Chapter 4

If it is your purpose to change a man's opinion, do not try to do it by argument. Study the ground carefully. State your points with preciseness, make careful analysis of every phase of the situation, take up the matter point by point. Start with your adversary by getting on ground on which you both will agree. Take up the points on which there can be little chance for differences of opinion. You will find the other man will get in the habit of agreeing with your propositions and that his antagonism weakens. State facts that are right and truthful, and are so plain that the truth will be self-evident.

After you have made several propositions on which the other man agrees with you wholly, then make a proposition that is ninety per cent. his way and ten per cent. your way. Gradually increase that ten per cent. until you swing him around so that he sees the truth. He then imagines that he has made the deduction himself.

Remember, you can swing the biggest ship around by a steady, slow, gentle pull. On the other hand a sudden strain on the hawser would produce no effect whatever on the ship.

The man who wishes to convert another to his way of thinking must be a diplomat if he is successful. Do not get excited, keep cool and collected, be sure of your ground, be positive in your assertions, make the whole matter clear, and use good judgment, sound reason and clear logic.

Speculation

You are playing against odds when you speculate.

The only man who has a sure thing on the Board of Trade or Stock Exchange or the race track is the man with the "Wienerwurst" privilege.

The successful business man some day wakes up to the fact that his bills are paid, and that he has surplus money. This surplus money should be used for investment purposes and not for speculation. Of course, it is hard to draw the line where investment leaves off and speculation begins.

When you speculate on margins you are like the fellow holding on a bear's tail as it runs around a tree--if you lose your hold the bear will get you.

The man who makes an investment, buying stocks or real estate and paying cash for them does not have to worry about the market. Prices may be up or down, but the man who has paid for what he has bought will sleep well.

You can't beat the speculation game. The only ones who make a success, and their success is ephemeral, are those who make speculation their whole occupation. The professional speculator is merely a high grade gambler, and he always winds up a loser.

Go to the Stock Exchange or the Board of Trade and you will see at either place a half a dozen old fellows hanging around. They are all men who have seen better days. A little inquiry and diplomacy on your part will bring forth the fact that these men were once prominent figures on 'Change.

When you have more money than you need in your business buy good farm lands out west, or good timber lands. No man ever bought good farm land or good timber land at the prevailing market price and lost money eventually. Of course, at different seasons of the year the price of land may go down a little temporarily, but the moment a good crop comes in, the price goes up again.

With good clear farm land you can always go to the nearest bank and borrow from sixty to seventy-five per cent. of its value.

Real estate is the true basis of wealth, and if you want to play a sure game, buy land that produces things.

When you buy vacant property in a large city, it is mere speculation. The land does not bring in any remuneration, and you are simply betting that the prices will increase.

Every large city has abundant instances of vacant property that is not worth as much now as it was ten or twenty years ago. Real estate booms come in cycles. Prices go up and men get the fever and buy vacant property. The boom explodes, property goes down and you can't get your money back. The chances are you have bought the property on two or three years' time, and it certainly is paying for a white elephant when you are paying for land that is worth less than what it cost you. You cannot get out, however, because the original payment has already been made, and your only hope is to save something on your investment.

Notwithstanding the fact that certain business sections and certain residence sections in any city steadily increase in price, yet the average real estate in the city increases by very slow percentage. The same amount of money, put out in mortgages, with the interest added and compounded, will develop wealth greater than the average vacant property investment, for where one lot soars up to a high price there are a hundred that don't increase at all, and the picking out of the lot that is going to increase in value is as hard as picking out the horse that is going to win the race. It is because the vacant city property has only speculative value that the business man should not touch it.

Buy farm property that you can rent. It will bring you interest on your money right along, and the tendency of farm land is and always has been steadily forward.

Mr. Yerkes, of Chicago, was a speculator who made millions in the street-car system. He was thoroughly familiar with Hydraulics, and he soaked the stocks as full of water as possible and then unloaded on the investors who speculated in street-car stocks. These speculators are now holding the bag. When Mr. Yerkes closed out his holdings in Chicago he granted an interview, and one truth he uttered in that interview has ever been remembered by the writer. It is so valuable an expression coming from such a successful speculator that we are going to give it to you. It is as follows: "I have never known a business man to successfully speculate in grains or stocks for two years."

The business man who is watching the ticker or calling up the Stock Exchange every day, who takes little flyers, is skating on mighty thin ice.

