Plan No. 31. Lawyer puts Dictaphone to Profitable Use
A far-sighted young attorney in a large city, desiring to extend his acquaintance among the older members of the bar, and at the same time add materially to his rather limited income, figured that he could do both by writing the briefs of those lawyers interested in cases taken to the higher courts on appeal. He purchased a dictaphone and, having familiarized himself with a case, by reference to the files, and otherwise, he found it an easy matter to get the attorney’s consent to brief it in proper form, especially when he could do it for considerably less than it would cost the attorney to do it himself.
This plan brought him an immediate financial return, gave him a large acquaintance among leading lawyers, and vastly increased his knowledge of law, through frequent references to supreme court reports and other authorities. It also aided him in building up a practice which has become both permanent and profitable.
For more than three years a man in a western city realized a net profit of $225 a month, through the very simple plan of renting water filters, and then sold out his business for $5,000. Having a little spare money he bought filters by the gross from the manufacturers, at $12.50 per gross, or a fraction over 12 cents apiece. They were the reversible kind, filled with powdered charcoal and crushed granite, were nickel plated, easily kept clean, and caught all the impurities in the water leaving it clean and pure. He bought the filtering material, charcoal and crushed granite, by the barrel, at a cost of about $6.00 a barrel. These materials he mixed in equal parts, placed them in the filters and was ready for business.
Plan No. 32. Pure Water his First Thought
An epidemic of typhoid fever broke out in his city about that time, the cause of which was found to be in the water supply, and the means of excluding the disease germs from the water that came from the faucets assumed the form of an imperative demand. This man had some circulars printed, calling attention to the efficiency of his filters, and sent boys to distribute them all over the city.
Then agents were sent out to the houses to show the filters and offer them for rent at 10 cents each a month, a fresh filter to be installed every month. The agents were given one-half of all the money they collected, and as nine in every ten households gave them contracts, both agents and originator of the plan realized a steady and handsome income.
At the end of the month the agent would call at each house, take off the old filter, attach the other end to the faucet, set a clean glass under it, turn on the water and show the lady a glass filled with impurities. That would settle it. She would at once hand over another 10 cents for a fresh filter, and the agent would proceed to the next house.
Between 5,000 and 6,000 filters were thus kept rented, the old ones refilled with fresh material, and the man who used this plan and a little money not only saved hundreds of lives, but cleared up over $13,000 for himself in three years’ time.
Not the big press clipping bureau, with its elaborately furnished offices and scores of employes, but one which any energetic young man or woman may start in a small way, and earn more than a comfortable living, while increasing the scope and revenues of the business. Here is how a bright young fellow did it:
Realizing the pride and vanity many people feel in seeing their names in print, and calculating on their curiosity as well, he subscribed for a number of papers in near-by cities and towns, and pays particular attention to the personal paragraph columns of them all.
He carefully notes the name and address of any person named in these paragraphs and sends him or her a letter stating that their name was mentioned in a newspaper on a certain day, adding that it might be of interest to the person named, and that he will send the clipping for 25 cents.
Curiosity alone will impel most people to send the small amount required to obtain the article in question and this young man received seven orders and remittances from every ten letters he mails out. To mail fifty letters per day would cost him $1 for postage, and to fill the thirty-five orders received, $1.05 more, or a total expense of $2.05. He would receive $8.75, and his profit would be $6.70 a day.
There are cook books and cook books, but we know of only one in which thousands of housewives, who contributed recipes to it, took that deep personal interest which made them feel that each one positively must buy a copy of it.
This one was thought out by a young man in a middle western state, and literally “takes the cake”—and the cash.
If there is any place where the ordinary woman likes to see her name in print, outside of the society columns of a Sunday newspaper, it is in a book, and especially in a cook book.
This young man was aware of this fact, and out of his knowledge he evolved a plan that paid him many thousands of dollars. First, he obtained from directories and mailing lists the names of several thousand women, and mailed to each one a letter, stating that he was about to publish a cook book, and asking them to send in such recipes as they personally knew to be exceptionally good. He told them that each woman so contributing would be paid a royalty, based upon actual sales of the book, and also have her name and address printed in it. The price of the book was to be $2.00 per copy, but those contributors willing to waive all claims to royalty would be supplied at $1.00 per copy.
He also offered each contributor a commission of 50 cents on every sale of the book she made. The letter was carefully written, and brought answers and recipes in a perfect avalanche, practically all the letters contained orders for a book, so that he knew it would require 10,000 copies to fill all the orders.
Then he got busy with the national advertisers, manufacturers of, and dealers in, kitchen specialties, household supplies, flour and yeast dealers, etc., and, having proved to them that his first edition would be 10,000 copies, he secured advertising enough to pay the entire cost of publishing the book.
You know, as does everybody else, that $5.00 is too much for any safety razor ever made. A western man who found himself a cripple for life, and had to earn his living or starve, perfected a plan for supplying the best kind of a safety razor for 25 cents, and made a permanent income for himself and family. He wrote a good circular letter, in which he asked the reader to send in his old safety razor, no matter what its make or condition, together with 25 cents, and said that upon its receipt, with 4 cents in stamps to prepay postage, he would send a new safety razor that would give excellent service and be durable, the handle triple-silver plated and highly polished and one Swedish steel blade, well tempered and hand-honed, while extra blades would be supplied at 15 cents for three, postpaid.
He bought safety razors of the kind described, for about 71⁄2 cents each, and made a profit of 171⁄2 cents on each one. A set of these blades cost him, with postage, about 7 cents, and his profit on them was 8 cents.
