Plan No. 396. Her First Music Lesson
Very few girls can expect to go to a university with $50 in their pockets and come out not only with the education they were seeking and $500 in cash besides. But there was one girl who did this.
Being a good stenographer and typist, she soon had plenty of work. She took up mimeographing, which paid well, and later was engaged to help one of the professors prepare the matter for a book he was writing. This gave her a desk of her own in the economics department, where she helped to complete the book, read the proofs, and kept well up with her studies at the same time.
When she graduated, all her expenses were paid and she had an even $500 left over.
Two women, living together, built in their yard a shallow pond of rocks, cemented together so as to hold water, surrounding this with a second row of rocks, not cemented, and filled the space between with earth, in which were set mosses and delicate plants, thus giving the pond a broad rim of dainty growing things.
Then they bought six goldfish—the pretty, dumpy sort, with long flowing tails—and placed them in the pond which was about two feet deep in the center. This was in the spring, and in the following August they noticed dozens of tiny young fish in the water. The next spring they sold one hundred of these for 25 cents each, keeping the rest for breeding purposes.
In the five years since starting the fishpond they have realized a neat sum from their aquarium. The fish require almost no care whatever, as the little fellows live on insects in the water, while the larger ones are given regular fish food, which can be bought cheaply at any bird or drug store.
At spawning time, anywhere from May to August, the water in the pond is not changed for fear of losing the young fish, but is replenished and aerated by spraying the surface frequently with the hose until the pond is full. Growing plants or a few tree branches placed in the pond afford a place upon which the fish may deposit their spawn, and the water should be kept as near the same level as possible, so the eggs will not be exposed and dry out, thus preventing them from hatching.
A girl who entered an eastern university on $400, borrowed money, made $120 the first year as an accompanist in an orchestra; $160 by giving piano lessons; $45 by reading aloud in French to two old ladies; $400 by tutoring; earning $735 in all during her sophomore year. She easily paid back the $400 she had borrowed, paid all her expenses, including tuition, and was just even with the world when she graduated at the end of the third year.
A young man in a New York town, who had become an expert dancer, while attending college was asked to take the place of the local dancing master in his town during a temporary illness.
Not feeling quite equal to the task, he went to the city, attended a first-class dancing school, learned all the intricate details, the system, etc., and came back to his home town ready to accept the position tendered.
When he showed his pupils the superiority of his methods over those of the local teacher, they organized a large class and placed themselves under his charge. The pupils made remarkable progress, and the hall he had rented for the purpose was occupied by classes nearly every evening during the week, while he gave a number of private lessons at 75 cents each. His earnings from the few spare hours he was able to give to dancing lessons netted him about $20 a week, in addition to a good salary he was earning during business hours.
A man who had for years been a clown in a circus, but desired to change to something more dignified and more profitable, chose toy balloons as his source of revenue, and the results proved he had made a wise choice.
Being fully aware of the passion children have for toy balloons, he decided to follow along with the same old circus, for a while, and laid in a stock of non-inflated toy balloons, which cost him $20 per thousand, or 2 cents apiece. With the air out of them, they took up but little room, and when he arrived at a place where the circus was to stop for a day, it required only half an hour to inflate a few hundred, enough for one day’s business.
Starting out early in the morning, before the parade, he traversed the streets that were already beginning to be lined on each side with people waiting for the great event, and made scores of sales in that way. After the parade was over, he made still more, and at the conclusion of the afternoon and evening performances he reaped a harvest of dimes from those coming out to see the show.
Later he attached himself to a carnival company, that stayed two or three days, or a week, in one town, and literally filled the places with his toy balloons, clearing 8 cents on every one sold. A sale of 800 balloons meant a net profit of $24 a day, which was almost as much as he had formerly earned in a week while acting as a clown.
In the fall of the year he visited county fairs all over the country, and cleared up enough money to keep him in comfort all winter.
A former motion-picture operator, who had moved to a small Iowa town for the benefit of his wife’s health, believed the churches of the place would be glad to have films of religious subjects shown in their church buildings on weekday evenings and, having secured the consent of the trustees of one of the leading denominations, he put up his outfit, which he had brought with him, and gave movie shows three evenings a week, paying a small sum for the use of the church on these occasions. The other churches, seeing the crowds that attended these entertainments, also asked that the films be shown in their buildings, and in a short time there was to be found a motion-picture show in one or the other of those churches every evening of the week except Sundays.
Scenes in Palestine, the Passion Play, and similar subjects, were the main part of the entertainment, and the movie man made a nice living from the business, while providing amusement and instruction for the people of the town, who were not often able to attend the movies in the city.
A young lady who had graduated from college was compelled to find a way to support herself and sister. She was a good cook, and finally decided to open up a chafing-dish annex in her own home.
In her front room she displayed angel food, raisin tarts, fudge, cake, warm sugared crullers, and puddings. She put out posters informing the public that warm biscuits, muffins, roast chicken, meat loaf and salads would be prepared to order.
She was successful in establishing a first-class, paying bakeshop around the original idea of a chafing dish.
Nothing is more delicious or more profitable to put up for sale than crystallized fruits and nuts, and a young woman in California, who went into the business on an extensive scale, had that discovery fully confirmed. Her recipe for the crystallization of dainties was as follows:
Put in an iron kettle 1 teacupful of granulated sugar, 1 tablespoonful or less of butter, 3 tablespoonfuls of water. Boil until it syrups and becomes brittle.
