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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 12, 1913)
10 THE SEMI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE SECTION I3LLJI BUSINESS FRIVOLOUS ST OI9 HORACE TAYLOR, I MNliSS IS AN ancient anil more or less lionornblo nme tlmt dntes lnck to mi npple tlmt Eve should not have bought. Tlmt wns, by dead reckoning, in 400 1 B. ('. It lias survived vnrious presidon tial campaigns, and today it lias baseball, poker and golf backed off the hoards and pulled up lnine behind tho flag when it comes to luck, science, strategy, rending the other fellow's signals, team work, placid ity of countenance, multiplicity and variety of hazards, and previous performances. Business is absurdly simple to any one who has never been forced to work for a living, and it is as dry as the sun-kissed desert to those who never not loser to it than buying at retail. Industrial business is especially simple and easy. To be a successful manufacturer consists only of: Jinking something, selling it for money, and keep ing the money. This formula, is subject to nmplillention. Speak ing in broad general terms, let us note that a manu facturer, in order to hold up his end, is required to: Make, things better or cheaper than bis compet itors. Know in advance what buyers will want, nnd be nblo to deliver it to them where and when they want it. Employ n lot of men, but not more than he must, nnd pay them what he has to. Sell so much goods as to dominate the market, or not enough to attract fresh and dangerous competi tion. Know everything his competitors know, and ev erything they have done, are doing, or may, can, will, must, or are threatening to do; and, at the same time, to keep similar knowledge about himself away from these same competitors. Hold his expenses down and shove his receipts up. Have everything systematized so that be knows where he is at, and avoid getting into so much red tape as to choke himself to death. Keep ahead of last week's, Inst month's, last year's and the previous high records of his own business. Push his plant so tlmt it will produce nil the goods tho busy season demnnds, and push his salesmen so that they will produce nil tho orders bis plnnt de mnnds in dull times. Establish and use as much credit as possible, and extend to his own customers no more credit than is unnvoidnblo. Build up millions of dollnrs' worth of good will, without being forced to inject it into the bnlnnce sheet in order to innke both ends teeter. Build up an organization tlmt will work together mr letters prints bis own name on your station ery, and tells your bookkeeper to see Hint you get no iota of information. As the henpecked husband wipes away and forgets his woes when he transforms himself into the Chief Exalted High (luy in tho lodge room, so tho receiver forgets both his own woes nnd yours when he be comes your receiver. And, when in the course of human 'events, an otherwise bnnnless individual is clothed with the sanctity and authority of a re eeivership, the dignity of labor for ever loses its nppenl to him and one more unit is added to that smull but vnlinnt army tlmt insists upon fourteen hnlf-holidays evei-y week. Hut even though it is easy to let a business slip 11 mry IHi 1 The referee in bankruptcy count alow ten as well in his absence us in his presence, but not so well that his men can leave him at night and establish a competitive plant the next morning. Keep his stock holders well paid, without encouraginu them to wrest control away from him. Educate customers to the point where they eat out of his hnud. Mollify 1 a b o r unions. Impel bankers to beg for his necount. Show big assets to the banks when he needs to borrow moiiev, and next to none, at all to the tax assessor. And, withal, possess a temper so sweet that, his plant burns down when orders are heaviest, can wear an nngelie smile nnd announce that hnd intended to shut down for inventory nnd the installation of new machinery any how. And then, at dinner bis wife wonders how any body enn arouse such an appetite when he lms noth ing to do but to sit in an ollice nil day long. The word "business" is a compound of the roots "busy" and "ness," and menus the ness of being busy. Therefore, when a business man says that business is dull, he merely means that activity is inactive. THIS CONTRADICTION is basic in business and harks us back to the days when almost every clothier was addicted to the happy habit of as suring us, upon his word of honor, that the nobby cotton suit he was about to give us for a few dollnrs was all wool, if not silk. Also, it ex plains, perhaps, how it is possible for a pillar of the Chamber of Commerce to arrive home late from a dinner with tho leading lady and satisfy his wife thnt business is no respecter of ollice hours. After u business lms been successfully operated for thirty or forty years, it is the easiest tiling in the world to wish it on a son who has no taste for that sort of thing, and have him toss it along to a receiver. Bnsebnll catchers are sometimes called "re ceivers"; but Micro is a material difference between the baseball receiver nnd the business receiver, in thai the former can't hold his job long except on merit. tl ust ns we allow our state and national laws to ho written by men who have no regular occupation, so our courts appoint receivers from among those court room habitues who have no place to go except home, which they avoid for fear the wife might ask them to wring out the wash. No matter what happens to tho business, nothing can happen to the receiver. The pillowy glove, the mask, the chest protector and the shin guards of an up-to-the-minute catcher are n mnkc-believe parn phernnlin of defense ns compared to those impreg nnblo nnd impervious safeguards by which the courts protect receivers from getting what ought to bo coining to thoiu. It is even illegal to ask a receiver a question. It nmy be your own business that is being "re ceived"; but you nre n rank outsider when the re ceiver sits at our desk, smokes your cigars, opens iaj Nothing to do but to sit in an office all day Ions into tho hands of n receiver, it is no ensier to get it away from him than it was to establish the business originally. Uninformed persons imagine that any body can start in business. That is a very serious error. Anybody can start to start in business; but the actual getaway is dilllcult. For business is a handi cap race, and nobody is eligible to start until he bus handicapped himself and made victory more or less impossible by putting on his shoulders a load of debt for n factory plnnt, or a warehouse, or a storeroom, to say nothing of machinery, fixtures, stocks of inn tenuis or finished goods, etc., etc, several times. True, this inviolable rule has been broken on more than one occasion. Men have started with only a small ollice, a select lot of die-stamped letter bends, and a promise to pay you ninety-nine per cent on nuy money you may have loose on your person or secreted in the family fireplace. "DI'T THESE men always run against discour -L' aging harriers. Even by changing their names, their places of abode and their nlllee addresses, few of them have ever made enough to pay the law.veis, sustain their families while they were doing time, and still have left a sullicient residuum to dignify I lie entry of "net profit." Net profit is the Ultima Thulo in business, and many a mariner hns been shipwrecked before reach ing thnt port. Others rencb it while going at such speed that they fail to notice the dock, and keep right on going. It is tho uncertainty of reaching the harbor that makes the game exciting. Net profit is the difference between what you ex pend and what you receive. The gamo in business is to determine whether, in a given line of com meifinl or industrial endeavor, you can eclipse outgo with income. If you can, you win Tf von can't,