Supplying reliable lists of names to magazine advertisers and others would not at first be regarded as a very profitable business, but here is the experience of an Illinois man who made it pay well:
Studying the advertisements in the magazines, he thought of how much these advertisers could save if they were only brought into direct contact with the class of people each one was trying to reach at so great an outlay as magazine space involves.
He thought of a way in which it could be done. He had learned that he could buy the 400-page edition of Webster’s dictionary for 11 cents each with postage of 4 cents each, or a total of 15 cents, in quantities. Then he inserted, through an agency, an ad. in all the country papers for quite a distance around, offering to send a handsome dictionary free in return for a little information which anyone could easily give.
The answers came so fast that he was obliged to send mimeographed letters to those who replied, in which he asked for the names and addresses of all those in the community who were suffering from rheumatism, deafness, or any chronic ailment; also the names of property owners, horse and cattle owners, people with lawns, fruit trees, porches; the names of mothers, prospective mothers, newly married couples, etc., and stated if the information so given proved authentic, he would later arrange to pay them on a cash basis for other names, though the dictionary would be sent for the first lists.
Thousands of names were obtained in this way, and he proceeded to typewrite them, making ten carbon copies of each list, fifty names to the sheet.
He then wrote to each of the advertisers to whom the lists would be valuable, stating that he had obtained the names through his own correspondents in various communities, and offering to send them 1,000 names of those who would be interested in the advertiser’s line, for $5, or 500 names for $3.50.
He invited a trial order first, in order that they might test his service, and nearly all of them responded. In fact, he received more orders than he could well take care of, and the usual result of one day’s work was a net profit of $70. He then branched out on a larger scale, using various articles as premiums.
And this man who had been a clerk on a small salary for years, had only enough money when he started to pay for his advertisement, buy postage stamps, and purchase a typewriter on the instalment plan. He “used his plan”—and won. He never sold the same list to two concerns in the same line.
Plan No. 37. Auto Inspector at Work
“I was a fair auto mechanic, familiar with the mechanism of every machine on the market,” said a man who is now a prosperous dealer in a western city. “But I was out of work, and could not get the kind of job I wanted, so I decided to make one for myself. And I did.
“I called upon some twenty well-to-do owners of cars who did their own driving, but who were not able to locate or remedy many of the little troubles that are certain to happen to all machines, and told them that for $1 per week I would spend an hour each week in their garages, inspecting their autos, adjusting such parts as were even slightly out of order, and doing all small repairs, but furnishing none of the materials required; that I would do square, honest work, and thereby save them many dollars. All but two of these men accepted my offer, and were so well pleased with the results that I soon had a list of fifty regular patrons, and was easily making my $50 a week and more, without the investment of a single cent, except what I had paid for my kit of tools.
“Of course, for extra work I made a reasonable additional charge, and later I arranged with a supply house to furnish me with extra parts of equipment, which netted me a nice little profit besides my regular income as auto inspector.”
Of course, everybody knows all about the 5- and 10-cent notion stores that have made millionaires of their owners, but who ever heard, until now, of a 5- and 10-cent grocery store?
One man, who lives in a good-sized western city, had never heard of such a thing, but one day the idea came to him, and he tried it out—and made it win.
He rented a small but neat store room in a good location, on a well traveled street, put up shelves on both sides and set a nice show case in the center. There were no counters. Then he went to the head of a leading wholesale grocery house and had them put up a special line of all their goods that were not perishable, in handsomely printed cartons, in quantities that could be retailed at 5 and 10 cents each, and still pay both the wholesaler and the retailer a small but fixed margin of profit.
He made a similar arrangement with a well known and popular packing company to handle its products in the same manner, while a local cannery was only too glad to obtain the publicity this method afforded.
Inside and on top of the showcase were displayed bottled goods, preserves, jellies, flavoring extracts, candies, toilet specialities, soaps, etc., while the shelves were used for a convenient arrangement of cereals, rice, hominy, beans, teas, coffee, and most of the canned goods.
As soon as his doors were opened, he discovered that he had “picked a winner,” for the neat and tasty display of the various articles and the fact that they could be had in the small quantities many people desired, made a hit with the women of the neighborhood, and the enterprising originator of this novel plan came out at the end of the year with a net profit of several thousand dollars.
It would hardly seem that the mere storing of door and window screens during the winter season, when they are not needed and are in the way, would prove profitable, but an old gentleman in a West Virginia town earns many good dollars through that plan, and others might follow his example with profit.
Plan No. 39. Work that Anyone can do
A spare room, or a barn loft, where there is no leakage from the roof, is all that is required to get into the business.
This man has about 300 customers, for whom he removes the screens in the fall and stores them carefully away, properly ticketed, so as not to get them mixed up with other people’s screens. In the spring he takes them back to their respective owners and replaces them. His charge for the season is about $2.00 for the average house but where the screens are to be repainted, he of course makes an extra charge for that service.
To be sure, this income is small, but it is $600 or more every spring or fall, and six hundred dollars extra often means a great addition to the comfort of an old man.
A lady living in a city of the Middle West had by long practice become an expert button-hole maker, and so great was her skill that she had more calls for her special work than she could fill.
Dressmakers, tailors, department stores, housewives who made their own dresses, all were anxious to secure her services in this particular line, and she derived a very comfortable income from this specialty.
Recently she has organized several classes of young ladies to whom she is teaching the art, as she realizes that she cannot continue to make all the good button-holes required in her community, and is anxious to give others a chance to do some of this work. In these days of specializing, why not a button-hole specialist—especially if it pays?
