Richmond daily register. (Richmond, Madison County, Ky.) 1917-1978, 1920-02-06

How John w. Welch, the president
of the close corporation, and his faith
er,. Samuel Welch,. before him, built
iup this tremendous business way off
there in the foothills will be of inter-
est to ambitious country and small
town merchants.
Sam Welch came to Kentucky from
Virginia in 1890 and opened in Berea
what he called a general store. He
had four fixed ideas of doing business
and kept to them assiduously until his
death in 1910. These principles were
"frst come, first served" "cash to all'',
"all men look alike. From a begin
ming of $4,000 or such matter he did
a business in 1910 of over $4,000
which, at that time, was phenominal
for small country town.
John w. Welch, the son, and pres
ent manager and real force behind
the organization, was a student in
Yale Law school at the time of his
fathers death. He was then twenty
two years old, but had been well
grounded in the business methods of
his father. He came home in April,
1910 to shoulder the new responsible
ity. He is now thilty-two years old.
John Welch said, "When came
home from college to shoulder the
new task l had my own ideas and
ambitions. Youthful ambitions often
seem foolish in their proportions but
are not always to be laughed at. Hav-
ing attended four southern colleges be-
fore going east, it gave me an op-
portunity to see and feel the differ
ence in proportion in the way they do
things in the east and south. Hav-
ing caught the vision that the people
who are doing big things in this coun-
try are but ordinary people and that
there was just as good chance for
me to do things as anyone else, !
plunged in. l started back to Ken
lucky to make my fathers already
large country store the largest and
best of it's kind in the United States.
studied modern methods and applied
them as fast as possible. visited the
best stores in the land and, as far as
practical, their ideas were installed
and today we have a modern depart
ment store of twenty departments and
forty-eight employees. The policies
used by this store have been so diff
ferent and so outstanding from the
competition of local firms that that
in itself has been very valuable as an
advertising asset.
"How do we do it,? We do it first
by carrying full stock of goods. We
buy in car load lots so that we can sell
cheaper than most other people. The
assortment we carry is the assortment
that the community demands. By con-
tinually studying the needs and desires
of our patrons and by introducing new
ideas the up-to-the-minute, merchan-
disc of the world can be found in our
store We make a study of those
things that the largest and best stores
in the country carry and do, and we
have introduced them to our public.
and they have long since learned that
our styles and our recommendations
are correct and they can depend upon
them. We not only carry the best
goods but we tell the people about
them.
The next interesting feature is our
sales force organization. The depart
ment heads meet every week. The en-
tire sales force meets once month
These meetings enable the manage
ment to cement the force closer to-
gether, to teach salesmanship, effic-
iency, and the like. 1t unifies the en-
tire operation and gets cooperation
better than any other known method.
Country correspondents are used in
every school district A weekly report
is made by each of these and a month
ly report also. They are paid for these.
Sometimes there is an emergency re-
port and these prospects are followed
up either by phone, mail or in person
munity service is put above the matter
The policy of store service and COM
of profit and is fostered to the limit
and the results prove that it is para,
mount to all other policies.
"Now, we take advantage of the
weakness of our general competition
and study and put into actual practice
the knowledge we. learn about things
such as, system, efficiency, merchan
disc cost, operating expenses, trade
journal pointers, advertising, balance
sheets, display of merchandise, COM
munity needs, service, turnover anc
salesmanship. Such things are practi
cally unknown in rural merchandising
and when you find a store enthuset
) with such modern practices, with th'
$ pep and enthusiasm you find il
Welch's Stores you need not wonde
at our phenomenal success"
; Here are some figures that will shov