The fruits and nuts treated with this were put into the shells of the same, or into boxes containing the name of the delicacy and her own name as originator. Making up a quantity she placed them on sale at the woman’s exchange where they sold rapidly at a good profit. She also had many calls for them to be used on special occasions, such as St. Valentine’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, weddings, etc., and for these purposes she charged very high prices, for she knew they were well worth all she asked for them, and were all the more appreciated.
In a short time she received many orders and found it was necessary to employ a number of young ladies as skilful assistants. Her profits the first year were sufficient to pay for a neat little bungalow she had always admired, and which is now her home.
A Texas man makes an excellent living by gathering pecans and nuts of all kinds that grow in immense quantities in his neighborhood, and shelling them with a machine invented for that purpose. A bushel of the nuts, when shelled, make fourteen or fifteen pounds of the meats or kernels, and he sells them to people in the city at prices that net him between $5 and $6 per bushel. And considering that he handles several hundred bushels of the nuts in a single season, one may judge as to the amount of his net profits.
A young man who thought he could afford amusement for many people at a good profit to himself, went to a wholesale drug store and bought a pound of metallic sodium. This he removed from the can and soaked it in lamp oil until soft, then dried it on a glass surface, and with a piece of lead pipe rolled it out into sheets about 1⁄8 of an inch thick. These he cut into sticks 3 inches long, and 31⁄2 inches wide, and put two sticks into a dram glass vial, labeled “Spit-Fire.” Moistening causes it to burn.
Taking one of these vials into a barber shop, a hotel lobby, a cigar stand or a crowd of people at a park, or a picnic, he would take a small piece of it and lay it on top of a pipeful of tobacco, then spit on it and the tobacco would light. A small particle of it dropped into a glass of water or into acid will burn. He offered this at 15 cents per bottle and sold them by hundreds to people who liked novel means of amusement. He also mounted the vials on cards containing a dozen each, and sold them to dealers for 75 cents per card.
One pound of metallic sodium is enough for 1,000 bottles, and the cost for vials, labels and corks is about $3.75, while the metallic sodium is not expensive. For 1,000 bottles, at 15 cents each, he received $150, so you can see the amount of profit in this plan.
A Spokane young man, who owned a good 5x7 camera, and knew how to use it, got the lowest quotations from publishing houses, on medium-size calendars of artistic designs, and from the samples sent him selected a line well adapted to the purpose for which he intended to use them.
Next, he took pictures of all the prominent business houses in the city, showing the names of the merchants occupying the ground floors, as well as the signs on some of the upper windows, with names and business of the occupants. Then pasting one of these photos on one of the calendars, he called upon the merchant, as well as all the other tenants of the building, and took orders for any number they required. These made an excellent advertising medium, and he received orders for many thousands of the calendars.
Later he went into the best residence districts and took pictures of all the homes, and, pasting a picture of each house on a calendar he called at the various places and sold them by the hundreds. Often he was called upon to take special pictures showing home scenes, such as children at play, on the lawns, family groups on the front veranda, interiors of homes, etc., and within a very few months his net income was over $50 a week.
Garden vegetable products having medical properties made a large income for a widow with several small children, and though it required considerable care, the returns were more than satisfactory, for the druggists bought all she could raise, at high prices.
Larkspur, for instance, the seed of which brings $1.50 to $2 per pound, was one of her successes. This she planted in rows about 18 inches apart, and, when 4 to 5 inches high, she thinned it to 5 inches apart in the rows, and harvested it like buckwheat.
She also grew parsley, as the seeds and roots find a good market as drugs, and the roots bring 90 cents per pound. An oil is obtained from the seed.
Ginsing is another profitable product of a medical garden, and brings approximately $5.40 per pound.
She obtained reliable information regarding these plants, without cost, by writing to the bureau of plant industry, at Washington, D. C.
When it is known that a silver fox skin is worth $2,500 in London, it will be seen that some capital is required to begin the raising of the animals.
A western man, who knew something of the business, organized a small company with which to purchase two or three female foxes and one male. The bureau of animal industry, at Washington, D. C., sent full information, free, on request, concerning this particular industry, and following the instructions received from that source the company made a remarkable success. One mother silver fox frequently rears eighteen young animals in three years, so the profit can be figured from this. Of course, the first cost was considerable, but this was amply justified by the returns.
A couple of young fellows in Salt Lake City started a collection agency by first opening a small office and calling upon all the merchants for their old, outlawed or hopeless accounts, on a commission basis ranging from 25 to 50 per cent of the amounts collected. By arranging with a good local reporting company, so as to learn the standing and financial condition of debtors, and associating an active attorney with them, they were able to write a form of letter that brought good returns. The reporting company saved them much time. These old accounts brought them in touch with good claims from time to time until in a few months the business was of sufficient size to give them a good living.
A young man in Ogden, Utah, who had a particularly winning way in approaching people, employed this talent to excellent advantage by doing the collecting for a number of firms at so much per month from each. His tact and agreeable manner won in countless cases where bluffing or threats would have been unavailing. He had made the discovery that “politeness pays” to the extent of $200 a month, or more.
That pansies can be raised with profit, and made a regular business during a certain part of the year, was proven by a young woman in a middle-west city, who possessed a great love for flowers, and had more time than money.
