The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1922-05-03
SUCCEEDS.

We happened to pick up a little adj
vertising magazine sent out by a ma
chine manufacturer. 1t has a number
of good stories and it makes some
good suggestions. Among the arti-
cles in the magazine is the following:
"a lot of people have the idea that
a big corporation possesses something
akin to occult power.
Gwen the employees frequently get
this idea into their heads.
".The Texas agent of a big COM
pany, with executive Offices in New
York, suspects there is some mystic
rious force that keeps the business
going, and that it doesn't make the
least difference whether he works
hard or not.
"Now the fact is that the Texas
agent is just as important to the sue
cess of the corporation as any other
agent, and the only reason why the
corporation is big is because it has
agents scattered through the towns
of the country, who mail in hun
dreds of small orders each day.
Individually these orders do not
amount to much, but collectively they
mean a tremendous volume of b2si-
ness.
"A big corporation gets business
in exactly the same way as any other
company or individual gets business.
81 had this brought home forcibly
to me one day when a young man
came into my Office and presented a
card of the Sante Fe Railroad. I hap
pened to be a member of a fraterni-
ty that was about to hold a conven-
ton in one of the cities on the Santa
Fe line.
"The young man wanted me to 60
to the convention, and travel over
the Santa Fe. I suppose the round
trip ticket would have amounted to
about 500.
"The visit of that young man i'm
pressed me more on that particular
Enorning than would a visit from the
President of the United States.
81 have travelled on the Santa Fe
only on a few occasions and never for
more than an overnight ride, but I
have always heard it referred to as
a fine railroad. I don't know what it's
annual volume of business is but l
am sur it is so large that my 500
would not be missed.
"Yet the fact that the Santa Fe
singled me out as a prospect and
LOOh Tile tIOuUle W Call VII ihS, was
proof positive that it was out for all
the business it could get, and that it
was using a direct and elemental way
of stirring up trade.
"Too many men with small bust
nesses sit around envying mel with
big businesses, wishing they could sit
at a mahogany desk and rest their
feet on an inch-thick rug, forgetting
that the prosperity of every business,
large or small, rests on the activity
of individual statesmen who are out
turning the door-knobs of prospective
customers.
SIN business there is no under
ground passage to success.
Cali have to travel over the same
highway. And anyone who sneaks off
to the sideline and lies under a shade
tree has to eat the dust of those who
keep going"
Perhaps it would be worth while
for the young man and the young
woman in Abbeville engaged in bust
ness as an assistant to another, or to
some large or small corporation, to
read this over again and think
about all that is said. The true worth
of the workers or employees of a
corporation, or natural person, de-
ponds on the amount of the orders
sent in. The worth of the individual
employee depends on the number he
sends in, whether the number eX-
pected, a smaller number or a larger
number. If each individual sends in
lust enough to make the business a
,f