A young lady typist who was obliged to give up her position, in order to take care of her invalid mother, arranged with a business man to write his letters in payment for the use of his type-writing machine.
Then she addressed letters to a number of other business men, offering to do their stenographic work and typewriting at her home, and in a short time had work that brought her better returns than her former salary had been, besides being able to look after her sick mother.
An ambitious mother, who very much desired to send her daughter to college, decided upon cat culture as a source of raising the necessary funds. She paid $25 for a pair of pure-bred Angora kittens, gave them the best of care and in three years these kittens and their progeny have netted her more than $1,000. But her resourcefulness in providing charming surroundings assists her greatly in the important matter of sales.
She enclosed the back yard of her home with chicken wire, and divided it into two sections—one for colored cats and the other for white cats—with low buildings on each side for comfortably housing the mother cats and kittens.
The yard was then planted with roses and other flowers, and when the well-kept cats and kittens are seen by prospective purchasers in those delightful environments, the effect is so appealing to their sense of the beautiful that the buyers freely pay almost any price. A few small ads in the local papers bring her customers for all the cats she can raise. Just a little plan, but it has brought remarkably pleasing results.
A young lady who found herself dependent upon a married sister, decided that she would create a profession of her own and be under no obligations to anyone.
She distributed a number of her business cards among the society leaders of her town, announcing that she would take complete charge of parties and other social events, whether for grown people or children, and relieve the hostess of all anxiety concerning the success of the affair, besides saving considerable sums in the outlay for the occasion.
She was given a number of engagements, and succeeded so well that her services were soon in constant and ever-increasing demand.
She superintended the decorations, arranged the menu, looked after the comfort of each guest, and saw that all were served in a manner to meet their hearty approval. She also planned all the details of the entertainment, in whatever form, and became a positive necessity, as the various hostesses soon learned that she could not only provide a better program than they, but actually saved more in the matter of expenditure than her services cost, which varied all the way from $5.00 to $15.00 for an afternoon or evening.
A young lady in Ohio, who recently graduated from a music school, has originated a novel and profitable method of selling sheet music. Realizing from her own experience that the surest way to cause anyone to want a particular piece of music is to let them hear it properly played, so she arranged with a leading music dealer to allow her a rather liberal commission on all sales she might make.
She then selects a number of the best pieces, and ringing the bell at the first house she approaches, and asks if there is a piano or an organ in the house. If the answer is yes, she asks if she may come in and play a piece of music. In most cases permission is freely given, and seating herself at the instrument proceeds to play two or three of the selections. She has chosen so well, and plays so beautifully, that in nearly every house where she is accorded the privilege of playing, she sells from one to half a dozen or more of the sheets, and goes on to the next house.
She has often made as high as $50 a week by employing this plan.
Here is a plan which is good for a town where there are a large number of offices. A young woman who lived in a town of this kind made it pay.
She visited the various offices in the place and contracted to furnish each one with a clean, fresh towel every day for $1.50 a month, or two towels per day for $2.50 a month, two deliveries to be made each week. She secured contracts enough to bring in $47.00 a month.
She then bought $25.00 worth of good towels, hired a colored woman to come twice a week to wash and iron the towels, and paid a little boy to deliver the fresh towels and collect the soiled ones. The service proved satisfactory, and, although the enterprise netted the young lady only a little over $30 per month, she found it sufficient to support herself and her invalid mother, as they owned their home and were economical in their expenditures. It left the young lady with her entire time at her own disposal to be devoted to other work.
Plan No. 46. Baby’s First Picture
Getting the children interested, and working on your side of a proposition, is the surest way to reach the pocketbooks of the parents. An Iowa man, who was out of work and money, evolved a plan that worked so well that he has been at it ever since.
He owned a good camera, and understood how to use it, and having tried soliciting orders from house to house, without success, he hit upon the plan of borrowing a team of goats and a small cart from a boy friend, and started out.
Whenever he saw a child, he would stop and tell it that he would give it a free ride, and take its picture in the cart, if it would get the consent of its mother. Of course, all the children got busy right away, and called their mothers to come and see how “cute” they looked in the cart drawn by the goats. The result was that nearly every mother was glad to give an order for a dozen or more pictures to be delivered in three days, and the enterprising artist soon found that he had all the business he could attend to, at good prices, and now owns a complete outfit.
A young lady in a city who was quite expert in the use of a camera called at the homes which had children and took their pictures, usually with the mother and baby in some natural position. She obtained the birth records and forwarded a card each month congratulating her, also called attention to the service she was rendering by taking the pictures of children, stating that she would call in a few days—also said the mother took no obligation because of her call. She then called as early as possible to get the first picture of the new baby.
Most people have hair troubles of some kind, and most of them have used the widely advertised hair tonics, restorers, etc., with but little appreciable benefit, as some simple home preparation usually produces the best results.
Now, you have read in scores of household magazines, and elsewhere of ways without number in which the hair can be beautified and its growth and lustre wonderfully promoted, without the risk of injuring it in any way.
A widow lady in an eastern city collected all the formulas of this kind she could find anywhere for making dry, brittle hair soft and glossy, for preventing and stopping the hair from falling out, for making the hair thicker and longer, for the removal of dandruff, and correcting all other forms of hair trouble. These she had printed, each on a separate slip of good paper, and also provided herself with neat stationery.
