The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1903-06-05
Modern Business Methods

M0ueTn BUSINESS METHODS
The newspapers have lots Of fun
joshing the breakfast food fad.
Nearly everybody is eating the pre-
pared sawdust, which is put up insfif-
teen-cent packages under various
names, and everybody will continue to
eat the stuff as long as it is advertis-
ed. That's the American public every
time-and it's strange that the aver
age country merchant doesn't more
thoroughly catch the spirit. Perhaps
no greater object lesson of the value
of advertising v happened than the
downfall of the bicycle trust. Accord
ing to Col. Pope, the Columbia wheel
expert, the bicycle business was orig
inally built up by advertising. When
the big trust was formed and compea.
tition largely eliminated 1t occured.to
the managers Of the new organizza-
ton that it would be a good ideaStoa|
cut out the advertising and throwthe
money into the profits-as many y
smaller concern has done to ItssI
sorrow. But let Col. Pope tell it in III
own way: 1Yd
Its capitalization was $4,000, 900. The net
yearly income of its component concerns was /
reckoned for it's underwriters at over 5000, 600
in 1897 and 1898, and estimated at So, 10000 for
the year 1899.
TWAS not q prescribed .trust"-not a soueez-
ing monopoly, but a magnificent leader IN the
oVnt nf Sfa nponnnkavoE Il -nc ~ -
standard in bicycle production, and outsiders
must De content to lag behind. It controlled
an extraordinary range Of standard and popular
designs and could challenge. at will, tho price
cutting Of the cheapest machine makers. With
this dominating organization, capital and
faculties, it WAS expected to distance competi-
ton and reap enormous profits.
In the fret year of its triumphal march 1t
began to salt away money for its stockholders
by cutting down its advertising-using what
one of its officials likes to call .'the condensing
method" Next year it gave some more w~ringine
twists to the compress Of its condenser. During
the year just closed it compressed its acver
Using almost to tho vanishing point, and in all
these years its business shrunk in direct proper
ton to the ehrinkage Of it's advertising, until
In September last, just three. years from the
month of its %sanguine start, it defaulted the
payment of its fixed charges and went into
the hands of receivers. It never paid q divid-
end land its fifty operating plants have shrunk
two-thirds.
There is no business, big or little
that cannot be helped by advertising.
The greatest function Of advertising
is the demand it makes for the goods.
1t is possible by judicious ,1se of print
ers'ink to make the public believe that
it wants a new suit of clothes, a pair
OF shoes, a dress pattern, a new hat or
a better monkey wrench-just as easy
as it is to wheedle itinto the idea that
it wants sawdust for breakfast and
exercise on a bicycle or a ride on the
cars. The country merchant who.
reasons that everybody knows him,
sets himself up as a bigger man than a
Field or a Mandel or q S%iegel-men
know by their places of business from
the Atlantic to the Pacific and who
are continually investing a greater
amount OF the gross receipts Of their
business for advertising then ten
country merchants would think of
A city department. store
doing a business Of 81, Oo0 600 annually
thinks nothing of spending $4,000 a
year-or three per cent OF the gross
receipts-for advertising, but the
country merchant who thinks he can
spend one per cent is hard to find. "A.
machinery man may get in a car Of
buggies or wagons for which he paid
$1,000 or 81, 500 and deliberate half a
day with a newspaper whether to in
vest fifty cents in a local or blow him
self seventy-five cents worth-and this
in the face of the fact that the profits
from the sale of. the cheapest vehicle
in the lot would pay for a whole page
Of advertising. Many country mer-
chants have gone at advertising with
the same care and intelligent effort
that marks the operations of the sue
cessful city Notwithstanding
themselves of curse to the limit of
the business to be secured-and when
more of them realize that much Of
the advertising they have been doing
is worthless and use the same care
that attends their other business
operations, it will mark a new era in
their enterprises and dispel much of
the nightmare Of the big department
stores and mail order houses now
fighting for the trade.
When a mai says that his wife or
sweetheart is worth her weight in