The Winslow mail., 1922-09-08
IT'S A WISE MAN THAT KNOWS
HIS OWN COMPETITOR

When Dempsey and Carpenter
faced each other in the prize ring
in Jersey City about a year ago
they were competitors. They gnew
it too.
When two contractors submit
bids for erecting the same building
they are competitors usually.
When the makers Of Old Crow
We'd for sales with the makers of
Old Taylor they thought they were
competitors. That was a mistake.
Their real competitor was a pro-
position to pass an amendment to
the Constitution, now known as the
Eighteenth Amendment
Twenty years ago the competitors
of manufacturer Of oil lamps were
not other oil lamp makers; they
were the electric light companies.
In similar way playing cards
are arrayed against modern dances
phonograph against player pianos,
automobiles against real estate The
obvious competitor is the fellow
who is making or selling the same
kind of thing you make or sell
More dangerous sometimes is
business you never regard as a
competitor. That is the reason it
is more dangerous. You pay no at
tention to it..
How was the manufacturer of
petticoats ten years ago to know
that by 1922 most women would not
be wearing petticoats?
Who was the carriage and buggy
| makers competitor when Roosevelt
was President.
What barber worried about safe
y razors during the Spanish-Ameri-
can War? Not one man in ten
shaved every day anyhow The man
who couldn't shave himself either
had to go to the barber or grow a
crop of gosh-ding- whiskers
Yet there are men that took ad-
vantage of the very things that were
putting their fellows out of bust
ness The safety razor remade
barber shops, few years after
sir. Gillette's handsome face became
amiliar to the nation, barber shops
took on a new appearance.
The old-fashioned, gloomy, fly
ridden thewall disappeared
The colored barber retired to the
background. Instead came the spot
less white coat, the cleaning white
chair, the splendid mirrors. fresh
towel for every customer and many
mysterious and interesting forms of
cleanliness and sanitation.
Are you old enough to remember
when the town butcher used to
think that Armour and Swift were
his competitors? Driving a COW
out to his slaughter house once or
twice a week and driving back with
chunks of warm meat in a spring
wagon was his idea of being but
cher. Those Chicago packing house
would never run his business for
him, he insisted
Yet butchers today have better
meat and nicer business because
they have realized that this sus-
pected competition was really SER
vice-service to themselves and their
customers
The livery stable that became a
garage knew what to do about COM
petition. Like the Japanese wrestl-
er, it threw it's opponent with his
own strength very pretty trick
| for small man to use on a big
man.
Your competitor, any mans COM
DetitOr, is the person or thing that
gives your customers something they
want more than the thing you have
to give them.
| You must hold peoples interest
Hold their interest and you hold
affection, you hold their trade, you
hold their admiration.
Lose their interest and one by one
you lose all.
When the automobile was new
scoffers used to call. Get a horse"
| to the passing motorist
They don't any more.