She then advertised in a number of newspapers that covered the territory for 200 or 300 miles in every direction, stating that she had formulas for every conceivable form of hair trouble, and that particulars would be sent upon request. She received thousands of answers, and in reply to these she sent a circular letter saying she had a formula for the particular difficulty named in the inquiry, which she would send upon receipt of 50 cents, and the person to whom it was sent could have it put up under her own personal direction, thus knowing exactly what it contained. As many of these preparations can be put up from ingredients to be found in most homes, they are not expensive and the lady built up a very profitable business through this method.
Every farmer will buy a good, reliable waterproof harness dressing, and if you know how to make it, you can sell it rapidly.
A young man who had spent most of his life on the farm found himself stranded in the city, and when a friend gave him the recipe for such a dressing, he bought the materials with his last few pennies and began selling it to the farmers. He realized such a good profit from his first sales that he was soon able to make it on a much more extensive scale, and started on a trip through the country, where he sold it to farmers he called upon. Here is the formula:
Petrolatum, 4 pounds; Burgundy pitch, 4 ounces; rosin, 2 ounces; ivory black (dry), 60 ounces; beeswax, 4 ounces.
He melted the rosin, pitch and beeswax together, then added the petrolatum, and when melted, he stirred in the ivory black, stirring it until cold, when he put it up in tin boxes and pasted a printed label on it. This preparation is applied with the fingers or a soft cloth, and rubbed well into the leather, on both sides and edges, after thoroughly washing the leather with softsoap and water, and letting it dry. It imparts a nice black appearance to the leather, but not a high polish, and renders the leather soft and pliable. Used as a shoe dressing, it makes shoes waterproof, so that one does not need rubbers.
To test it, he would, after applying it, soak the leather in water for a few hours, weighing it both before and after soaking, and thus prove that no water had been absorbed.
This man clothed an old idea in a new dress, greatly improved upon it, and made it a permanent, paying business.
He got twenty merchants, in different lines, to pay him $5.00 each for a page ad. in a book, and spent the $100 thus received in having 2,000 copies of it printed. Then he sold the 2,000 copies for 98 cents each, or a total of $1,960. But who is going to buy a book with nothing in it except twenty pages of ads, do you ask? Answer: 2,000 people. Why?
Every advertiser in that book has agreed to give a certain discount on every item he sells to the person who has bought that book—the furniture man giving 10 per cent off, the hardware man 5 or 10 per cent, the dry goods man 12 or 15 per cent, the grocer 21⁄2 per cent, and so on—every one offering a discount that in the aggregate means a saving of $100 or more a year—to the buyer of the book. And the book that entitles these people to so great a saving on their purchases costs only 98 cents! Will people buy the book? Does 98 cents look bigger to most people than $100, or possibly $200? Of course the books sell, every last one of them, and the enterprising publisher gets nearly $2,000 net out of it, the merchants get a whole year’s splendid advertising among people who want to buy from them, for $5.00 each, and the printer gets $100 for putting out the book.
In these days of an ever-increasing demand for short stories by hundreds of old and new magazines, when thousands of aspiring young authors are reaching out for fame and fortune, it is but natural to assume that but few of them are familiar with the form in which manuscripts are required to be submitted.
In practically all cases manuscripts must be typewritten, and young people all over the country who do not own typewriters, and could not use them if they did, are always glad to have this done for them.
A young lady who was a skilled typist realized this fact, and at once inserted a few ads. in a small number of papers reaching this class of people, to the effect that she would do this work for them at reasonable prices, and turn out her work in the high class manner required by publishers.
She excelled in spelling, punctuation, paragraphing, etc., and felt certain of her ability to do satisfactory work.
She received many replies to her advertisements, and in a few months had established a pleasant and profitable business of her own besides having placed many ambitious young authors in a position to present their manuscripts to publishers in acceptable form, thereby greatly increasing the chances of acceptance.
Any young person, man or woman, who possesses the ability of this young lady, can do equally well by following the same plan of doing satisfactory work at fair prices.
A widow, who was left with some very good furnishings and about $200 in cash, resolved to make an opportunity of her own and improved it to such excellent advantage that she made a satisfactory living by following a definite plan and the exercise of an unusual amount of good taste.
Renting a small but attractive down-town store room, she fitted it up with the furnishings of her home, imparting to the place a decidedly cozy effect, and she printed some 500 cards, which she sent out by mail, paying regular letter postage on each. These contained an invitation to visit her “Many Happy Returns Shop,” where rare gifts, suitable for all occasions, could be purchased at prices ranging from 10 cents to $10 each. She further intimated that an inspection of her wares would prove extremely interesting even to those who did not come in to buy.
Living only a short distance from New York, she went to the city and, visiting the Italian and Syrian districts, she purchased many pieces of old brass, trays, pots, lanterns, etc., while in the Japanese quarters she bought odd bits of china and lacquer, in all fifty articles, costing her $30.
She also asked her friends to bring in odd or rare articles for her to sell on commission, and arranged everything very tastefully for her opening day, when large numbers of people visited her store and many of the novelties were sold at good prices. Her first day’s sales netted her $7.66, and by constantly adding to her stock of rarities and other attractions, she enjoyed a steady and substantial income.
“A friend of mine,” said a successful merchant, not long ago, “was making and selling—or trying to sell—three preparations of great merit, but with such indifferent success that he decided to give it up.
“I knew the value of his preparations, and concluded that his failure was due to himself rather than to them. I, therefore, outlined a plan for him that I thought would bring success, and loaned him the money with which to make another try at it.
“I had 1,000 circulars printed, to each of which were attached twenty coupons of the face value of 5 cents each. I then got ten merchants to agree to accept one of these 5-cent coupons at its face value on every dollar’s worth of merchandise purchased for cash, and gave the names of these merchants on the circular, with their agreement to accept the coupons as above stated.
