The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-03-01
IS BIG BUILDER.
Value of Advertising Shown To-
peka Business Men.
p. s. Harris Delivers Strong
Address on Subject.
FACTOR IN BUSINESS.
FACTOR IN BUSINESS.
Is Mighty Element in Structure
of Commercial Success.
Expert Copy Writers Receive
Princely Salaries for Work.

"a Merchants Views of Advertising
was the subject of an address by P. S.
Harris of the Harris-Goar company of
Kansas City, firm that uses the mail
order system of selling watches and
Topeka Advertising club this noon.
club present.
Mr.. Harris said in part:
1T is the ambition of every man to
! have a business of his own. If you are
not already your own employer and
have no ambition to become such, the
chances are that you are not a salts
factory employe.
Is Part of Commercial Life.
advertising has become so much a
part of our commercial life that
whether we start business on a mil
lion or a wienerwurst, we must adver-
tiSe, and whether or not it will pay
depends upon many things 1t depends
first upon the advertiser himself 1t
depends upon the amount of money he
spends in advertising as compared
with the amount of capital invested,
and it depends upon his knowledge of
his business and the knowledge of his
employees of that business, and last but
not least, it depends upon the expert
ence and integrity of the advertising
agency with which he does business.
nesses were built UP in this country
without advertiSing-at least without
advertising in the sense we speak of it
today. But what did such a business
stand for and what did it mean? 1t
stood for what the father, the grand
father and the great grandfather and
all their wives, sons and daughters had
accomplished. 1t mean years of slow
growth and DEVELOPMENT and genera
tons of self denial, energy and
ecOnomy.
'sThen a large business was only
possible If established and followed
generation af+er generation, While to-
day with our modern advertising ia
cilities, a large business is possible
within few short years.
''Then as now. the small business
had message for it's patrons, but no
adequate means of transmission The
magazine and the mail order publica-
ton was undeveloped, the free rural
delivery system was unknown; yet 1t
had its message just the same. but its
transmission was limited to the per-
sonality of the man behind the bust
ness and successive generations were
required in its successful delivery.
''It is to the young men and the be-
ginnerS in the five. ten. twenty and
fifty thousand dollar classes that the
problem of advertising is vitality i'm
portant. 1t is then the time for you
to know the best and safest way to
invest your money and make it grow;
it is then when you are spending your
own money and the beautiful theories
and stories that are based on the pre-
sumption that you have million at
YOUR disposal must be abandoned; it
is then when, if you are to succeed,
you must have the nerve to look at
your own books and hold your own
COUNSEL; it is then. when you must
deliver your selling message to your
patrons, but the cost of the transmits
sion must be clearly reckoned with; it
is then when you will find that your
banker is in business for himself and
his stockholders and that all this talk
about floating a big business on
shoe string is largely hot air; it is then
when you will have to figure whether
you will hire porter or come down
an hour earlier and do the work your
self; it is then when you will have to
figure whether you will transmit your
message by running a one-inch display
or a six line classified; it is then when
you must know more about your bust
ness and every part of it than any
other man in the world.
Stick to Your Banker.
1T is far better to have few big
of little ones among any kind of peo-
ple-you'll find that the spreading of a
small capital over large business may
make it mighty thin in some places,
and unless you are on to your job and
give your business the closest kind of
attention. it may take something be-
sides advertising to mend the punctures
you'll find that your banker is the
most unnatural person on earth, but
remember that his life is not all Amer
lean Beauties, for if he smiles he is apt
to be peStered with a lot of over drafts,
and if he is grouchy he does not get
the business,-so stick to hin-because
he has troubles of his own and the fact
that he kicks you out once in a While
may be the safety valve to your bust
ness. (Applause.)
1.-THE fact that a house is doing
large amount of advertising does not
prove that such advertising is success
full. The campaign may be conducted
with money that will never return, or
it may be the experiment of some old
advertiser who in his silence is able to
grin and bear it, Yet without quail
fications, nearly everybody is given TO
the statement that advertising pays
but if these same parties were pre-
scented with some of the monthly adj
vertising bills, they would be the first
to throw up their hands and declare
that such expenditure would surely re-
suit in bankruptcy, all of which goes to
show that too many people overlook
the fact that in order to make advertis-
ing pay, the inquiries received from the
advertisement must be handled by ex-
perienced men with the proper kind
of followup to get the orders, and the
orders must be filled with the right
kind of goods at the right prices, or in
other words behind every advertise
ment there must be a house capable Of
backing up the advertisement and pro-
ducing the orders necessary to make it
profitable and advertising when thus
handled, becomes a commodity as free
ITSELF