HD 9198 U54 S339 1896 MAIN UC-NRLF *B 273 SbS JR BUSINESS GREED CO J LIBRARY OF THK UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Received Accession No. (o^ST) Cla * s No - I Our -IBus'mess GreecQ WE GO BY IT AND SO MUST OUR EMPLOYEES A SCHILLING & COMPANY SAN FRANCISCO * Copyrighted 1896 by A Schilling & Company U54S331 IBflfe STAND BY! A battle at sea. Everybody is under orders. The plan of battle has been laid out by our admiral. Each man is given his part to do Captain R among the rest. It is not a brilliant plan % A greater admiral would have devised a better; but all pull together and it looks as if we are going to win. But, in the middle of the combat, a bright idea strikes Captain R, who is a clever tactician, and he runs off with 'his ship to carry out that idea. At that moment the battle begins to turn in favor of the enemy and we are defeated. We had depended upon Captain R, but where his ship ought to have been there is a hole and the enemy gets through, and we lose the battle. Afterwards, when our fleet gets together again, we have a council of war and Captain R is taken to task for not doing his duty. His reply is: " I had a better idea and went off to execute it." The admiral says: " Captain R, you are a genius. Your idea would have been far better than mine if you had suggested it beforehand; but, when we are fighting a battle, every man should keep his place, and not run off with his own idea. You have neglected the first duty of a soldier: to obey. You will be dismissed from the ser- vice." MANY FAILURES IN BUSINESS WHY? Statistics show that 95 per cent of men in business for themselves fail. Many of these men enter the employ of others, and do well. This shows that few men are good managers; that it is much easier to be a specialist than to keep your mind alert on the many different sides that a business presents to the owner. It shows moreover that, when a man cannot gain position for himself solely by his own efforts, he can gain strength for himself by association and co-operation with others; and that is what the best of large business houses can give him co-operative establishments establishments existing for the benefit of all who work in it and for it. Whatever strength the house receives, part of it goes to the salesman; whatever strength the salesman receives, part of it goes to the house and comes back again to the salesman, etc, etc, ad infinitum. SUCCESS IS NOT ACCIDENTAL. The success that a business meets with is determined by its policy, and the faithfulness with which that policy is adhered to by the firm and employees. What is called success is often failure, com- pared to the success that might be if the policy were better and were more faithfully carried out. But if one were obliged to choose between a good policy followed in a hesitating and shifty man- ner, and a middling good policy forced right through carried out to the end the one to choose is the middling good policy. It is fortu- nate that this is so; for it is much easier for a merchant to pursue a steady course than to invent the right one. The best way to win success is to take the most direct road you see and follow it not to turn off to the right or left because it looks pretty. In short, keep your compass in hand all the time. IMPORTANCE OF METHOD AND HARMONY. Every employer runs a risk. He has at stake his money, the value of his business, and his business experience the earnings of a lifetime. He has chosen (say) a certain policy not the wisest, but a good policy. He employs men to help him carry out that policy, not their own, not anybody else's; to do things that he wants done, but has not time (and maybe not ability) to do himself. The unspoken agreement between employer and employee is that the employee, so long as he remains an employee, shall be faithful to the policy of his employer. It would be ridiculous to employ people on any other basis. If you come into our employ and work against our policy, you are not paying us what you promised to pay. No matter how much good you may be doing along your own lines, you have no right to work counter to our plans. For example, you know we never give sole agencies control of our goods to any one. You might see a chance to make a very good customer by giving a merchant sole control of our goods in a small town. You may be right for that town but it is not the best policy for our territory at large; and it would be incon- venient and unjust to make this exception. " Yes," you may say; " but I do not agree with your policy. I am hampered by the conditions with which you surround me. My trade demands certain modifications." Or you may say : " Your policy stultifies me gives me no discretion." To the latter we say, If your policy makes you less of a man, you should say so to us; and, if we cannot convince you that your interests as an employee and as a man lies with us, you cer- tainly ought to leave our employ. We do not desire to succeed at the expense of anybody's manhood. To the former we say, You are right. Our policy is not so good as it might be. Five years ago it was not so good as it could be. Five years hence it will not be so good as it can be. It will never be. But five years ago it was the best that we then knew how to adopt. To-day it is the best we now know how to adopt. Five years hence and forever hence it will be the best that we shall know how to adopt at the time. NOTHING IS PERFECT. To every man life offers opportunities and also limitations; he must take his share of both. This applies to your situation with us. We offer you great support. It feels very nice to be working for a large house with a good reputation, and one speaks of it with pride; but that is nothing but a gratification to you unless you understand what a large house can do and what a small house can do. A large house can offer a large assortment; a small house cannot. A large house has ample stock; a small house has not. A large house has a popular