The young man just out of school should have for his ideal that he shall be a producer first and a proprietor later on. To this end he should equip himself by spending four or five years acquainting himself thoroughly with all the phases and departments of the business and learning the facts about the manufacture of the goods he expects to sell eventually. All this understanding and preparation will be of great service when he is a salesman, and greater service when he is a proprietor.

The writer started wholly dependent upon his own exertions for a livelihood at fourteen years of age. At fifteen he learned shorthand by evening study. At sixteen he attended to the correspondence and mail order department for his employer. At eighteen he was getting $8.00 a week in cash for his services, and many times that amount in valued experience.

"One day he got a blank application for a $75.00 clerkship in the Post Office. At that time appointments were made by political pull and not through the civil service. The writer took the blank to a relative, who was the leading politician of the State. He asked for the endors.e.m.e.nt of this senator and received this advice: "Young man, my signature to this sheet would get you the job, but if you were my son I would not let you take the place. I will give you some advice, which is this--never take a political, railroad or bank job. In all these callings you are in compet.i.tion with thousands of others. The compensation is small, the chance to better your position is remote, and you are a machine. If you want to make a success of life be a producer, learn to sell things."

This advice was acted on, and the writer remembers it as the turning point in his career.

It is a sad thing to see the old man working for $40.00 or $50.00 a month who in the past drew $3,000 or $4,000 a year. Such men were expense men and not producers.

Moves on the checker board of business are made quickly. The man with silver hair may be an accountant or confidential man drawing a good salary. Something happens, his firm goes out of business or sells out, and our old friend is left without a position. He has been used to the comforts and a.s.sociations a good salary allows, and now he finds himself out of a place and faces the necessity of starting over again, and his compet.i.tors are young and active men ready for the battle of life.

The old man out of a job goes around amongst his friends. The friend can do nothing but gives him a letter of recommendation. He is pa.s.sed along from one to another until he is foot-sore and heart sick and weary of it all.

He winds up as a sleeping car conductor, or gets a position as floor walker or clerk at the inquiry desk.

The producer, be he ever so old or ever so often out of a job, can catch on again. He gets his job on results and not sympathy.

Business men are on the lookout for producers.

Young man, learn to be a producer.

The Man--Not the Plan

We are p.r.o.ne to give credit to the plan as being the thing that makes a successful business. It is not the plan, it is the man behind the plan that is responsible for the success.

The man who has a well-defined ideal, who hews to the line, who eliminates all deterrent influences, who concentrates his energy on his ideal, who bends his efforts towards the one thing is pretty sure to accomplish his purpose.

We often see a man make a marked success in a field that others have considered barren.

Take a small town, for instance, where there are many retail stores.

The people of the town will tell the prospective merchant that the town is already overcrowded with stores, that none of the stores seem to be making more than a bare living, and that it would be impossible for another store to make a success, on account of the already overcrowded conditions, yet the right man comes along and starts a store in that town and makes a marked success.

If the plan were the making of success, all an enterprising business man would have to do would be to pick out some plan which was successful and then imitate it.

The great ocean of business has many derelicts on it as a result of copying plans. It is a part of the law of compensation that the man who originates a plan and carries it to successful conclusion has a patent on his business. This patent is his individuality and good business equipment. The man who steals his plan physically is unable to steal the mental end.

Since men have recorded facts in the shape of history, we find that men have made successes of plans and businesses that have been discarded by their predecessors as played-out plans.

When a plan is presented to you do not calculate the outcome by the plan, but by the man.

Two banks may start side by side with exactly the same office furniture and exactly the same business operations. They use the same kind of money; they make loans on lands or on securities. The operations of these two banks may be as closely identical as possible, yet within ten years one bank will have considerable surplus and the other may be out of business.

If the plan were the measure of success these two banks should fare equally well, but the fact that they differed so materially is in itself evidence that the success is determined by the individuals and not the plan.

The ill.u.s.tration of a bank may be carried into other lines, merchandising, manufacturing or railroading.

Compensation

The law of Compensation is--you pay for what you get, or you get what you pay for.

This law says if a horse can run fast it can't pull a good load and vice versa.

This law says a horse cannot go fast far.

It says that for every sorrow there is a joy, for every positive there is a negative.

Where evil exists there is some good to offset it, says compensation.

The law of compensation is the measure optimists use, and in nearly every chapter we have written in this series, compensation will be found as a ground-work.

You can't get away from nor violate this rule of compensation.

It is not new, it is as old as creation itself.

Centuries ago it was expressed this way: "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap."

Too many try to ignore this great rule, they try to get something for nothing.

You may eat first and pay afterwards, or you may pay first and eat afterwards.

You may play the b.u.t.terfly; sip life's sweets and sow your wild oats now, but pay day will come and may be you will be unable to pay.

You may spend your income now and suffer want later on.

You may work hard now and play as you go along. You may have happiness each day you live; you can make life worth living if you work.

Happiness is compensation for work; no work, no happiness.

You may have what you want, but, you must pay for it.

Millions cost happiness and often cost health too.

The dinner is properly balanced when it has sweets as well as substantials. The sensible person finds the dinner is better if the sweets come after the substantials.

To violate the law of compensation is to eat the sweets first and then the substantials, and by this law the substantials do not taste good when they are eaten after the sweets.

The man who procrastinates is violating the law of compensation. When you see your duty attend to it at once.