She started her seed bed in the latter part of July, and in September she set the plants in rows five inches apart. These plants she protected with coarse straw until almost the first of April, when she uncovered the bed. Then she replanted in 2-quart wooden baskets, eight to each basket. The retail price of these baskets was 15 cents each, or $1.25 per dozen baskets wholesale. She sold to both wholesale and retail dealers in plants and flowers, and realized a neat sum from their sale.
A number of merchants in a western city were induced by a young man of that city to organize themselves into a mercantile collection agency, the membership fee to be $30 a year and to entitle them to have all their accounts collected free, even though litigation should become necessary to enforce the collections.
When collections were made for those not members, the charges were 20 per cent on all amounts under $40; 15 per cent on all accounts from $40 to $100; and 10 per cent on accounts over $100.
The young man engaged a live-wire attorney to look after the legal end of the business, and drew a good salary as manager of the agency, besides sharing in the profits of the business after all expenses were paid.
It proved a good thing for the merchants as well as the originator of the plan, and made collections much easier than under the ordinary methods, besides being more economical for the members.
A Chicago woman raised rhubarb in boxes of rich dirt in her cellar during the winter months. It required but little attention, aside from irrigating it frequently with luke-warm water. In January, when everybody was longing for fresh green garden sauce, she sold it for 25 cents per pound, and made many dollars in that way. And rhubarb, besides being exceedingly healthful, is practically all profit.
Raising cabbage and tomato plants in boxes indoors during the late winter and very early spring, and later transplanting to beds out of doors, covering them from frost, and using good, rich soil, enabled a Kansas City woman to sell thousands of these plants for 10 cents per dozen, at a time when others were just beginning to sow the seed. Her receipts from this source alone amounted to $150 or $200 every spring.
The raising and selling of sweet potato plants alone, in boxes of highly fertilized dirt, enabled an Ohio woman to send her daughter to business college from the proceeds, even though she received but 25 cents per hundred. But the thousands of plants she raised brought a very handsome sum in the aggregate.
A Missouri woman, in whose orchard hundreds of bushels of fine apples were going to waste, made several hundred dollars each fall by converting them into apple butter, of which the storekeepers never could get enough to supply the demand, for she had apple butter reduced to the finest kind of a domestic science, and her product brought the highest prices. This is how she made it: Cider, 30 gallons; apples, 10 bucketfuls; sugar, 20 pounds; ground cinnamon, 10 cents’ worth. Add sugar about an hour before taking off the stove.
A young lawyer in a northwestern city had a client who owed him a fee of $400 for legal services. The client had no cash, but held equities in certain properties which he turned over as full payment for the fee. These included a 5-room house with a $600 encumbrance; an 8-room house, with $2,250 encumbrance; a clear lot in British Columbia and three clear lots in a small Montana town, which he was glad to throw in for good measure, as the equities in the other properties were of no value to him, since he could not pay off the indebtedness.
With all this property on his hands, the lawyer got busy. Over the long-distance phone he called up a bank in the British Columbian town where the clear lot was located, offered it at $250, and the offer was at once accepted. That left the two city houses and the three Montana lots out of which to realize the remaining $150 of his fee.
The 5-room house was in fairly good condition, so he moved into it with his family, and improved its general appearance by making a few needed repairs himself, and adopting the theory that a man’s property is dignified by his occupancy, and its selling possibilities increased. He then looked for a buyer or a trade.
A southern family, living across the street, greatly admired the little cottage, and offered in exchange for it a 160-acre farm, not far from the city, valued at $3,000, but encumbered for $330, provided he would pay cash $300 in addition. The lawyer made the trade on this basis, though in making this deal, as in all others, he adhered to his established rule never to assume an encumbrance upon a piece of property, but to take it subject to the mortgage, the purpose being not to be made personally responsible for the mortgage obligations.
Immediately upon securing title to the farm, he obtained a loan of $1,250, out of which he paid off the encumbrance of $630, and still had $620 in cash from the proceeds of the loan. Therefore, as a result of this deal, he had paid out $680, and had $620 in cash, and an equity in the farm which he sold for $2,700.
Then he moved into the 8-room house, which was in need of cleaning and painting, and at a total expense of $100 he made it look like a new house. And it was close to the business section besides.
Not long after moving into this place, he was offered another farm of 80 acres, valued at $6,000, which was later sold for $5,000, but encumbered for $1,500, for the 8-room residence, and he accepted that offer also, taking the farm subject to the $1,500 mortgage.
The paying off of the mortgage on this house, added to the $100 spent for painting, etc., required an outlay of $575, and by giving a mortgage for $2,000 on the farm, he cleared off the first mortgage, and had $500 in cash left to pay the $575.
When he figured up the totals he found that for a $400 attorney’s fee he received more than $3,500 inside of eight months.
This attorney adopted the plan of accepting equities considered of no value in other people’s hands, in lieu of small cash fees and found a use for the property which enabled him to deal.
An advertising man in a western city made $1,000 within a few months by purchasing a certain amount of space in the “patent insides” of a number of weekly papers supplied by a newspaper union, at 3 cents per inch, and selling it to city merchants and other advertisers at 5 cents per line. By signing up contracts for three or six months or a year, and filling the space with the ads. so contracted for, he derived a regular income from this source that enabled him to live well. This plan required sales ability plus hard work to make it a success.
A Middle-Western man, with some newspaper experience, arranged with a newspaper union supplying “patent insides” to handle a certain amount of space in a stated number of weekly papers using their ready-print sheets, at a rate of 3 cents per inch.