brand; a small house has not if the small house's brand were popular, it would not be a small house. A large house has great facilities for importing, cabling, manufacturing, knowing the sources of supply; a small house has smaller facilities. A large house is known wherever its representatives travel or wherever it advertises; a small house is known very little. A large house can take risks; a small one dare not. And the larger a house becomes, the better facilities become in every direction; and, because expenses grow less as business grows, a large house can work on a much smaller profit than a small one. Take it all in all, a small house is greatly handicapped against a large one, unless the large house makes a bad mistake in policy or management. In this case a small house, intelli- gently governed, may gradually crowd the larger establishment to the wall, just as in some locali- ties a clever salesman for a small establishment might overcome one of our weaker salesmen. And yet even here we have the advantage of the small concern because the facts are so strongly on our side, if the salesman will only state them and prove them, how our house has grown, what makes houses grow satisfying merchants (mak- ing money for them), how our goods are in demand, how our name is a guarantee of good faith, etc, etc. Even a weak salesman, backed by a strong house, can overcome a strong salesman backed by a weak house, if he knows his strength. Here is another thing that a small house can do that we cannot do: if we were a small con- cern and had only a few dozen accounts, we might possibly treat those different accounts in different ways. But we have several thousand accounts, and if we started to treat them in different ways, if we started to take one attitude toward one merchant and another attitude toward another merchant, we should soon become thor- oughly mixed up. If \ve gave our attention to exceptions, we have got to take our attention from other parts of our business that have got to be done: importation, buying, manufacturing, packing, etc. all of which go to make up money value, our main policy. Let us make this clearer. We cannot make a proposition to a merchant and then listen to his proposition, and haggle with him and finally compromise. You name our terms and methods to the merchant, and he takes them or leaves them. Suppose you were buying a piano (perhaps you don't know that there is no such thing as a fixed price for a piano in most stores), you might bargain and bargain and never know when you have come to the bottom. Whatever price you get, you would not be satisfied with it; you would suspect that you could have got it for less; you would be dissatisfied with the result of your haggling; you would not respect or have confidence in your merchant. We cannot afford to lose the respect and con- fidence of the merchants of this coast. We would rather lose a few sales. For upon this confidence we base our expectations for future trade. Small houses on the other hand, who twist themselves here and there, gain no strength; for they weaken thereby their business foundation- confidence. POLICY. Our policy is fixed; it cannot be changed by argument. As creed is the basis of a religious system, so is policy the basis of a business system. As the devotees of a certain religion should stand up for that creed, so should the advocates of our business stand up for our policy. But who shall lay out the policy? As few as possible, with tlie suggestions of as many as possible. We want all the wisdom and experience on the subject that we can possibly get; but it is too much to expect that the many men in our employ should agree upon one policy. Some one must do the deciding, and this the firm will do for three reasons: 1. The firm takes the risks. 2. The firm sees the whole business; is not interested in any one part of it rather than another. 3. The firm has had more and wider experience than any of its employees. OUR POLICY IS GOOD. It is a good one on the whole; the policy of giving money's-worth to the merchant and enabling him to give full money's-worth to his customers. It has not those cheap allurements that "take the eye" of the short-sighted dealer. It is hard to make the dealer believe that this actually is our policy, because almost every merchant pretends to follow it and doesn't. But, although our policy is hard to introduce, it is so square and so clearly on the merchant's side, that the longer a merchant sells our goods, the more convinced he becomes that it is to his interest and to his customers' interest to keep it up. Our policy is so good that on the whole we venture to say there is not a better in the \vorld. OUR POLICY IS SIMPLE. It is also simple and easy to understand. It becomes complicated only when we try to modify it to meet special demands. Everything that we do, every idea that we adopt, is in line with this one policy of giving first-rate money's-worth: the Quantity - Purchase, Schilling ' s Best, your money back if you want it these are all differ- ent ways of expressing this policy. Our business has but one aim: to make money for ourselves by making money for the merchant. Not only is our policy simple and easy to understand, but we make it possible for you to show the merchant that this is actually our policy. You can meet his doubts in almost every instance with the various tests and our money-back guarantee of quality. You can say to the merchant that Schilling's Best tea, coffee, baking powder, soda, extracts, and spices, are the best for the money. You can do more than this; you can prove it to him in almost every case; you can prove to him also the money value of the Quantity-Purchase. In fact, every statement that we authorize you to make to the merchant is so strongly backed up with incon- trovertible proofs that there is almost no loop- hole through which the merchant can escape from the truth unless he will acknowledge to you that he is not conducting