“The regular price of my friend’s preparations was 50 cents each, but I told him to offer the three for $1.00, and give each purchaser $1.00 worth of the coupons besides.
“The way the buyers went for those preparations, when offered in this way, was simply amazing, as they got the three preparations for nothing, since the various merchants gave them back the dollar they had paid for the coupons, and the merchants themselves were well pleased with the effective advertising the plan had given them, since it brought each of them many new patrons.
“But the best part of it was that my friend not only sold this first $1,000 worth of coupons, but a good many thousand more, and gladly repaid my loan in a day or two. Besides, it established his remedies permanently, as people had found out in this way how good they were.”
A woman left totally unprovided for by her husband, a commercial traveler who died suddenly, had to provide for herself and family.
Discussing with her friends what she could do to make a living, one suggested that she pack trunks for people who did not know how. She had always packed her husband’s trunks.
She acted on this suggestion, and made arrangements with a large hotel to pack trunks for its guests. She furnished bonds to amply protect guests against loss.
Plan No. 53. Her Husband was a Traveling Man
There are many hotels and travelers throughout the country that would be glad to avail themselves of such assistance.
Our friend the suburban gardener, lives several miles from the city, where he has about three acres of ground in cultivation, and knows how to make it pay—via parcel post.
He knows that the city man likes nice, fresh, crisp vegetables, right from the soil the day he gets them, and that he will pay a good price for them, besides saving the unwilling tribute he pays the city middleman for dried up, shriveled and often spoiled market stuff, that may be a week old. And the gardener gets more for his produce when he sells it direct to the city consumer. So he runs a small ad. in the city papers, stating what he has for sale, that they are strictly fresh, and the prices he asks.
From one or two regular customers at first, he gradually increases his list of patrons, until he has more than a hundred upon whom he can depend as steady buyers of his products. He plays fair with them, gives them exactly what he advertised, with prompt delivery that assured their arrival in fine condition—so he builds up a business.
Three times a week he sends postal cards to his customers advising them that tomorrow it will be fresh, crisp radishes, or sweet, juicy young onions or tender, luscious asparagus or rhubarb, or any other of a dozen or more delightfully appetizing things grown in the garden, with the price of whatever it is, to be sent by parcel post so as to reach the city customer the same day. Who wouldn’t buy from a man who did business in that way, and rendered the service that everyone appreciates.
But the supply of the suburban gardens is never greater than the demand, and thousands more can find health, plenty and happiness in this pleasant and profitable occupation. Why not be one of them yourself?
This young man lived in a city of about 7,000 inhabitants, where there were several wholesale houses, as well as a large number of up-to-date retail stores. The town was in the midst of a prosperous farming community, where the farmers were kept busy at home looking after their crops, and had but little time for coming to town.
One day this enterprising young man had an idea, which proved to be a good one, for it enabled him to make a good living.
He secured the name of every farmer living on every rural route running out of the city, and sent him a well printed circular letter, offering to make purchases for him of anything he might need in town, and send it out to him by parcel post the very day the order was received. He added that no charge would be made for this service, but that the farmer would get exactly what he desired, at the same price he would pay if he came to the city himself.
He then arranged with wholesale and retail merchants to pay him a commission on all articles sold for them in this way, besides paying the postage, and inside of three months he had one hundred well-to-do farmers on his list who, instead of coming to town for what they wanted, phoned their orders to him, and they were filled so promptly and satisfactorily that the farmers placed absolute confidence in him and allowed him to make practically all their purchases for them. He proved a good shopper, and built up a profitable business by just thinking out a feasible and legitimate plan.
The very best table relish it is possible to make is prepared from the following formula by a woman living in the country, who has created for it a demand far greater than she can supply. Here are the ingredients:
Ripe tomatoes, 9 pounds; onions, 2 pounds; cider vinegar, 3 pints; cayenne pepper, 2 teaspoonfuls; black pepper, 4 ounces; brown sugar, 6 ounces.
She mashes the tomatoes thoroughly, peels and grinds the onions in a vegetable grinder, then places all the ingredients in a porcelain vessel and boils them briskly for about two hours. Then she places them in short half pint water bottles, costing about half a cent each, cuts off the corks close to the bottles and seals with sealing wax.
One taste of this relish invariably creates a demand for more, and she can sell it as fast as she can put it up, and have many calls for more. There is a fine margin of profit in it, as she raises practically all the materials herself, and by making use of the parcel post she has been able to come out over $1,000 ahead each season since she began operations. Lately she has been enlarging the scope of her activities, with the assurance of a much larger income from year to year.
Just try this yourselves, you mothers who want to make some money with very little outlay.
A newly married couple decided to spend their honeymoon in a small Ohio town surrounded by beautiful scenery, and having a stereoscopic camera among their possessions, took it along, as it might come in handy. And it did.
They happened to know that they could obtain from a Chicago firm, for 80 cents per hundred, any number of the colored views shown in stereoscopes, and which agents usually sell for $1.50 to $2.00 per dozen, and they ordered twenty sets of 100 each, paying $16.00 for the lot.
Then they used their stereoscopic camera in taking a number of views in that vicinity, together with pictures of noted persons, groups of children, grounds and residences of leading citizens, and other objects of local interest.
When all was completed, they made a personal canvas of the town exhibiting the colored views to the people, through an ordinary stereoscope, and in this way created a most favorable impression as to the superior character of the work.
The sets of 100 colored views were offered at $5.00 each, and, as a premium, six of the local views were added, but they made an extra charge when views of some subject of special interest to the families were ordered taken; and where people had no stereoscope, they ordered one, which made them a good profit.