Then he had illustrated two-column heads made for several lines of business, such as: “Where to Eat When in Town,” followed by a list of restaurants, cafes, etc., each occupying two inches of space; “Where to Stop When in Town,” for hotels, rooming-houses, etc.; “Where to Buy When in Town,” for merchants in all lines.
He had but little trouble in filling these spaces with ads. that paid good prices, and made a handsome profit on the plan.
A special writer in a northwestern daily introduced a novel feature for the paper, upon which he was working on a commission basis, by conducting a manufacturers’ page, to appear on a certain day each week.
He had a zinc etching made, showing a large manufacturing plant, with heavy, black smoke pouring from several tall chimneys, and with every indication of great activity about the place. Under this cut, in heavy, black type, were the words: “Buy Home Manufactured Goods.” Below this appeared write-ups and small display ads. of the various manufacturing enterprises in the city, and in the center a strong argument favoring the patronizing of home industries, in order to encourage the growth of those already established, induce others to come, and thus keep the money of the home people at home, where everyone would have a chance to get some of it back through the increased prosperity that would ensue as a result of this commendable course.
Each manufacturer was asked, and generally consented, to run a certain number of lines or inches of space in this department, and it was not long before the manufacturers’ page was one of the most prominent features of the paper. Not only that, but the commissions of the young man who started and conducted this department amounted to more than the salary of the highest-paid man on the paper.
In the offices of the leading public stenographers in almost every city are thousands of names and addresses to be copied for the use of advertisers or other patrons and a Seattle young lady who was an expert typist, besides owning a first-class typewriter, secured all the work in this line she could do, by keeping in close touch with the public stenographers, directory publishers, and others.
This work paid her well, and there was always plenty of it for her to do.
A regular patron of a barber shop, while having his hair cut one day, conceived an idea. He proposed to the boss barber to install a row of mirrors, 21⁄2 feet wide, along the wall of the shop, about four feet above the floor. These mirrors he would put in free, with the understanding that he was to reserve the lower left-hand corner of each for advertising purposes.
As the mirrors then in the shop were rather dingy and old-fashioned, the barber was glad to make this arrangement, and the new mirrors were duly installed. Then the man who had thought of the idea went out and got enough advertising in one day to fill the reserved spaces, at prices that seemed extravagant, yet they were well worth the money. Ads. that were of special interest to men who frequent barber shops were taken for the most part, and these advertisers must have been pleased with the results, because they renewed their contracts each year. The first month’s receipts more than paid the cost of the mirrors, and after that it was most all clear profit.
Making a self-shining stove polish of finely powdered graphite, at a cost of 2 cents for a 2-ounce box, and selling it for 5 cents a box, was the way a hustling youngster at Bellingham, Washington, “got his start.”
This polish he called “Lusterine,” and put on each box a label saying it was “Best and cheapest. No mussy mixing. Makes old stoves look like new in two minutes. Produces an instantaneous polish that will not burn off. Apply with a damp woolen rag, then go over the stove with a dry cloth.”
He sold immense quantities of this polish to the hardware stores all along the coast, at 81⁄2 cents per box, thus clearing 11⁄2 cents on each, and also sold a great deal of it himself for 5 cents per box, or a profit of 3 cents. It gave him a good living.
A Baker City, Oregon, young man made a nice living and a surplus by buying several peanut-vending machines and placing them on prominent corners of his town, as near the moving-picture shows as possible. The machines were of the penny-in-the-slot order, and yielded a small handful of peanuts when a cent was inserted and a button pressed.
Of course, others in his town also sold peanuts, but he had a novel way of treating his, and soon secured the peanut trade. He bought his peanuts in considerable quantities from wholesale grocers in a large city, and prepared them by placing a small amount of butter in a large dish, then put the peanuts in. The butter would boil up and cover the peanuts, and roast them to perfection. This butter could be used repeatedly. Then he would stir a teaspoonful of glucose in a bushel of peanuts, and throw on the necessary amount of salt, the glucose causing the salt to stick.
A neat card calling attention to the superiority of his special brand of peanuts did the business, and he was kept busy roasting the peanuts and filling the vending machines.
These machines paid him a net profit from $35 to $50 a week.
An old lady in an Illinois town, who had always been very skilful in the use of the needle, was able to earn a very comfortable living by making sofa pillows, pin cushions, jewel trays, lamp shades, book-marks, waste and work baskets, catch-bags, etc., and selling them to people who wanted to make Christmas or birthday presents of them, yet could not do the work.
After the holiday season was over, she would insert a small ad. in the local paper, saying she was prepared to make appropriate presents for birthdays and other occasions, and her excellent work soon became so well known that she had all she could do. Her prices were rather high, but were justified by the character of the work she did, and people cheerfully paid them, as they realized the worth of her work.
For several months in the year, an energetic woman in a northern city paid the family grocery bills from the proceeds of a small flower bed in the back yard of her home.
She took especial care of this flower bed, as she realized that most of her neighbors were negligent in such matters, and would be glad of an opportunity to buy flowers from her later in the season. And she guessed right, for they were soon coming from all directions to buy her flowers. She had all varieties, which showed the effects of careful culture, and she charged good prices for them. For weddings, funerals, etc., she made up special designs, and sold them for several dollars each.
Among the rare flowers she raised were orchids, which brought very high prices in the winter, and she felt well paid for the labor and care she had bestowed upon her small flower bed.