his business on the money's-worth basis. (By the way, you should not consider yourself ready to talk with a merchant until you possess what seems to you absolute proof of the superiority of every one &f Schilling's Best and of the Quantity-Purchase and Quality-Folder to ordinary methods. Almost all our statements can be proved if you believe them and have the intelligence to do it. If you are in doubt about any point, you should make it known to us.) If the grocer acknowledges to you openly or tacitly admits that he does not want to give a good money's-worth, you can discuss the point whether money's-worth is the proper basis for business success. You have seen many success- ful and many unsuccessful grocery stores, and have made your own observations. You can reason out the matter, and, in the case of Schil- ling 's Best especially, show him how, unless his trade is of the very lowest and most unintelligent class, Schilling ' s Best and money- back -if- his - customer-don t-like-it cannot be otherwise than successful. YOU ARE OUR LAWYER. In short, you are our lawyer and our case is strong. The difference between this case and a law case is: you are arguing not only in our in- terest, but also in the interest of your apparent opponent that is, instead of having one client and one enemy, you have two dients. All you have to do is to make the situation clear to the other side. If you cannot convince the merchant that the basis of his business also should be money's- worth; if, in spite of your arguments backed by the experience of the world, he cannot be made to see his real interests, you are still in a position to minister to his apparent interests. He wants to sell something that will " do " and on which he can make a good round profit. As you know, we can also supply him with such goods to bet- ter advantage, on the whole, than any other concern on the Coast, and upon this line you can fall back, if you consider it necessary. At first glance this does not appear to be in line with our policy; because it is money's-worth in a very limited sense that is, it is apparent money's-worth to the dealer and not at all to the consumer. But you must remember that Rome was not built in a day, and neither will your success and our success be built in a day; your customers will not see the point all at once. Until, therefore, they do see the point, we must give them the best value that they will take; and so we shall keep their attention and their good- will until we can persuade them to adopt the best policy, money's-worth throughout, Schil- ling's Best. (At this point let us say parenthet- ically, that the greater your success with Schil- ling 's Best, the greater your ability as a salesman and your value to us, for, in establishing Schil- ling's Best on your territory, you are carrying out our policy of money's-worth.) You see our policy is simple and easy to understand. But, simple as it seems to be, do not imagine that it is the work of a moment's thought and that we shall throw it aside on a moment's con- sideration. It is the result of years of experience and thought. Nothing can affect it but more experience and more thought. YOU ARE OUR CRITIC AND CO-WORKER. It is very easy to criticise such a policy, for it is not perfect and never will be. There are flaws in it which interfere with you, your fellow- salesmen, and us. Your weakness is felt by us, and by your fellow-salesmen; our weakness is felt by all our salesmen. It is clearly, then, to your interest to remedy all defects in our policy and the business, and, at any time when you see a mistake or a possible improvement, to let us have the benefit of your experience. See how illogical your position is if you say: " I don't believe in that policy," or " I don't believe in this particular part of the policy," and then, when called upon to criticise our methods, you have nothing to suggest. It takes very little intelligence merely to com- plain and to censure. It takes more intelligence to criticise what has already been done. It takes still more to invent. The proper spirit of criticism is to respect the work uf the inventor and try to make it better. Censure without suggesting a better way is worth very little. If you don't believe in our policy, we don't want you to recommend it to the merchant. That would be asking you to tell lies for us. We are not liars ourselves and we don't want to make liars of you. If you cannot conscientiously recommend our policy, you ought to be working for another house, one that you believe in from top to bottom. You are worth more to such a house; you are worth more to yourself when working sincerely. But we do not believe there is anything in our business policy that can offend the most delicate conscience. The only difference that we can conceive of rising between you and us is the difference of opinion as to what is best, not as to what is right. None of you, we think, can take exception on moral grounds to our money-back guarantee, to Schilling * s Best, and to the Quan- tity-Purchase, which are the back-bone of our business. Nor can you take exception on moral grounds, to the various projects or to any of our business methods. Some of them may be a mistake in policy, some of them may not be in accord with our main policy. We ourselves, while at times complaining of you for pulling in a direction opposite to ours, may be, in some instances, pulling counter to the main policy. This certainly is not good for you or for us. It ought to be changed if it is so; you should let us know. You would like, if you could, to work for a perfect house. You would like it if you could simply step into a store and let the merchant hand you a big written order, shake hands with him and go out. That would be very nice. But there is no such house; and in this world at least you must put up with the best conditions with which you can surround yourself. But the brave and earnest man does not scold the world because it is not