Their work became a popular fad in the town, and they received and filled so many orders that in two months there they cleared over $500.
It is not necessary to buy a stereo-camera—an ordinary camera will do. Print two pictures from negative, paste these two on cardboard cut down to proper size, and your picture is complete.
A young man made use of the following plan to get started in business:
Living in a western town of about 10,000 inhabitants, he noted the various cards of “For Sale,” “For Rent,” “Furnished rooms,” “Board and Rooms,” etc., and decided he could help these people get what they wanted, and at the same time make a little sum for himself.
He called at each of the places where cards were displayed, explained that he was about to begin the publication of a renting and business bulletin, and would insert an ad. under the proper heading, to remain until the particular want was supplied, and distribute free a certain number of these bulletins all over town each week, all for $1.00 for each of such notices, to be paid in advance.
As most of those he approached knew him to be reliable, he had no difficulty in securing a little over 100 subscriptions of the kind desired; then he went among the merchants of the town and contracted for a sufficient amount of advertising to pay the cost of printing the bulletin, leaving him the entire amount received for publication of the “for rent” and other notices as clear profit.
He faithfully distributed the bulletins from house to house, in hotels, reading rooms, and barber shops. This gave him a start. He continued to solicit advertisements and worked faithfully at his little publication which gave returns sufficient to make his living.
That grasshoppers, which have been the scourge of many sections of the country for many years, can really be made to serve a useful purpose, and so utilized as to pay at least a part of the damage they do, was proven by the experience of a Kansan woman who had found great difficulty in making her hens lay during the winter months.
The grasshopper pest had been unusually active in her part of the country that year, having destroyed practically every growing thing within reach, and her hens were about the only available source of revenue that remained. But how to feed them was the problem she could not solve.
Suddenly she became impressed with the fact that the hated grasshopper was an ideal chicken food and tonic, and as other foods and tonics were too expensive for her slender purse, she decided upon laying in a good supply of grasshoppers—but how? They must first be caught.
She bought a piece of screen wire 4 feet wide by 20 feet long, bent it lengthwise in a circular form, and fastened the edges with large-size hooks and eyes, with circular doors, working on a single hinge, at each end, fitting the edges closely. She then constructed a frame of 4-inch pine sheathing, 4 feet high and 20 feet long, back of the trap, and covered it with white oilcloth, slanting it in such a position that when the grasshoppers struck the oilcloth they would slip down into the trap. These they carried out into the wheat field one evening in August, placed them in position, and started driving the swarms of grasshoppers toward the pitfall thus prepared for them. The white oilcloth shield proved a great attraction for the hoppers, and in forty-five minutes they had driven four bushels of the insects into the trap. Beneath this they placed a formaldehyde generator, covered the trap with muslin made to fit over it, and soon had it full of dead grasshoppers. These they carried to the barn loft, spread them out to dry, and put them away in sacks. Altogether they got over eighty bushels of dried hoppers, and those hens laid that winter as they had never laid before.
A polishing cloth would seem an insignificant thing in itself, and it is, but often it is the little things that make good profit and a man in a western city, who understood this fact, made thousands of dollars by giving it practical application.
He bought a bolt of outing flannel of the cheaper grade, and from this he cut a few hundred small pieces of the proper size for samples. These he immersed in a solution which he had made, as follows: One-half pound of castile soap, shaved fine and melted to a jelly. When thoroughly dissolved, he added a gallon of soft water and 4 ounces of powdered pumice stone, coloring it with tincture of red analine. This gave him a polishing cloth that worked wonders with silverware, brass and other bright metals, imparting to them a lustre that but few of the high-priced polishes can give, and doing away with the mussy method of using a powder with an ordinary cloth.
Securing a number of good canvassers, he gave each of them 100 of the small samples, 100 full sized polishing cloths, and 100 imitation type-written letters addressed to “The Lady of the House,” asking her to use the small free sample which the agent would leave with her, and note its many points of superiority over polishing powders, etc.
Nearly every housewife would use the sample, and be so well pleased with it that when the agent called a couple of days later, with the full-sized cloths, at 25 cents each, it meant a sale in almost every case. The man who made the cloths gave the agents half the proceeds of all sales, and the other half he retained for himself which was practically all profit. By extending his sale to other towns, he developed a big business.
We know of a man who averaged $40.00 per day through the sale of mailing lists to advertisers all over the country. But they were good, reliable lists of live people, who for years had not been flooded with a tidal wave of advertising circulars.
These names he procured from county, town, and other officials, from certain directories, and from private individuals in different parts of the country. In some cases he advertised in country papers, asking for replies from those willing to furnish lists of bonafide names, usually offering some small inducement to secure this service, and the lists thus obtained consisted largely of well-to-do farmers, which proved the most salable of the lists.
The various magazines and metropolitan dailies gave him the names of advertisers anxious to reach the class of consumers who comprised his lists, and he sold them for prices ranging from $2.00 to $10.00 per thousand, though in some special cases his charges would be considerably more. Indeed, in one case, where he had secured the names of 5,000 speculators and investors, patrons of the stock exchanges, he asked, and received, $80 for the list, and sold it to many advertisers in various lines. He had his lists typewritten with as many as ten carbon copies to each page, and the expense of supplying them to numerous customers was very trivial, while his receipts netted him a good living each year.
An elderly man who lived in a small eastern town had formerly been a merchant in the city, but had failed through the dishonesty of a partner, and was obliged to make a humble living by any legitimate means.