An advertising man in the Pacific Northwest recently called upon the publishers of forty weekly newspapers, within a radius of 200 miles of the city in which he lived, and entered into contracts with each of them whereby he was to solicit advertising for them in the city and elsewhere, on a basis of 25 per cent, after receiving $100 worth of advertising space in each paper as a bonus. This $4,000 worth of space he sold at regular advertising rates, and in addition was paid 25 per cent on the business he secured and forwarded to the papers.
In this way the local weeklies furnished him the capital to make his start and they gave him a good profit on future business.
Living in a city where a great many magazines were taken, an old gentleman, who had no regular means of making a living, made a business of his own by gathering up old magazines from a large number of homes, and selling them at good prices to dealers. By calling regularly at the homes, he was given many of these magazines, mostly in good condition, and carried them to his home in a little cart. When he had accumulated enough for a good load, he got a friend of his with an express wagon to haul them to the dealers for a small charge, and received enough income in this way to supply him a living.
A country woman who had constructed a hot-bed out of some second-hand material she had gathered from time to time, made quite a neat profit by raising plants and selling them to her neighbors, as well as sending them to a market in the city, when it was too early in the season to obtain these in the regular way.
Tomato, pepper, cauliflower, cabbage, egg plant, celery, and all sorts of flowers, were given a good start in the hot-bed, and brought good prices for all she could raise.
Of all the numerous opportunities afforded the country woman for making money, none present so many possibilities as do the supplying of many real luxuries to people who need and want fresh eggs, butter and milk.
A farmer’s wife, who lived near a large city in Illinois, saw in these unsatisfied wants her opportunity for mutual benefits, and having a large number of chickens and milk cows on the farm, she set about utilizing these products in a way that meant a great deal for scores of city people, and for herself as well.
Through the insertion of just a little ad. in the classified columns of a city paper, she received replies from over one hundred city people who were interested in the prospect of buying these products, and she thereupon hired a good woman to help with her housework and marketing. Through the parcel post, she sent to the city every day the freshest of eggs, butter, milk and cream, and was soon in receipt of an income that paid all her own personal expenses, the wages of her assistant and the tuition for one year of her daughter who wanted to enter college.
The wife of a Nebraska farmer, who knew how to raise chickens with profit, made this industry pay by adhering to a few simple rules.
First, she weeded out all the “scrub” poultry on the place, and kept only the best specimens of the best breeds, as they eat no more than common stock, and bring much better returns.
Then she insisted on keeping her poultry yard absolutely clean, free from vermin and rats, and giving the fowls proper food in sufficient quantity to keep them in good condition.
She raised chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys, and, owing to her excellent methods of caring for them, had very little bad luck with them.
She made one or two trips to the city, secured enough permanent patrons to take all her surplus products off her hands the year round, at prices considerably in advance of regular market quotations, and sent her eggs, butter, young chickens and other fowls by parcel post, and cleared over $200 every season, with but little extra labor or expense. And $200 is quite a sum to a country woman, especially if she earns it herself and saves it all.
A farmer’s wife, who lived more than ten miles from the city, and realizing that it was not possible for her to market her strawberries, and other garden products by driving that distance, only to find the market over supplied for that day, resolved upon another plan for handling these berries profitably. She knew that by putting them up in the form of delicious jellies and jams, home-made she could get good prices for them long after the fresh berry season was over, so she obtained a large number of jars, glasses, etc., and made vast quantities of all kinds of jams and jellies.
Her judgment was confirmed the following winter, for when the city people learned of these home-made delicacies, through a little want ad. in the city papers, she sold the entire lot in less than two days, at prices she considered very high. The next year she doubled the quantity of jams and jellies put up, which doubled her profits as well.
This is a woman’s discovery, and a valuable one, too, for it not only kept the keys of the piano white, but made her a good profit. She introduced it by asking her friends to try it on their piano. She made it of the following ingredients, the proportions given being enough to make 96 4-ounce bottles of the preparation, and as a cleaner and whitener of piano keys it has no equal. The entire cost of making it, bottle, label and all, is only about 5 cents per bottle, and it sells rapidly at 50 cents for a 4-ounce bottle. This is the formula:
Grain alcohol, 1 gallon; water, 2 gallons. Mix. She learned by experience that this preparation prevents discoloration of ivory piano keys, and restores faded, yellow keys to their natural whiteness and gloss. With each bottle, properly labeled, she gave the following directions: Dampen a piece of chamois with the preparation, apply to the keys, and after fifteen minutes rub over with a dry piece of chamois. Repeat the treatment weekly, always using the same pieces of chamois, and you will always have white, glossy, beautiful piano keys.
She first sold this through agents, then to music houses, and later made it a mail-order proposition by advertising, and sold so much of it that she finally devoted her entire time to making and selling it.
A young lady in a western town of 25,000 people, where there were several studios for decorating china, was surprised to learn of the large number of beautiful and expensive pieces that were broken, through carelessness or accident, and decided to try her hand as a mender of this broken ware. Having the formula for making a mending glue to be found in this book, she called at one of the studios and asked for permission to take one or two of the cheaper broken pieces home with her, to see what she could do with them.
She at once prepared the glue very carefully and, with infinite patience and skill, devoted one hour to the permanent putting together of a broken vase she had brought with her from the studio. When it was completed, she was greatly surprised to find that only by the closest scrutiny could she herself detect where the break had been, and letting it dry until the next day, she took it back to the studio.