perfect; neither does he accept the world as perfect when it is not. He just goes to work and keeps his mind open for new and better things, and literally makes the best of it all. He endures it because he has to, but he takes the first chance to make things- better. Your condition, in relation to us, is better even than that of the brave and earnest man in relation to the world. He can mend things more or less, but he cannot get out of the world very well. You can mend things in our business more than a man can change the con- ditions of his life, and if you cannot change them enough, you can choose another firm and other conditions. We said our lines are fixed. Yes, they are; no, they are not. They are fixed, in the sense that we shall not make exceptions as long as we are following these lines, and so long as we be- lieve in them. They are notyf^W, in the sense that we shall change them when we see better lines, and see the way to follow them. For this purpose we ask your suggestions. If you can prove to us that we are wrong in any case, that there is a better way, and that that way is prac- ticable, we shall take it up; but, although we may be making a mistake, and there may be a way to correct it, still the correction may cause another defect greater than the one corrected. The decision in these matters yon must leave to us y for we are doing the managing and the worrying and the failing if there is any failing to be done. So, when your suggestion comes (reasoned out as well as you know how, backed by as much or as little confidence as you have in the suggestion), we shall take it up, think about it, see what relation it bears to the whole business, and accept or reject it, or lay it aside for future consideration. YOUR DUTY to yourself and to us is: 1. If you don't believe in our policy as a whole, resign; because, as a whole, it cannot be changed it will be many years, if ever, before we find a better. But, before you resign, consider whether there isn't something the matter with you, and not with the policy; whether you had not better revise your own business ideas. 2. If you don't believe in certain parts of our policy, tell us why not and give your pro- posed substitute. 3. If you don't believe that our policy is consistent, if you believe that we are pulling two ways at once, say so, and tell us which part of our policy you think interferes with the main part. 4. If anything that we do, if any of our pro- jects or methods interfere with our policy, with the harmonious working-out of it, criticise them in the same manner. Give your reasons; be frank with us whatever you do; don't work or talk behind our backs. YOUR OPPORTUNITIES. We reprint at the end of this book our book written to the employees of the office and fac- tory, entitled "Your Duty and Your Privilege." That book must have shown you that the field for suggestions is great, circumscribed as people in offices have to be. Your opportunities are greater. Where they can make one suggestion you can make a dozen; and yours should be better because you see so much of what is going on. You constantly come into contact with merchants of various kinds and degrees of ability; and you surely learn a great deal from them that would be useful to us. HOW TO GET THEM. Send your suggestion to us carefully reasoned out on a separate sheet of paper. Number your suggestion. Do not write more than one sugges- tion on one sheet of paper, and don't forget to sign your name. We shall make three typewritten copies of your suggestion: one to be returned to you, with or without comments, to show you that we have received it and are attending to it, and that you may keep a record yourself; one to be put in your suggestion file bag (we open a new file for the suggestions of each salesman); one to be used to accomplish the purpose you set out to accomplish, if we think best. At the end of this book you will find a page with up-and-down lines on it and your name at the top. Each salesman will have two books. When you have one, we shall have the other. Every BB day you sent your copy in your BB valise; we send our copy in the BB valise. Every time you send us this book you must put in the proper column your number of suggestions, and the day you return it, and sign your name. We shall put the day it was sent to you in the proper column. Our main object for asking for these sugges- tions is: 1. That we may become better acquainted than we are now with your mental capacity; 2. the value of your suggestions in them- selves; 3. that you may be given full opportunity to let us know what is hindering you; 4. that, if nothing is hindering you, we may count on your full co-operation. WHY WE WANT WRITING AND NOT TALKING. Some of you don't think you can write letters; you would rather talk; are embarrassed by the necessity of writing. So are we. When one takes a pen in hand, he thinks he must write like Shakespeare or Carlyle. This is a mistake. Your subject is not the same as Carlyle's or Shakespeare's. It is a much easier subject to write about, and should be dealt with even more simply than the subjects those great and simple writers dealt with. The reason that their writings are impressive is that their thoughts are impressive. They write about grand things; but they write simply and to the point. Your subject is not one to inspire impressive writing; but it can be dealt with in such a manner as to give it great weight simply, straightforwardly. If you have something worth saying, writing is better than speaking, because writing gives us the chance to read it several times and get all of your meaning. Besides this, the effort of writing will concentrate your mind on the matter to such an extent that you will understand it yourself more thoroughly than you could in any other way. This is one reason why we lay so much stress upon Circular Letters and send them to you all that you may read them over several times and digest the ideas more thoroughly. If