RULES OF BUSINESS

Taranaki Daily News, 24 September 1928, Page 11

RULES OF BUSINESS

THE ROAD TO SUCCESS. ADVERTISING A BIG FACTOR. Christchurch Sept. 16. The Jeliicoe Hall was again filled last night when the visiting psychologist, Dr. P. Fcnnelly, 1.L.D., lectured on “The Road to Health and Wealth: why some succeed and others fail,” in which he incidentally defined the essentials of successful business practice. Dr. Fennelly said there were certain definite rules of life by which one was able to judge success and failure. Every phase of life, every activity, every action, was governed by rules, aljd man to succeed had to adapt himself to those rules. All about us ■we see that only those forms of life have persisted which have adjusted themselves to their environment. They have recognised Jaws outside of themselves and acted ‘ accordingly. This may well be said to bo the drowning achievement of “Thy will be done.” Our standard is the measure of our success. To be ignorant of the rules of the great game of life, the game of business, is to court failure, and to know them thoroughly is to invite success. The first rule is the necessity for a standard, for our standard will be ths measure of our success. You can produce thousands in money value if you think in thousands, and if thousands why not millions? It is only a question of establishing in one’s mind a unit of value. The difference between the man who sells papers on the street and the man who owns the paper is simply that the unit of value of the first is a penny and of the second is thousands of pounds. Think in pennies and pennies will lie in your hands and think in pounds and pounds will lie there. If the news seller can rid his mind of the penny unit and think in shillings will he not naturally assert himself on the shilling and not on the penny scale?

The second great rule was the introduction of a purpose or object into life. Most people had no object. They had no particular end in view; just worked and drew their money and drifted along from week to week in this manner. The third rule was courtesy and the fourth knowledge; not knowledge in a general sense- but particular, and definite knowledge of the business which you were in. It was not enough to measure out a yard of cloth and make out a sales sheet. There was no such thing as dull routine in business if you had an intimate knowledge of everything you were handling. If you knew the origin of a roll of cloth and the history through which it had come, before it became the roll, it would speak to you In no uncertain fashion and carry a meaning that would affect your attitude towards it and every word you utter in regard to it. You would grow to love it even though it was only a roll of cloth, that and nothing more. IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE. The fifth rule was contact, and bv contact was meant the necessity for letting the world know what you were doing and what you had for sale. This was the age of advertising and the man who used the agencies of publicity to advise the world what he was doing and what he had to sell was the man who was making money. The best investment ever made was money put into advertising and if it was done with anything like commonsense and judgment it would come back to you twenty fold. Gordon Selfridge, the owner of the great department stores in London, asserted that the money lie invested in advertising came back to him fifty fold, and in his judgment there was no medium like the newspaoers far calling the attention of the world to what you had. In the mind of every potential buyer there was a major wish which was actuating him and until this wish was satisfied the buyer was not satisfied. Most salesmen were so wrapped up in the idea of making the prospect do 'something he does not want to do and making him do it immediately that the point of view and mental status of the buyer were wholly lost sight of. In every dealing in the business world it was the spirit of the method that counted. If the only purpose of the seller was to get under the guard of the buyer, that mental attitude would quite unconsciously be felt and the buyer’s mind coloured and adversely influenced. Tha last and the most important rule was, “If the truth will not sell it do not sell it.” If you had to act a lie every time you made a sale it would undermine you and affect your confidence and certainty in yourself and when that was gone everything was gone. Not only would it affect you mentally but it would also affect you physically, and you would come to be the walking realisation of the falsehoods you had uttered. “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his self-respect 2” was one of tho great mottoes of business life. Never in the history of the world had the standard of honesty and integrity been so high ‘ as it was to-dav.