The proprietor was amazed to see how perfectly the broken parts had been put together, and at once gave her a number of the more expensive vases, pitchers, etc., to mend, naming a price for the work that surprised her. She mended these with the same skill and success that attended her first efforts, and now she is making a living doing this work for studios, as well as for many wealthy families in the town.
To make a small quantity of real country tomato sauce, to be used as a sample, a farmer’s wife in a section of country noted for its highly flavored fruits and vegetables, used the following ingredients:
Four pounds of ripe tomatoes; 2 pounds of peeled onions; 5 ounces light brown sugar; 4 ounces of salt; 21⁄2 pints cider vinegar; 1 teaspoonful black ground pepper; and 3 teaspoonfuls red pepper.
She ground the tomatoes through a grinder, and then added the onions by running them through the grinder also. She then added the other articles, and boiled in a porcelain kettle for about two hours, stirring it quite often to prevent it from sticking to the bottom. She then put it up in 6-ounce bottles, that would sell for 20 cents each, and submitted samples of her product to a wholesale grocery house. The president of the company was so impressed with its excellence that he offered to incorporate a company and erect a manufactory for the purpose of producing the sauce in quantities, under the direct personal supervision of this woman. She accepted the offer, was elected treasurer of the company, and is to-day drawing a salary of $4,000 a year, besides receiving dividends that amount to as much more.
Having discovered a simple yet effective method of destroying dandelions without digging up the roots, injuring the grass or otherwise disfiguring the lawns, a middle-aged landscape gardener in an eastern city made a great deal of money by taking contracts to destroy these perennial pests in hundreds of lawns, being frequently offered $100 by a wealthy householder if he would successfully eradicate them from the premises.
All he used for this purpose was sulphate of copper, which he bought by the barrel at less than 5 cents per pound, but which he sold at 25 cents per pound to those who wished to apply it themselves, though in most cases property owners preferred to have him do the work himself, and while there was no great labor involved, it usually paid him at the rate of $2.50 an hour, the material used costing about 20 cents, as one pound of the sulphate will make about four gallons of the solution, which is applied with a sprayer, sprinkling the tops of the plants liberally. This effectually destroys the dandelion, while the blue grass or clover of the lawn is not injured in the slightest degree by its application.
The wife of a Norwegian farmer, living in northern Minnesota, where the winters are very cold, had brought with her from the old country many excellent ideas of real comfort, and among these was the idea of feather comforters.
They had a large flock of geese and ducks, and thus the raw material for making these wonderfully comfortable comforters was easily available and plentiful. But she did not make them bunchy and unwieldy, but light in weight, neat, pretty—and extremely comfortable. The following is her method of making them:
The feathers are held in small sacks, made like long, narrow pillowslips, of cheese cloth or regular ticking. For each sack a strip of ticking about 20 inches wide and as long as the desired width of the comforter is used. This strip is stitched together up the side and across the end just as a pillowslip is made; then turned and filled with feathers and the opening is hand sewed. The thickness of the comforter will, of course, depend upon the amount of feathers put into each sack. An exactly equal weight must be used in each to insure a uniform thickness of the comforter. About twelve of these sacks, each measuring about eight inches across when filled, will be required for a comforter of ordinary length.
The covering for the comforter may be of calico, sateen, flannel, or even of silk. The top and bottom covers are held together by basting, then lines of stitching are run across the width far enough apart to admit of the long feather sacks being drawn through from side to side like tape through a hem; then the edges of the comforter are bound and the comforter is complete. It is warm and elastic, there is no bunching up of the feathers, and the whole is easily cleaned by opening the two sides of the covers and pulling out the sacks of feathers to be dry-cleaned or hung on the line to sun and air while the covers are being washed or new ones provided.
When these feather comforters were made in the manner above described, they sold readily for $20 to $30 each, and, inasmuch as she made as high as twenty to twenty-five of them in a single season, her income from goose and duck feathers may easily be estimated. A comforter made from the breast feathers of ducks alone often brought $40.
In an eastern town, where gas is still used for lighting stores, a little lame old man is said to make from $60 to $75 a week by taking contracts to keep gaslights in stores and offices supplied with mantles, which he makes himself, and by cleaning and polishing the fixtures. His charge is 50 cents a month per light, and he has many hundreds of these to look after, sometimes having as high as forty or fifty in a single store.
Mail-order people have many different selling plans, most of which bring good returns, but an agent in Ohio made quite a success of the plan briefly outlined as follows:
Selecting from the articles offered by a mail-order supply house one that usually retailed at 15 cents, but which cost him 8 cents, including postage, etc., he had a neat circular letter printed describing the article in detail, its uses and advantages, and offering it at 9 cents, if ordered within a certain time. These letters he sent to all those names he had secured in former mail-order transactions, explaining that every once in a while he offered special bargains in some article or other, and that this was one of those occasions. As most people already knew it was really a 15 cent article, he received a large number of orders, and when sending the article he enclosed another circular letter, quoting the prices on the other lines of articles, on most of which there was a fair but not extravagant profit. These also brought many orders from new customers, and by continually enlarging his list, and quoting his articles as close to cost as possible, he gradually built up a permanent and profitable business.
Two young men in a northwestern city wanted to be lawyers, and both wanted to go to Ann Arbor, Michigan. One had some money, the other had not. The one with money loaned his friend $100 and with $50 saved he had a total capital of $150.