you were here and we should talk to you about these matters, you would probably leave our office very enthusiastic, inspired with a great deal of confidence in the concern and its methods; but experience has shown us that this enthusiasm is, in general, merely a reflection of our own, ami as you go back to your territory you gradually grow cool, and don't quite remember what we said. When you see the ideas written, they may appear at first glance not so impressive, but they gain when you think of them and the oppor- tunity of more careful thought is furnished by the letter in your hand. Another reason why w r e write you the letters instead of talking to you at the office is: as far as possible we want you all to be treated alike. We want you to feel that you have the same sup- port from us. It is not fair that those gentlemen whose territories permit them to visit San Fran- cisco freely should have this advantage over the others. The milk of human kindness will flow into business (and we are glad it does); but the basis of business should be fairness, and fairness demands that we follow this course. We try to carry out our business on fair and scientific lines stating the facts in our monthly statements and semi-annual statistics, and calling attention to errors whenever you make them, in order that they may be corrected and that things may run more smoothly. We do not write much to praise or blame. We write for business purposes. We do not think it necessary to applaud our men when they do well, or to scold them when they do not. We go by results as far as we can; and what- ever we may have to say in praise or condem- nation, we say it personally to you during your holiday visit. We assume that every man does the very best that his physical and mental and moral make-up will permit. But if one man is not doing well on his territory and we believe that somebody else would do better, it is fair that we should make the trial, for we pay the costs. We may be wrong; experience will tell. So any of our salesmen who is not doing well may expect to be called without notice to San Francisco for a plain talk. It may appear that he needs more information; we shall give it to him. Maybe we shall send him right back to his old territory again. Maybe we shall try him for a while in a new territory and then send him back. Maybe we shall try him in a new terri- tory and keep him there. Maybe, if he has been careless in details, we shall give him a little office experience to show him the value of accuracy. Maybe it will appear that he had better give up his place. In the mean time some one else goes out on his territory. OUR RELATION TO ONE ANOTHER. The above subject touches our relation to you and yours to us. This should be thoroughly understood by both you and us. We cannot afford to have you worried or discontented. You cannot afford it; for you cannot do your best work under these conditions. If, therefore, the policy we lay out for you to follow is such that you cannot take hold of it with full heart, and if the compensation you receive is so inadequate in your eyes as to leave you in a half-hearty disposition toward our firm and toward your career in connection with our firm, it is better for both sides that we part company. CAPITAL. Your salary is, in general, what we believe you will earn. Of course, with new men we cannot be sure that they will earn anything at all; but they have got to live, and we take the risk. The bonus we pay you at the end of the year is our measure of the value of your services. There is every reason why we should make it as near right as possible. It is to our interest that you should be valued fairly. If you are a first- rate man, we cannot afford to let you go. If you are a good man, we cannot afford to make you less good by making you discontented. We may make mistakes in judging you, but we mean to be just. We don't make snap judg- ments of you. Your bonus is not settled in two minutes. It is settled after a careful examination of what you have done and the way in which you have done it. Going over this subject once is enough. We could not do it better if we went over it again. We could not do it to your satis- faction unless we laid open to you all the facts of the business, and that you cannot expect us to do. Of course we are assumed to be in close touch with your territory, etc, and yet you may have additional information to give us which, in your judgment, has a bearing on your bonus. If this is the case, you are invited to give the particulars in writing before December 2Oth. Your state- ment will be carefully considered. On the ist of October every year we close our sales-books and begin to prepare statistics showing the amount of work and quality of work that each salesman has done. On the ist of December, we close our ledgers and take stock, and by the end of the year we know not only what each man has done, but how prosperous the business of the year has been. These two elements, taken with the way in which you have done your work, attended to the matters in your charge (collections, etc), the condition of your territory, decide the amount of your bonus. If the bonus we pay you is not what you think it ought to be, you should either make up your mind bravely to convince us during the following year that we are wrong, or, in justice to yourself and to us, leave our employ. As you know, although we have been paying our employees by the week or by the month, the understanding has been that payment by the week or by the month does not mean engage- ment by the week or by the month. In other words either you or we can cancel the arrange- ment at a moment's notice, without waiting for the week or month to expire; and you are to be paid only for that part of the week or month that you have worked for us. As soon as you make up your mind that your best interest lies else- where, you should be free to go elsewhere, and, as a matter of fact, employees generally