Being familiar with all the details of buying and selling, as well as with the quality of various kinds of merchandise, he decided to become a professional shopper, and succeeded beyond his expectations.
He distributed cards throughout the little town and its vicinity announcing that he would make daily trips to the city, and for a small charge would purchase such articles as might be desired by local people from the big city stores, particularly those advertising “bargain sales.”
As most people in a small place know of these bargains, through the columns of the city dailies reaching their places, and would like to take advantage of many of them, yet cannot afford the time and expense of making these frequent trips themselves, they were very glad to have this service so promptly and satisfactorily performed for them by one they knew to be reliable. The elderly shopper soon had all he could attend to. Outside of his fare, his expenses were nothing, and while his charges were so reasonable that it saved his patrons many dollars in railroad fare, as well as a great deal of valuable time, it made him a very comfortable living. He not only received a small sum for his service to each customer, but he received a special discount from the store that filled the order.
The vagaries of the weather have never been regarded as affording a living for anyone except the “local forecaster,” but here is the experience of a man in Iowa who thought otherwise, and made money out of the plan.
He paid $40 for a large thermometer, all complete, the same being about six feet high, mounted on a frame 3x8 feet, and containing space for fourteen advertisements. These he readily sold to merchants of the town, at $15 for each space, bringing his receipts up to $210, or $170 after paying for the thermometer, and many times he sold the entire fourteen spaces in one day’s work. To be sure, he was obliged to buy the thermometers in quantities, in order to get them for $40 apiece, but as long as he could realize a profit of $170 on each, he could well afford that. As his business increased, his orders for thermometers grew larger and their cost correspondingly smaller, so that he soon found himself on the road to success. He did not give this advertising service in towns of less than 5,000 people, and even if he only sold three thermometers in a week, his income was very good.
Some ten years ago two brothers went to a North Carolina town, in the fall of the year, rented a piece of ground near the outskirts, carefully laid it out in large beds, and planted it in lettuce, to be sold to northern markets during the winter months.
The inhabitants of the town ridiculed the idea, declaring that the lettuce would freeze when the weather got cold, and even if it grew, it could not be sold at a profit, but the brothers said nothing, for they knew what they were doing.
The lettuce, after planting, came up nicely and made a rapid growth, but it wasn’t allowed to be touched by frost. Covers to fit over all the beds were made from coarse cotton sheeting, and held in place by hooks fastened to rings in small stakes driven at the corners and edges of the beds. These covers were taken off when the sun was shining and replaced over the beds at night, when there was frost in the air.
Soon the people of the town went out to see how the lettuce crop was growing, and were so astonished at its marvelous growth, and the fabulous prices it brought in the northern cities, that large numbers of the people took up lettuce growing as a regular business. It was not long before the receipts from the lettuce in that town were $100,000 a year, and everybody was growing it; the men in the fields, the women in their gardens, and all making money at it, for the variety was of the best, the soil just right, and all conditions were adapted to its culture.
Usually two crops were grown each year, one in the late fall, the other in the early spring, and it was shipped up north in board baskets, where it brought from $1.25 to $3.50 per basket, according to its grade and the condition of the market at the time of its arrival. The people in that town do not laugh any more when lettuce growing in the winter is mentioned, for winter time is harvest time down there.
An enterprising woman in a western state has made money in home-made salad dressing and peanut butter. She started demonstrating the superior quality of her products in a little corner grocery. She now owns a large building on a prominent street in a city, and sells her produce all over the Northwest.
She not only knows all about making the very best salad dressing and peanut butter that anyone could possibly imagine or wish for, but she insists upon a high degree of cleanliness and care in the preparation of her products. Her corps of assistants and employes are selected with a view to maintaining the excellent standard which formed the basis of her own success in the beginning.
Other women have excellent recipes for making good things to eat, and, though all of them may not make large incomes from the knowledge and skill they possess, yet they may at least add largely to the family income by making such articles to sell at a good profit, and, at the same time, benefit the consumers as well.
A young newspaper man perfected a plan under which he took over the advertising of all the weekly papers published within a radius of 100 miles or more from his home town, including those having “patent insides” supplied by the branch of a prominent newspaper union in his town.
Arranging these various publications in groups of forty or more, he established a rate for each group that not only offered the advertiser a very great reduction from what it would cost him to deal with all these papers separately, but still left him a good margin of profit. He soon became the head of a prosperous business which yielded a net income of $600 a month.
This plan can be worked to good advantage by capable men in other localities, as it requires but little capital to start it.
It isn’t every girl who feels competent to work her way through college, when her people are not able to pay the expenses of her course, but this one did, and proved it by paying all her bills and having something left besides.
Being very proficient in embroidery work, she organized a class of fifty of her fellow-students, to whom she gave a course of twenty embroidery lessons, at $5.00 each for the course, while several of the girls who wished instruction in difficult stitches were each charged $1.00 a lesson. She also took subscriptions for a periodical devoted largely to embroidery and needle work, and received a commission of 25 cents on each subscription she secured.
The faculty gave her shopping privileges two afternoons each week, and she improved these occasions by executing commissions at the various stores for the other girl students. She had excellent taste in the matter of selections, and her purchases were not only highly pleasing to those for whom they were made, but she received a discount from each of the merchants thus patronized, and this netted her a neat little sum, her commissions alone in nine months amounting to $260.
She also added $90 to her income through the sale of copies of articles contributed to the college journal, and her total earnings for the year were $662.50.
The income she derived from these various activities not only relieved her parents of all expense for her education, but gave her a valuable insight into practical business principles and methods, while developing a spirit of confidence in her own abilities, as well as a feeling of independence.