By the time Ann Arbor was reached and the preliminary expenses defrayed, there was just $15 left of the $150, and the young man who had it realized the importance of adding to that as speedily as possible. Therefore, during his vacation, he devoted his time to selling books.
Arriving in a city in central Illinois with a bicycle, a prospectus, and just enough money to stay over night at a cheap hotel, he struck out into the country the next morning, pushing his bicycle through the black, heavy and sticky mud of that rich agricultural section, until he came to a farmhouse. Calling there, he showed the prospectus of the book, explained its merits in a carefully prepared talk, and when the farmer’s wife wavered between yes and no, he clinched a sale by offering to deduct 25 cents from the price if they would let him take dinner. They did, and he sold.
That afternoon he sold another book by offering 50 cents off the price for supper, bed and breakfast, and from that time on he needed no expense money, because he paid for his meals and lodgings by selling books to farmers and deducting the charges for them from the price of the book. And that made many a sale which he would not otherwise have made. At the end of ten weeks’ work he had made $350 as net commissions on his sales.
The next summer he took the agency for another book, which he sold in the towns and cities, thereby avoiding the strenuous work of wading through mud, and that season he earned $400 net in commissions on his sales, so that he had repaid the $100 loan, paid all his tuition and other expenses in college and had some money left.
The third summer, still sticking to the book business, he employed agents and assistants to make sales under his supervision, and made $500 through this work.
A young artist and a salesman joined forces and established an art bureau, along commercial lines, and made it a success.
The artist could not have secured business by personal solicitation had his life depended upon it, but he could draw—anything—anywhere. The hustler made no pretensions of being an artist, but he could get business whenever there was any, and very often where there wasn’t any, to a casual observer. Therefore, they made a strong team.
Their first specialty was the drawing of designs for doctors, lawyers and other professional men, the drawing containing the name of the person, some special emblem or symbol of his calling, or any other distinguishing feature he might select. From these drawings he could have an engraving made and as many copies printed as he required for bookmarks or other purposes. For these designs they charged from $10 up and did a good business.
Then they began a systematic course of commercial art work, embracing illustrations for advertisements, thus adding greatly to the attractiveness of advertisements. This feature they extended to all lines of business, and before long the advertising columns of the local newspapers looked very much like a picture gallery, while the ads. were eagerly looked for and carefully studied. They also made illustrations for the works of young authors.
Within a year or two they had all the work they could do.
There have been many forms of collection agencies designed, some being good, some bad and some indifferent, but the system planned and worked by a man in a northwestern city is certainly novel in its every detail. It “gets the money,” and nets its promoter from $12,000 to $15,000 a year. So the idea must be good.
This agency, incorporated, has the creditors sign a contract assigning to it all the accounts, judgments and notes listed underneath, in consideration of the services to be performed by the agency, and authorizes the agency to use its discretion in settlements, to collect, receive, adjust and discharge the same.
The names, last-known addresses and occupations of the debtors are given, with the date of the last item, the amount due, name of employer, etc., and on all of these accounts collected the agency is to receive a commission of 50 per cent for the first $100, and 15 per cent on all amounts in excess of that sum, except on notes, judgments and accounts over three years old, all of which shall pay a 50-per-cent commission, the commission to be due and payable to the agency whether the debtor makes payment to it or to the creditor. On any account withdrawn from the agency by the creditor, the commission to be considered as earned in full, and be due and payable to the agency at once. The creditor is to report promptly to the agency any payments made on the accounts after being listed, and the refusal of the creditor to report shall be held as a payment, the other accounts listed being considered as security for the payment of commissions on claims withdrawn or paid, or refusal to report. The contract to be enforced for six months, except as to judgments, notes or accounts upon which payments have been made, suit commenced in process of settlement, or secured in any manner. Creditor not required to pay any advanced fees or retainer, except 10 cents on each claim for address verification. In case the services of an attorney are advisable, creditor agrees to employment of one and to pay 50 per cent commission on amounts collected, where agency assumes responsibility for costs and attorney’s fees.
The creditor signs his name, with his business, the date and his address, and lists below the names, etc., of those debtors he desires to turn over to the agency, and for each name or account so listed he pays 10 cents to the solicitor who retains the entire amount as part of his commission.
The solicitor then forwards or brings to the office of the agency the lists thus secured, and the agency thereupon pays him 20 cents more for each account so listed, making 80 cents in all. Therefore, a solicitor securing 100 accounts in a day makes $30 a day.
This seems like pretty good pay for the man who solicits the accounts, and it is, but when it is considered that the head of the agency, who perfected this plan, collects practically 95 per cent of these accounts, and retains one-half of most of these collected, it will be very apparent that he can well afford to be liberal with the man or woman who goes out and picks up this business for him.
As an indication of the magnitude of the business, he performs services for 4,000 to 6,000 clients in a year, employs five girls as stenographers and multigraph operators, and sends out thousands of letters every month, most of which, bring tangible results.
It’s a big business, and there is a big field in which to work it.
The success of his plan lies in the rapidity with which he handles a voluminous correspondence, and in this he is materially assisted by the use of an electrically-propelled multigraph, rubber stamps, etc. His business is conducted almost entirely through letter-writing and he has hundreds of forms of original letters and follow-ups suited to all classes of debtors, enabling him to make attacks from every angle.