When you buy farms you are exchanging your money for the most certain thing in the world, for the basis of all wealth is land, and money simply represents the things which come out of the land. The things that grow on the land are exchanged for gold, and the gold is exchanged for things that come out of the land. The Government exchanges the gold for pieces of paper called money, which in reality means that you can exchange these pieces of paper for gold, and you can exchange the gold for the things that come out of and grow upon the land.

The stock broker may not like this chapter because the more speculation the more he benefits. He gets a rake-off every time a man buys and every time a man sells. He plays a sure thing. He is like the man with the Wienerwurst privilege.

Don't Speculate. Invest.

Elimination

One of the greatest brain savers is elimination. Every man should try to operate along lines of the least resistance, eliminate the deterrent influences and all things that fret him.

Do not look for trouble. Do not concern yourself too much over disagreeable things over which you have no control.

Do not build up an intricate system in your business. Have simplicity your ideal. Eliminate all useless moves. If you have disturbing influences in your institution, such as an employe who is continually causing friction, eliminate that employe. The man who causes friction is pulling back on the forward impulses of your business, and he is holding back one or more men who are trying to help you forward.

Get rid of useless things that take your time or cause you worry.

Remember that as you grow successful people will come to you under various excuses to get your aid financially or morally. They want you to go into new companies. The officers of the Club to which you belong will ask you to be a director. You will be invited to dinners, asked to speak, asked to do a thousand and one things, and in proportion as you accede to these demands you will find the demands increasing until finally you have little time to attend to your own affairs or to attend to your family.

Have as your center idea--elimination. Everything that takes your time from your business or your family is an extra tax on your strength.

Eliminate every habit that holds you back, every practice that unfits you for progress, every person who depresses you, every move that is not necessary, every footless idea that crowds your brain.

The Specialist

When this nation of ours was born nearly every one was a generalist.

The merchant sold a general line of merchandise. The doctor was also a farmer and a horse trader. In those days there were very few specialists.

As time passed some of the wiser individuals turned specialist and succeeded.

The doctor who is a generalist cannot excel in any one branch of medicine, or compete with the specialist who devotes all his time and study and practice towards one point and towards the treatment of a specific ailment. The merchant who sells everything cannot compete with the man who makes it his business to sell one class of goods. This is an age of specialists, and what we considered a specialist twenty-five years ago is only a generalist from the present standpoint. The specialist of twenty-five years ago has been divided again and again. The best doctor today is one who doctors the eye alone, the stomach alone, or the nerves alone. He can do more for you and knows more of your case in five minutes' observation than the generalist would in three months.

With the keen competition of these days it is necessary for the individual to be a specialist in business.

Pleasure and recreation are the only things in which an individual should be a generalist.

Were it not for specialists we should know little about the sun, little of electricity, little of steam, little of railroads, little of advertising, little of anything else. It is because individuals have made a speciality of one thing, because they have concentrated their energies and their brain power on one thing that the world has progressed.

Recreation is for relaxation, and the business man should see to it that he gets the full benefit of recreation. If he carries specialism into recreation, recreation is spoiled, for the moment a man is a specialist in recreation he strives to excel, and this striving to excel is hard work, and that is the same thing he is doing in business.

The business man who plays billiards and no other game doubtless will play a better game than the generalist who indulges in all sorts of games and recreations, but the man who makes a specialty of billiards finds his powers centered on this game of billiards. He puts his thought on it and wishes to excel, he wishes to make a record, and billiards then become business.

This striving to excel in a game brings forth the same gambling instinct manifested in business. It is his "I will." The business man who plays a good game of billiards some day meets his superior, and the superior is the individual who does nothing but play billiards.

If a man tries to be a specialist in billiards and a specialist in business, even though both callings commence with "B," he will find that a division of effort is a division of results, and he will not be a success in either business or billiards. In proportion as he excels in billiards he will be lacking in business, and vice versa.

We remember the story of a young friend of Herbert Spencer who joined the great philosopher in a game of billiards. The young man played a most excellent game. When they had finished Spencer remarked: "Young man, your education has been greatly neglected, you play billiards too well."

Be a specialist in business and a generalist in pleasure. Play billiards, swim, ride, play golf and indulge in all athletic sports and so long as you get uniform pleasure and recreation from these things you are doing right, you are helping your mind and developing your body and letting your brain rest, so that it may be keen and a greater help in your specialty, which is business.

