A cool head is wonderful capital for an employer or an employe.
Don"t mistake coolness and poise for submissiveness and servility.
Don"t let people impose on you and take advantage of your good nature.
State your position in cool, well-weighed words, and carry conviction with them by your manner.
It takes two to make a quarrel. Whenever anger is present, do not be one of the two.
Precedent
Precedent has caused many failures. We refuse to make a bold move and inaugurate a new system because we hate to break away from the methods established by successful predecessors.
We say "Let well enough alone." We forget that times change, and that conditions which made our compet.i.tors successful, may not now exist.
If you have the precedent habit it is an admission that you have not the brains to originate, and you are trying to take advantage of another"s brains.
You remember the old fable of the lion and the jacka.s.s. The jacka.s.s was browsing on thistles in the desert. It took all his time to gather enough of the scanty vegetation to keep him alive. One day the jacka.s.s noticed the lion comfortably eating a lamb, whereupon he said "That"s the scheme for me. I will do the same trick as Mr. Lion," and forth-with the jacka.s.s found a dead lion and covered himself with the lion"s skin, hoping that with the lion"s skin he would appear as a lion and thus be able to catch game in large portions, and relieve himself of this slow monotonous, hard work he had been used to. The jacka.s.s sallied forth, but he could not catch a lamb. He had copied the lion so far as physical appearances were concerned, but he did not have the brains of the lion, and he failed.
There are hundreds of wealthy business concerns today who are slowly dying from dry rot because they have not the nerve to break away from the precedent that built up their businesses. They let sentiment outweigh common sense. They maintain the same old lines and follow the same policy because that policy years before things made them successful.
Many manufacturers continue to advertise in publications which have long since lost their advertising value. These manufacturers have the habit, and on account of precedent they are afraid to break away. They do not recognize that since they started there are dozens of newer, brighter and better publications than the ones they are using.
Columbus, Marconi, Edison, Stevenson, Newton, Fulton, and hundreds of other originators would never have succeeded if they had followed precedent. They required strong courage to break away from accepted methods. Each of these men was told in so many words that the thing never had been done, and consequently could not be done.
Business men who throw aside precedent are more apt to succeed, for by throwing aside precedent they show they have originality instead of the ability to copy.
Financing
A financier and a general are much the same thing. The financier makes the dollars do the work at the best place, and the general does the same thing with his soldiers. The financier with plenty of money in the bank and the general with plenty of soldiers at his command are alike.
They give the order and the thing is done, for they have the material to do the thing with. The difference between the good financier and the bad financier is like the difference between the good general and the bad one, the difference being that the good one makes a little go a long way, and gets the best results from the little under his command.
The cause of many failures is due to bad financing instead of bad business. The trouble is few business men know exactly "where they are at."
A detailed statement should be kept of all obligations. The business man should get along as far as possible without giving notes, and when he does give notes he should see to it that the notes are taken up when due.
The business man who overstocks shows he is a bad financier. The man who buys too much on possibilities makes a mistake.
As you go along this year you should make statistics of the receipts and expenses by the day, week, month and year. With these figures you can make up a budget of your receipts and expenses for the coming year with reasonable correctness.
Keep your resources well in hand. Buy often rather than buy in large quant.i.ties.
If you are owing money to the bank, have your plans arranged so that you can realize on your a.s.sets quickly.
The good general always plans his campaign to be ready for attack that may come through unexpected sources. The good financier is always ready for an attack on his finances.
The concerns from whom one buys may be prosperous. The bank with whom one deals may be flourishing, and yet without warning something happens and you are suddenly called upon to liquidate your indebtedness. You should be prepared for this sudden call.
Financing is an art, and you will never be a good financier unless you have had perplexing problems to solve. In order to solve problems you must have the pro and con, in other words, the details of your receipts and expenses. These figures should be put down plainly, with elaborate detail, if necessary, so you may count on your figures and make your plans accordingly. Preparing for emergencies is one of the first things the financier should understand.
Discontent
While in another part of this book we show that ambition is one of the things that makes success, yet it must not be forgotten that discontent is another great factor in bringing about success.
When the young man quits school he has life before him and has ambition to succeed. It is not particularly necessary that we find out what his ambition is to start him on the right path. Let the young man get started at any thing. If he is ambitious and has ability in him to manage a business he will get there finally.
He may get started in the wrong line and this will make him discontented. The discontent will cause him to try another tack, and so long as discontent makes him change he will finally get into the right line by the process of eliminating those callings which make him discontented.
Time after time we find in reading the stories of successful business men that they have floundered around in the beginning of their career from one business or calling to another. Discontented with each of them they changed and changed and changed until they finally struck the thing best suited to them, and all the changes they made in the past were distinctly beneficial because of the experience they obtained.
If it were not for discontent many of the leaders in the business world today would still be on the farm or clerking in a country store.
Keep busy, young man, do the first thing that comes handy. Change your job if you are discontented, for no one can do his best work if his heart is not in it. When discontent causes you to change frequently you may be sure that some day you will strike your gait, and then ambition will fire you to stick at it.
When you get on the right track and are not discontented you have struck it right.
The Generalist
The chapter on "The Specialist" is almost inseparable from this chapter. One is the positive, the other the negative. What we have said about the specialist we could repeat by taking the opposite of the question for the generalist.
This one point, however, we wish to make clear, even at the risk of repet.i.tion. Do not be a generalist in business. If you divide your efforts your results will surely be divided. The business man who goes in many outside ventures will not get along as far in the matter of wealth as the man who does one thing well.
We hear about "The jack of all trades," but the aftermath of the jack of all trades is "master of none."
Only one concern in fifty succeeds in business, therefore it calls for your best efforts if you wish to succeed. It calls for a singleness of purpose.
If you make more money than is necessary in your business put out the money in some form of investment that will require little of your attention. Buy mortgages or real estate. Get stuff that you can put in the green box in the safety deposit vault and not have to worry about.
The stockbroker has a lot of unwritten history about the business man who divides his energies between his office and the ticker. The business man who is trying to make more progress than his compet.i.tor in business and at the same time trying to beat out the stock market is dividing his energies, and between the two occupations he is likely to fail. Be a generalist in pleasure and recreation, but not in business.