A Boston young man, some years ago, was traveling salesman for his father, a wholesale dealer in shoes. His experience on the road proved how hard it was to get dealers to push the sales of shoes of any make, and he decided to go into the business of making shoes on an extensive scale and selling them in his own stores. At that time he had no stores, and all the large manufacturers ridiculed his idea, but he went ahead, just the same, secured models of the most expensive shoes made, opened a little store in Boston, began making shoes of excellent value, yet which he could sell in his own store for $3 a pair—that was before the war, of course.
He advertised these $3 shoes, first locally then nationally, and the ads. brought a steady demand for the shoes, to which he had given a dignified yet easily-remembered name, and it was not long until he had more shoe stores, and still more. Now he has nearly 400 of them, scattered over most of the civilized world.
Never mind what kind of hair tonic it was. There are many ways of making various kinds, and those who wish to go into the business of selling hair tonic can select the one that suits him best. But it’s the selling idea you are after, and here is how one young man did it:
To avoid the necessity of sending a 12-ounce bottle by express, at a cost to the buyer of 40 to 50 cents, he got a hair specialist to condense it into one ounce, so he could send it in a common mailing case for less than 5 cents postage, and pay that himself. All the buyer had to do was to add enough water to the condensed preparation to make 12 ounces of good hair tonic, and to a list of names of people who had sent letters to other hair-tonic advertisers he mailed a neat little booklet telling all about his condensed hair tonic, and offering to send a 1-ounce bottle for 50 cents, also enclosing a fancy label for a 12-ounce bottle.
Out of 4,000 such names, he sold 900 of the 50-cent bottles; then he advertised and got more names, sent more booklets and got more orders.
However, in order to encourage sales of two bottles at a time, he offered a neat, small purse, that cost him 10 cents in gross lots, and offered this as a premium with each sale of two bottles for $1, and, as most of those who wrote him were women, the purse brought the orders.
An Indiana man and his bride were returning in their automobile from a trip to the country, and passed a beautiful rural bungalow on a small farm, which the bride greatly admired. She told her husband she would like to own that place.
Arriving in the city, he left his wife at her mother’s and drove to his office. Hastily glancing over the letters on his desk, he turned to the want ads. of the daily paper, and scanned them carefully until he found one which announced that a man about to establish a dairy wanted to buy any number of milch cows, up to fifty.
Suddenly he remembered that in a country paper, a few days before, he had read an ad. of an auction sale of milch cows, to be sold at a place about thirty miles from the city. He found the paper in his auto-coat pocket and saw that the auction sale was to take place the next day, so in the morning he kissed his bride good by, told her he would be back that evening, jumped into his machine and drove away.
Arriving at the place where the cows were, he looked them over carefully, saw they were of a good grade, looked at the sale announcement again, and noticed it stated that any purchaser of one cow could take the lot at the same price per head. Then he waited until a poor, scrawny heifer was put up for sale, bid her in for $35, and announced that he would take them all at that price. The owner and several bidders objected, but the auctioneer pointed to the terms of the sale, and, having the cash with him, our friend paid for the herd, hired two men to drive them to the address of the man who wanted cows, sold them at a profit of $1,000, and drove home that evening with the deed made out to his bride for the bungalow and little ranch she wanted. This is illustrative of the opportunity that appears when one knows both the sellers’ and buyers’ wants.
An experienced salesman in an eastern city, having an idea that if other kinds of goods could be sold on the installment plan watches could also be sold that way, decided to try it out and see.
Beginning with a capital of less than $100, he first arranged with a watch factory that turns out a fairly good timekeeper at a low price, to supply him with a certain number of watches at from $3 to $12 each, to be delivered to him in small lots at first, as he could pay for them; and having expended the greater part of his $100 for these, he worked it at first simply as a local proposition, doing the canvassing himself. As the watches all contained an American movement, the cheapest of them having a five-year guaranteed case, they gave good satisfaction, and the monthly payments were promptly made, almost without exception.
It was not long until the business was paying him from $250 to $300 a month, and at that time he began to make it a mail-order business, advertising in a list of papers recommended by a reliable agency.
He aimed to sell every watch for at least three times what it cost him, and as he required from 25 to 33 per cent as a cash payment, this usually paid the wholesale cost of the watch, while subsequent payments were practically clear profit.
To those replying to his ads. he sent a neat circular, with illustrations of the various watches he had for sale, with prices, terms, etc., and these brought a very large percentage of sales. He is now averaging $500 a month net profit.
An Illinois man, living in a city of 25,000 people, had noticed that much of the distributing done in his town was very poorly executed. He had seen boys entrusted with expensive and valuable literature, chuck great masses of it under culverts, into sewers and other out-of-the-way places, and then collect as though having done honest work.
He knew of several druggists, and retailers in various lines, who let tons of advertising matter, sent them by manufacturers and wholesalers for distribution, lie in the stores and go to waste because the retailers were too busy or too negligent to have it properly distributed where it would do the most good.
He therefore called upon these people and offered to do their distributing in an honest and capable manner, at a very reasonable price, assuring them that it was to their own interest to have this advertising matter get before the public as early and as thoroughly as possible.
Most of the firms, knowing him to be reliable, gave him their work, and almost immediately noticed a marked increase in the calls for the particular goods mentioned in the literature. Improvement came from proper distribution, and they were glad to contract with him by the year to do all that class of work for them, at a stipulated price per month. Altogether, these contracts netted him nearly $100 a month, and left him spare time for other kinds of work.