a n V m " her of students pulled the wire that cut the cheese in piece*. Tber. I was able to go to my native Ii eland as a great buyer of her produce ; by degrees I got my own tea plantations in Ceylon; my own carts and ships and ice-storage vans; my own fruit gardens in Kent; my own biscuit factory; my own tin factory. London by degrees became the great centre for collection, for storage, and for distribution ; and the monster warehouses in the City Road are the result. It has been said that a certain attention to business is necessary, even for failing in it. Yes; and that gives some clue to the immense attention bestowed by a successful organiser upon his child—his business. To foster it like a child; to know it cannot thrive by itself; to keei an ever watchful eye on its thousand details - ; to tio its verv shoestrings, so to speak, ana, above all, to do these things one's sell and not leave them to the less interested — to do the woik that others would do only a little less well —all this is the way to make ihe baby of a business thrive and come to a flourishins maturity* From the start I determined to keep out of debt at all hazards and to buy onlv as much as I could pay for. But on one occasion, when my business wo» in its infancy, I employed an agent in Ireland to purchase Irish butter in order that 1 should not have to deal with a middleman and so save the middleman’s profits. But this agent putchased more butter than I could pay foxIf I didn’t take the goods the agent had bought 1 knew I should lose him. and he was a smart man I found that 1 was 12s. short, so 1 resolved to pawn mv silver watch, and this was the amount the pawnbroker gave me for it. I paid the bill, kept my agent, redeemed my watch shortly after u aids, and, the best of all, kept out of debt. I am often asked why we, as a nation, are beaten in trode. Speaking from my knowledge of America, 1 would say in that case it is owing to their more up-to-date methods. They are our most serious and powerful competitors. Young men are sent to all parts of the world to supply people u ith things they want. Their Consular service is far superior to ours. The Consuls representing the United States are chosen because of their business knowledge; ours are selected chiefly because of their social standing or political influence, and in most cases British Consuls pay more attention to the so ia’ aspects of their posts than to the commercial concerns. In certain parts I have come across absolute ninnies representing us, while their American confreres, all “hustlers,” carried off ’.he trade that formerly added to tnu | wealth of Great Britain.

I consider the Amencan boy is ahead of the English boy. I 'find that in America the managers of large concerns are often very youthful. In England their youth would be a disqualification ; it would not command respect. That I believe to be a great error of policy in the affairs of a nation, a business firm, or a'family. 1 hold, therefore, that it would be a good thing to send every English boy to America when he is seventeen, and to keep him there for a couple of years. My experience in the States, to which I first vent when I was fifteen, was the best commercial training I ever had. I find that apprenticeship will stand by me, and it helped me more than anything else to the position I now occupy. To young men anxious to succeed in business I would say a few words. The first is, beware of strong drink. Remember corkscrews have sunk more people than cork jackets will ever save. The next is civility. Treat rich and poor alike. The poor man’s twenty shillings is as good as the rich man’s sovereign. The workman’s wife with her basket on her arm is entitled to as

much respect as the lady who comes in? her carriage. And as an illustration of the benent of humility I will tell you the following story of Benjamin Franklin, who,, when Ambassador for the United Statesat the French Court, speaking to a young man, said: “ The last time .1 saw your father he received me in his study. As I was leaving he showed me a short way out of the house through a narrow passage crossed by overhead. He suddenly cried : ‘Stoop - Stoop! I did non understand what he meant until I felt my head thump against the beam. He was aman who i never failed to give good advice. 'Yon are going,’ he said, ‘and have to get. I through the world. Stoop as you go ' through it, and you will miss many ! hard thumps.’ ” I Thirdly, I would recommend punctuality, which is said to be the soul of business. It is said of Charles Lamb, i who at one time held a Government appointment, and who was proverbial for coming in late, that one morningbeing later than usual, his superior found fault, Lamb offered this excuse. “If I do come late in the morning I try to make up for it by leaving early in the afternoon.” This was a good, joke, but hardly the style _of business to gain promotion. If you stick ta business, business will stick to you. But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, as the saying goes, so I would recommend a useful hobby and moderate recreations. , I have always taken a keen interest in outdoor sports. In the old Glasgow days rowing and sailing on the Clyde were to me a great delight, both physically and mentally, was after the defeat of the Tistle in 1887 that I first resolved to build a challenger for the Cup won by America. Since then, as everyone knows, I have tried threetimes, and failed on each occasion. We shall never win back the Cun until as great a builder as Herreshoff arises inGreat Britain. It has been the boats, no the crews, that have won the races. The sailors on board the three Shamrocks were the finest in the world. Apart from Herreshoff our designers are equal, if not superior, to those of America. Mr. Fife and the late Mr. Watson did their very best, and were - as anxious to win the Cup as I was. It is a mistake to say that the American, boats could not stand the stress of avovage across the Atlantic. Boats capable of carrying such enormous sails - could go anywhere if rigged up as were the Shamrocks. I nope yet to bring Lack the Cup. Finally, let me say that at ihe beginning of my career, when, I acted as ray own salesman, and then my own errand boy after the shop was closed at night. I laid down a few hard-and-fast rules which were the recipe for my success. These were: Be honest. Keep pushing. Use judgment. Treat your customers well.