The old saying that “pigs is pigs,” might with equal propriety be applied to calves, particularly if they are of Holstein-Friesian stock, if one is to judge from the experience of a breeder of blooded stock in New York state.
From one cow, nine years old, this man has sold five calves for $4,800, has another for which he has refused $500, and still another of her progeny is owned by a man who wouldn’t sell it at any price.
This man started as a poor boy, who was obliged to work as a hired hand on a farm, at $10 per month. But the farmer employer did not always have the $10 when the month was up, and really couldn’t afford to keep a hired man, or a boy, though he needed one.
However, he did own a pure-bred Holstein calf and the farmer offered this calf to the boy for two months’ work on the farm. The boy had a keen eye for good points of an animal, and accepted the offer, keeping the calf in a small pasture on his employer’s farm until fall when he took it with him to his own humble home and gave it the best of care.
Well, that calf was the mother of the nine-year-old cow that was the mother, of the five calves which the “boy” has sold for $4,800, and still has a calf worth more than $500.
A husky young Irishman, who lived in a town too small to maintain a regular police officer, and too large to be entirely without protection from hold-ups, burglars and fires, especially at night, called upon the principal merchants of the place and arranged to give such service as was needed, on a basis of 25 cents a night from each one.
Fifteen merchants readily agreed to these terms, and, by remaining on duty every night including Sundays, he was able to earn $26.25 a week.
The third night he was on duty he captured a man in the act of stealing. Needless to say, that after this, the other merchants in the town quickly added their names to the young Irishman’s list of protected firms, and his weekly pay-check soon became much larger.
A small farmer, living a few miles from a city, derived a very handsome income from the raising of ducks and geese.
From a long and careful study of various domestic fowls, he had learned that, while ducks and geese are much more rare than chickens, and that many people prefer them as table birds, they eat much less than hens, and the feathers of the geese are always in demand, at top prices.
Both ducks and geese are much more hardy than chickens, and not nearly so liable to disease, therefore the losses are not so great. By keeping “Indian Runner” ducks, he got an almost unlimited supply of eggs, which always brought good prices, while during the holiday season the demand for ducks and geese was second only to the demand for turkeys, which are expensive to raise.
When he figured up his receipts at the end of the year, he found that each goose had brought him a net profit of $5.75, while the ducks averaged considerably higher, owing to their greater egg-laying capacity. Both classes of birds, when fattened just before Thanksgiving, brought fancy prices, and involved a great deal less labor and expense in their raising than would be required in the case of hens.
That a smile, a pleasant word and a liberal amount of good humor will succeed better in the collection of accounts than the bullying method, was the idea of a young friend of ours who decided to make Collections a regular business.
About all he had with which to make a beginning was a desk, three chairs, a small rug, a second-hand typewriter, and $50 for some printed matter and a month’s office rent.
He had arranged with a young lawyer friend of his to attend to whatever litigation might be necessary, and the attorney’s name appear on his letter heads as counsel for the agency.
Then he called upon the leading merchants and solicited their accounts, on a basis of 5 per cent on the fairly good ones, and from 24 to 50 per cent on others.
In every case where it was possible, he called upon the debtor personally, and possessing a most pleasing and sympathetic manner with which to meet the usual “hard luck” stories he encountered, he was able not only to impress the fact that he was the debtor’s friend but to compel a recognition of the creditor’s rights and equities in the matter.
As a result of this method he collected many old accounts that were regarded as hopeless, and made his business pay.
In those cases, however, where the debtor was defiant and inclined to not to care he dealt with them judiciously.
You probably have no idea how many people would pay for rag rugs, to be used in their bathrooms, bedrooms, dining rooms and elsewhere if only some one would make them and sell them from house to house.
An old lady in Illinois, who knew all about making rag rugs, as well as rag carpets, and who needed a little money very badly, concluded to use her knowledge of rug making and make a few dollars in the only way she could think of.
Her only available resources were a quantity of clean bits of cloth of various hues and textures, some needles and thread. The pieces of cloth she tore into strips of the proper width, and sewed them together, so as to form combinations of blue and white, brown and white, red and black, grey and old rose, etc. and, having no loom with which to weave them, she made them into three-strand braids and sewed them together in oval shape, until she had completed a mat about 21⁄2x31⁄2 feet.
Some of these she sold from house to house, at very good prices, while others she displayed in a department store window, where they sold rapidly, though she was obliged to pay the storekeeper a small commission for selling them.
She made a very good living at it.
It seemed impossible, but here’s the story of a man who did it, and made a good living out of it, also kept four men on the road working at this novel but legitimate plan:
He had been a traveling salesman for several years, and on one of his trips had gone into a grocery store, but found another traveling man ahead of him.
This man was showing the grocer the details of a plan whereby he could have a photo enlarged for anyone buying a $5 punch-ticket, good for that amount in merchandise, and paying $1.25 additional.
Our enterprising friend saw it was a good plan, but believed he could improve upon it, and proceeded to do so.
After a long search he finally found a photographer who would make copies of any photograph for 50 cents per dozen, when a large number of orders was given. Then he had several thousand punch-tickets printed, calling for $5 worth of merchandise, and these he sold to merchants at $5 for 500, while the merchant, in turn, would sell the $5 punch-ticket to a customer.
Later the originator of the plan opened a small studio of his own, and thus reduced the cost of the photos to 39 cents per dozen, leaving him a profit of 11 cents per dozen, and it was then that he quit the road himself and put four good men on as many routes, while he remained at home and managed his business.