Читать книгу Dollars and Sense - William Crosbie Hunter - Страница 13

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Employes are divided into two classes—the kind that makes profits and the kind that is on the expense side of the ledger.

The young man who has the foresight and ability to get on the selling side, the side that brings profit to the house, has the decided advantage over the young man who is on the expense side.

Book-keepers, stock-keepers, clerks and all other expense employes are paid far lower salaries than the salesmen and buyers, those who produce results.

In the newspaper business the editor with his college education has practically attained his limit of progress when he is 40 years old. He may get from $20.00 to $80.00 or even $100.00 a week as editor.

The young man in the advertising department may get from $50.00 to $200.00 a week. He is a producer of tangible results; the editor produces theoretical results.

In every business the man who sells things, who brings in the profits, is the man who gets the best pay.

The boss will grudgingly give a dollar a week increase to the book-keeper. He only thinks what it would cost him to replace the book-keeper.

The producer gets his increases in $5.00 and $10.00 a week jumps.

The expense employe is in competition with the great army of the unemployed, and there are multitudes who will work for less money than the man who is holding his job on the expense side.

The producer, on the other hand, knows how much profit he is bringing into his house, and if those profits are steadily increasing he may be sure his salary will increase proportionately. If it does not he can always get another position by laying the facts and figures before some more enterprising house.

The producer is seldom out of a situation. If for any reason he is out of employment temporarily he can go to a good house and work on commission, or get a small drawing account, and at three or six months talk salary on actual showing made.

The shrewd business man won't let profits slip away if he can help it, so the real producer sits in a pretty good seat. He has only to show what he can do and he will be paid accordingly.

The expense man's only stock in trade is faithfulness, neatness and amount of detail he can handle. He has little lee-way in the matter of salary, for thousands are faithful, thousands are neat and thousands can perform great amounts of detail.

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 endorsement 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 competition 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 associations a good salary allows, and now he finds himself out of a place and faces the necessity of starting over again, and his competitors 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 passed 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.