do. On the other hand, it is fair that the employer should have the same privilege. As soon as it is clear to him that a salesman is not useful to him, he should be at liberty to ask him to leave. This is so clearly the right attitude of employer to employee, that it is the only basis we have had for many years past. And yet business courtesy prevents us from following this rule always, without regard to circumstances; and business courtesy should also modify your action to some extent. If a salesman leaves during the year he will have to wait for his bonus until bonus-time; for we cannot afford to stop our business to prepare statistics for him. As this book is also to be read by new men, we explain that our employees can leave their bonus with us on call and bearing interest they can have it at any moment. But if they draw it out they cannot put it back again. If you leave your money with us, it is at your service when- ever you want it. THE BOND BETWEEN A GOOD HOUSE AND A GOOD MAN IS STRONG. The only bond that ought to exist between employer and employee is mutual interest: you cannot afford to leave a good house; we cannot afford to let a good man go. When any other bond exists it brings with a false and an imag- inary relation. Although we believe that, on strict business principles, we ought to adhere closely to this rule, still we have allowed our- selves to keep a man in our employ for some time after he showed himself to be of not enough use to us to justify his salary and expenses, and so long as we are human we suppose we shall con- tinue to let our softer feelings influence us to our pecuniary loss. You should not, however, out of good-will to us, make your career any less effective than it ought to be. You should be free to quit when- ever it is clear to you that you had better; we should be free to discharge you when it is clearly to our interest to do so. We say this to show you that it is proper to have laws in business relation that must be adhered to. But your relation to us and ours to you is not one merely of dollars and cents it is not the ordinary relation between employer and em- ployee. A salesman for our house is not a drummer. He is not a clever charming fellow who uses his personal charm to get an order. He is entrusted with the carrying out of good policy "gospel" if you choose. He is not a drummer, he is an advocate. He represents us in the best sense of the word, not in the usual sense. You cannot do work of this kind without being a better man for it. As we said at the beginning of this book: statistics say that 95 per cent of men engaged in business for themselves fail. There is no need for you to fail if you should start out in busi- ness for yourself- if you take to yourself the principle and methods, and the persistence in those principles and methods, that we try to inculcate into every one of our men. We are very proud of this personally. Glad, we should say, rather than proud; for it is a great privilege to be of use to others. We have spent a great deal of money and thought in this business, kept our eyes and ears pretty well open. All this could not fail to give us experience; and the best of this experience you will find suggested in our books. It is yours if you will take it. You will find it useful no matter where you go; whether you start a retail store of your own, or work for a concern similar to ours, or whether you set up a shoe- store, or a clothing-house, or whatever mercan- tile business you engage in; because all business is best operated on certain principles, and, if the principles under which our business is operated are not the very best that can be, they are among the best. And anyway, if you learn nothing more than that, to a great success hearty co- operation is necessary, you will not have spent your years in our employ for nothing. THE SUM OF IT ALL. To sum up: it is to your interest and to our interest that you understand and be faithful to our policy. If you are hampered in any way, we should know of it, in order that we may remove the obstacle, if possible. Your suggestions are valuable: for the above purpose and to show your worth. We want to know your worth and to appre- ciate it and to pay for it. We want you as long as you want us enough to do your part loyally, intelligently, and effectively. We are not talking to you from the lecture platform; there is no sharp dividing line between you and us. There is success to be won, and that success is to be won by what you can do and what we can do. We furnish capital, brand, reputation, executive capacity, organiza- tion, experience, policy, help of many sorts, and hard work; you furnish salesmanship, experience, faithfulness, and hard work. A strong team if we pull together. The following pages are merely a reprint of our recent book to our office and factory employees. Although it is not addressed par- ticularly to you, it is, nevertheless, an important part of this book how important and in what way depends upon you. WHAT YOU MUST DO WHAT YOU HAD BETTER DO BETTER YET PLENTY OF OPPORTUNITY HOW TO DO IT YOU ARE BETTER THAN YOU KNOW A SCHILLING & CO SAN FRANCISCO Copyright 1896 by A Schilling & Company UNIVERSITY Everybody has muscle; some people have more, some have less. The way to get more is to use what you have already to take exercise. Everybody has brains. The way to get more brains is to use what you have already to think. Everybody wants to get ahead. The way to get ahead is to move you can't get very far by standing still. WHAT YOU MUST DO You are given certain work to do. That you must do. If we promise a grocer good tea and sell him poor tea, we have no right to his trade. If you promise us good work and give us poor work, you have no right to your place. There are a great many people waiting for a good place; and the welfare of our business demands that good people should fill these places. WHAT YOU HAD BETTER DO But maybe you can't do your work right; maybe you