The world needs specialists, and it needs specialists in recreation as well as business, but the man who tries to be a specialist in business as well as a specialist in recreation will fail in both, or, at least, his success will be only moderate.

It is necessary for life's scheme that we have individuals who have steady incomes so that they do not require to enter the strenuous business life. It is necessary to have such individuals, so that they may devote themselves to being specialists in recreation, otherwise the sports would die out.

If you go in for sport do not expect you can compete with anybody who goes in for sport exclusively. You can't win in two callings or occupations.

The String

There is a string to every proposition, and it behooves you to look out for the string before acceding to the requests that are made of you.

When a stranger comes and offers to do things for you, to let you in on the ground floor, or assures you that he is working for your interest, you may be sure there is a string to his proposition, and the string is that, as a matter of fact, it is himself instead of you he is looking out for.

Don't bite at the chance that is offered you to get something for nothing. The biggest kind of a string is always in such a proposition.

Remember this, that people are selfish. Each man looks out for his own interest, and even if he is protecting your interest, it is because his own interest will be better conserved by looking out for yours.

Don't decide on important matters too quickly. Don't get tied up in big contracts with strangers until you have found every strand of the string.

Don't be too suspicious but hunt for the string. It pays to be very conservative on all matters in which others are interested.

Sometimes the string in the proposition is legitimate and the other fellow may be more interested than you are, but it certainly behooves you to see what this string is and to understand exactly where the end of the string is tied.

Don't draw up in your shell and look upon every man with a proposition as trying to take advantage of you, but put down this as a truth--There is a string to every proposition, and you must find that string before you close the deal.

Horse Sense

Just how the expression "horse sense" came into use is not known, but the meaning of the combination means good reason, old fashioned logic, simple analysis and actual truth, and the basing of your actions upon simple things rather than complex things.

The man who uses horse sense in his transactions gets along further and faster than the man who uses selfishness and smartness.

To be possessed of horse sense is a most valuable asset. It is something you can use every day of your life.

Horse sense is really one of the things that makes up the law of compensation. The law of compensation itself is the quintessence of horse sense.

Luck is the gambling chance, and horse sense is the investment and security chance.

The man with horse sense may not go as far in a day as the man with luck, but he will progress more days and go further eventually than the lucky man.

Horse sense is one of the most valuable things in the business world, and it is one of the rarest things. It is so valuable because it is so rare.

In the business world today the men who are doing great things are the men who have horse sense. We call these men wonderful and look upon their accomplishments as the result of some mysterious, wonder-working power that they possess. Wonder workers are only flashes in the pan.

Do not hire your employes on account of your preference for a certain color hair or certain colored eyes. Do not hire your employes on account of their physical appearance, or on account of their ability to dress in the height of fashion. Get down to their net worth. Find out how much horse sense they have. Hire employes, as far as possible, who are blessed with old fashioned horse sense.

The Manager

The good manager is one who commands respect, not through his authority but because those under him appreciate that he has more ability and experience than they have.

The selection of a good manager is very important, for the success of one's business depends upon its management. The proprietor cannot do all the things himself, and he must rely upon his lieutenants.

Give a certain class of work to ten girls. Put them in a room by themselves with no one in authority. Come back next day and you will find that there is one girl who is laying out the work for the others. There is something in this girl that makes her a natural manager, and there is a certain instinct amongst the rest of the girls that makes them acknowledge this one girl as their superior, and the one to go to for advice. This natural leadership is the quality the manager should possess.

Above all, the manager, like the boss, must know how to do things he hires others to do, and the things we have said concerning the boss is likewise true of the manager, for the manager is the next step below the boss. The successful boss would not have obtained his present position if he had not been a good manager previously.

Let the manager read thoroughly our chapter on the boss if he has ambition to be boss some day.

The mistake frequently made by the manager is to take credit himself for the work done by those under him, for such a manager may be sure that sooner or later his position in this respect will be found out, and to his surprise he will find that the employe who has been doing the things for which he has taken credit will take the manager's place. Employes are quick to detect this spirit in the manager. They see that their own efforts are not known to the boss, and it makes them indifferent, because they see no appreciation for what they are doing. On the other hand, if the manager says a good word to the boss concerning an employe who has shown marked ability, it redounds to the manager's credit that he is liberal enough to give credit where it properly belongs.

