BUSINESS LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15513, 21 January 1914, Page 12

BUSINESS LIFE.

THE BUYER'S VIEWPOINT. Get the customer's idea. Give him what he wants. If you haven't got it, get it for him. Willingness to adopt the buyer's viewpoint has been found the most effective way of building a business. PICKING A PARTNER. " If you take a partner, don't pick him for his capital or friendship or congeniality ' or even his experience," says a man of experience. " All these are mighty handy, and nice if you get them gratis; but there's something more essential. Take him first and foremost on his ability to pull with you on the line of direct progress—the resultant of your knowing how much to pay, how ' good' to make, how much to give and get a profit." DISCOVERING A MAN. It is a great thing to discover a man. Think what it would mean to discover in the form on an untried youth one who was destined to become a great business genius. Or, better still, to help a man to discover himself find himself. Some men find , themselves easier and earlier than others. Many men have a seed of ability, to develop which needs only the kindly encouragement of their superiors. If you know of any men who have fallen into the habit of thinking that others have appropriated all of the opportunities, that none are left to them, jujt tell them to think their way out of that belief. And ii they will do that, they will have made i good start toward that future thinking which so certainly means success. A NEW TRADE AVENUE. I A great deal or trouble and some ingenuity were expended a few years ago by an American tobacco firm in opening up a trade in cigarettes among the Chinese. The Chinese havo long smoked pipes, growing their own tobacco. The tobacco concern saw an opportunity here to increase the sale of cigarettes. The greater convenience and the cheapness of the cigarettes would, they thought, appeal to the Chinese The Chinese pipe is an absurd contrivance which must be cleaned and refilled between every few puffs, taking up entire the time and attention of the smoker. Cigarettes were so entirely unknown in China that there was no word in the Chinese language to describo them. To get over this difficulty, a trade name was invented, its literal translation being "fragrant smoke." Thousands of cigarettes, carefully made to appeal to the Chinese taste in tobacco and to Chinese income in price were sent to China and distributed- The Chinese were suspicious of this foreign contrivance, and when an attempt was made to distribute- samples direct to the consumers they refused to havo anything to do with them. The agents found it to be more effective to drop them in the street, trusting to the 'ricksha coolies and others to pick them up and smoke them. The stratagem worked successfully and now the Chinese have largely abandoned the old pipe for the cigarette, and the company is one of the largest alien concerns in China..