are hampered by some obstruction that ought to be removed. Suppose, for instance, we tell the porter to sweep out the store. He is a good sweeper but we give him a poor broom. Suppose he knows that, if he has a better broom, he can sweep out the store in two-thirds the time and do it twice as well. Had he better keep on sweeping with that broom, or had he better tell us that we are not furnishing him the proper tool? He had better tell us. If he does n't, we shall think, and keep on thinking, that it is the man, and not the broom, that is to blame. This applies to you also. If anything stands in your way, if anything keeps you from filling your place full, from doing everything that can be expected of you, there is a chance that you may suffer for it. You cannot afford to take that chance. On the other hand, if you do your work well, if your department is better for having you in it, if you pick out the flaws (and there are plenty of them) and show them to us, you will be known to us as a faithful and intelligent worker. You will not be forgotten. Are you doing your work as well as you can do it? If not, whose fault is it ? If the fault is yours, mend it. If the fault is ours : if the instruments we give you, if the material we put in your hands, if the conditions with which we surround you, hinder you from doing your best, tell us. We want you all to have opportunity to do your work exactly right; and, if you have not such opportunity, it means either that we do not know the fact, or that we do not see a practical way of giving it to you. If you know the fact and you think we do not, tell us. If you know of a way to make it better, tell us. Your work takes up a great deal of your attention; think what it would be if you had to pay attention to all the departments. You could not possibly know every- thing about them all. How can we? So the first reason why you had better help us correct the mistakes in your department is: it enables you to work better. It makes it impossible for us to suspect you of incompetency when you are competent. And there is another reason why you should make these wrongs right, quite as important as this: it will make you better known to us. We (the members of the firm) are expected to judge every one of you accurately. That is impossible. There is not a living man who can do it. We cannot be sure that we estimate correctly the value of those who are constantly under our very eyes. How, then, can we judge you perfectly when we see you so little? We can see whether your work is done right, but we don't get your ideas. Don't you want us to have them? Don't you want to be understood? Yes? Then make your ability and thinking-power known to us. Show us what you know and what you think about your part of the business. Next to doing your work right, there's no way so good for getting ahead in our business as making suggestions. BETTER YET As we said at the start, the thing that has got to be done is your work. That alone justifies your being here. If we did not think that you had intelligence and faithfulness enough to do that, you would not be here; but, if you have just enough intelligence to do your work and not enough to reach after higher and better work, you have no reason to expect that this higher and better work shall be given you. Success comes to the man who does his work well and looks and hopes and thinks and acts beyond his work. " But," you may say, " I cannot act beyond my work because I have no chance." This is exactly what we want to give you the chance to think beyond your work. If you show ability to think beyond your work, that will imply ability to do beyond your work; and we have plenty of things for good thinkers and good doers. If you are a bright capable man or woman, and can see flaws (whether in your department or in another), it is to your interest and to ours that we should know it; it makes your value greater, both to yourself and to us especially if you are able not only to see the flaws but to see how they can be overcome. There is any amount of room at the top of our business, but there is very little room at the bottom ; it is overcrowded. The supply is greater than the demand not only with us but with every employer. This is old and true. You know it, but very few realize it. Can you think of a better way for us to find out what sort of stuff your mind is made of than to receive and judge your suggestions ? Shall we promote a person simply and solely because he has been with us a number of years; or shall we promote another simply and solely because he backs his claim for unusual ability with excessive assurance assurance in words without assurance in deed how about the modest gentleman or gentlewoman whose deeds speak louder than words ? This is the main reason why we want you to make the suggestions to develop yourself and to make your merit known to us. We know of a good many of those flaws that you will speak of; and for every one that we know of we have some remedy. In most cases our remedy will be better than yours, because we see the matter in its bearing to our whole business. A certain suggestion that you may make may be excellent, but it may affect some other matter that you do not know about so un- favorably as to make it impracticable; and so while a suggestion may show that you have excellent business- ability, still we cannot carry it out. But we find out your mental calibre that is the main point. Each employee is apt to think that his own department is the most important that is human nature and so it may seem to you a shame that a good suggestion of yours should not be immediately carried out. But, as we have said before, there may be good reasons for setting aside these good suggestions. So do not be discouraged, if a careful suggestion, the result of your careful thought, has no other effect than to show us that you are a thinker. Dp not allow yourself to think that we do not mean this literally. We do mean it