Truth will out as sure as the sun will shine, and the manager cannot conceal his subordinates' abilities and pass them off as his own for any length of time.

The good manager will say a kind word to the boss about the employe, if he is the right sort. It makes an employe feel confidence in the manager when he knows that the manager is appreciative and ready to tell his superior of good things in the employe's favor. The manager who is bad tempered, suspicious and tries to take credit that does not belong to him is only holding his position temporarily, and some day he will be let out of the institution for which he is working, and will find himself forced to the extremity of getting a place somewhere else back in the ranks from which he had temporarily risen.

Selling

Time was when the best salesman was the one who could tell the biggest lies, drink the most whiskey and show his customers the liveliest time.

Today the best salesman is distinguished by the following attributes: Truth, trustworthiness, together with a fine knowledge of the goods he is selling.

The man who sells goods must be prepared to hear from nearly every man that his price is too high. If the buyers would always tell the truth, then the salesman who sold the most goods would simply be the one who actually sold at the lowest price.

Price does not mean anything. Price is high or low only when quality is taken into consideration.

The man who sells merchandise, or advertising, for instance, must be thoroughly acquainted himself with the thing he sells. He must be reliable, he must give good measure, he must keep his word.

We hear a good deal about the live-wire, rapid-fire salesman, who goes out on his initial trip and comes back with a bagful of orders. It must be remembered that ever and always there is the law of compensation to take into consideration. The salesman who bags a lot of orders on the first trip does not get so many the second time. He has colored his picture too highly on the first trip. He has made too many side promises, too many mis-statements, and the customer finds out he cannot be believed, and this smooth article of a salesman is not as welcome in the buyer's office the second trip.

On the other hand and in strict accordance with the law of compensation, the salesman who tells the truth, who moves quickly, who does what he agrees to and knows what he is talking about, who talks convincingly and attends strictly to business will eventually succeed.

The great house of Marshall Field & Co. of Chicago have operated along the line of fairness, good treatment and willingness to right a wrong and correct a mistake quickly. Marshall Field had horse sense when he inaugurated his business.

Wonder workers who start out with a burst of speed and smash records in the matter of selling will still be salesmen at fifty years of age, for you can't go fast far.

Those wonder workers change frequently. They flit from house to house. They work because they need the money to have a good time with, and as soon as they get the money they proceed to have a good time until their little pile runs out, and then they get another job. Business men know this wonder worker well. Go into any wholesale house and you will find them. They are living in the past and relating their conquests. They never speak of the present but always of the past. They have done things they can't do again. The good salesman is doing things now better than he has done in the past.

The permanently successful salesman does not cut much of a figure in the matter of dress. He is not as handsome as the wonder worker. In fact, he may be physically uncouth, but he has a heart under his rough exterior. The customers he mingles with have confidence in him. They know he will do what he promises, and finally this man is the one who builds up a good trade and at fifty years of age he has a place of his own, sends salesmen on the road, and his house does a good business because his policy permeates the institution, and the customers have confidence in the house because he is at the head of it, and they are familiar with his methods and practice.

Some buyers seem to think that it is necessary for them to give the impression to the seller that they are buying at lower prices than the seller quotes. The wonder worker tries to make each customer believe that he is buying at the lowest price. The common sense salesman does not resort to such tactics.

The average buyer does not concern himself so much about being able to buy cheaper as he does to feel sure that his competitor does not get better treatment than he does.

In the matter of selling there is no one thing that ultimately proves so successful as the one price plan. By that we mean the same price to all who purchase the same quantity or the same amount in a given time.

The more elastic and variable your prices, the more ingenuity required to keep these cut prices from getting into the hands of your customers. This matter of cutting prices causes no end of worry. In proportion as you indulge in cutting prices, so in proportion you will receive an increased number of cut price offers.

Let it be known that your prices are subject to reduction at the hands of a smooth buyer, and the news will travel fast.

Let it be known that you don't cut prices, and that news will gain currency in the trade, and you will not have cut prices offered you.

There is something in the matter of selling beyond dollars and cents, and that is dollars and sense.

Remember this, when you sell goods you are also selling reputation. If your goods are bad your reputation will be bad too. You can't have a good reputation and sell bad goods and make a permanent success.

Remember, every sale you make is an advertisement.

Remember, you can take advantage of the buyer once or twice, but if you want to hold his trade you must be fair with him.

Smooth tactics that bring in present money react and lose trade for you later on.