literally; we want your suggestions. PLENTY OF OPPORTUNITY You need not be a manager in order to make sugges- tions. We expect suggestions from everybody, for every- body has eyes and a mind; and every one of you is placed in a department that has faults. There is no such thing as perfection. You remember what we said about the porter and his broom. It would be very easy for him, or for some one else, to suggest that we give him a better broom. This small matter ought to suggest to every one of you a dozen or more small matters that we are doing wrong, quarter-right or half-right. We may or may not be using the right paper in certain cases, for wrapping, for writing letters, for bookkeeping-books, for scribbling-paper. Per- haps some of our bookkeeping-books are too large; per- haps others are too small. Perhaps the binding of some of the books is too weak to stand the ordinary wear and tear of every-day handling, and perhaps in other cases it is too strong, costs too much. Perhaps you know of better nails than those used in our packing-department. Do you think our labels are just right ? Do you see any useful change that might be made in them ? Do you think the store ought to be swept twice a day or certain parts of it three times a day, etc, etc ? There is no limit to the amount of suggestions that can be made by an observant and intelligent person. Try it and see how it works. HOW TO DO IT How to make suggestions. It is clear enough that a person coming frequently to the firm with good suggestions raises himself in their esteem. If you tell your immediate superior what you know, or what you would like to suggest, you cannot always be sure that you will get credit for your sug- gestion; he may think of something to add to your suggestion, and so change it to such an extent that it will really seem to him to be his own, and as such he will feel quite satisfied to offer it. This is not fair. Your idea was the basis for that idea, you started him thinking in this direction. Besides you don't want your suggestion changed. , You want it to go straight to the firm and be judged on its own merit as your thought, and as showing your ability. The following is the system we have laid out to keep your suggestions, to remember how good each one was, what it applied to, and who made it: You are to write your suggestion. If you simply speak it, we shall have to judge it in some cases in a hurry, or we may forget it. Number each suggestion, your first one i, your second one 2, your third one 3, etc. Do not write more than one suggestion on one piece of paper. Tell us what is the evil to be remedied; why you think a certain way of doing things is unsatisfactory and what you recommend in place of it. Give your suggestion thus : Write it down and give it to the stenographer of Office B, and don't forget to sign your name. This stenographer will have three typewritten copies made, one of which goes to you for a twofold purpose: I. That you may know your suggestion has been properly copied. II. That you, as well as we, may have a record of the suggestion you have made; so that at the end of the year, in case of error, you may obtain credit for some suggestion that may have been lost or forgotten. Of the other two copies, one is to be filed in your filing-bag that has your name on it. Every one will have a bag of his and her own and from time to time we shall not only judge you by your work done, but by the number and quality, especially quality, of the sugges- tions in your filing-bag. The other copy will be placed on Mr. Schilling's desk, whether it is good or not, and will be graded accord- ing to its merit. That grade will be marked on the copy in your filing-bag also. But your idea may be exceed- ingly good and yet not be carried out immediately. For example, if you suggest a good change in the ruling of our ledger, that change will be made when we have new ledgers made. As you know, each bit of stationery and each label has a number and a filing-bag. One copy of your sug- gestion will go into that filing -bag; and, when we buy more of that article, your suggestion will be again con_ sidered and, if it is wise to adopt it, it will be adopted. Hut, if you make a recommendation of better ink or better brooms, etc, etc, that recommendation will go to the person who buys ink and brooms, and, as we said before, one copy goes to you and one goes to your filing-bag. YOU ARE BETTER THAN YOU KNOW As we said in the very beginning, everybody has brains. Most people, however, in subordinate positions do not know how much they have. -We have great faith; we believe that you have better business-ideas than you get credit for. Some of you, of course, have not so much opportunity of seeing other departments than your own as others have, and from such we do not expect as many suggestions as from those who are placed in a better position to see things. You will notice, at the end of this book, four columns: the first one is for the date when it is handed to you; the second for the date on which you return it; the third for the number of suggestions you make during the intervening period; the fourth for your name. If you make one suggestion or two or a dozen, it will appear. If you make none, a dash ( ) will be put in the third column. You are to sign your name in the fourth column that we may know you have received the book that particular month. We do not believe that there is a person in our employ who has not the mental capacity to make a suggestion. We may be mistaken; but, whether we are or not, we want to know what is in your mind. If you have a bright active mind we want to set you at bright active work. We have plenty of things for bright minds to do; but show us the bright mind first. Name . Sent to the above Returned to firm Number of suggestions Signature of salesman Name. Sent to Returned Number of the above i to firm suggestions Signature of salesman ~JLr UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY