Business Hints for Men and Women, Alfred Rochefort Calhoun [best classic books .TXT] 📗

If a man is making a living he should not change his business after he has passed middle life, unless, indeed, he has a guarantee that the new venture will be greatly to his advantage.

The best business for the average man is that which affords him the most pleasure in carrying it on, or at least with which he is most familiar.

Happiness in one’s work means far more than the accumulation of a fortune in discomfort.

DON’T DECEIVE YOURSELF

Having made your credit and business standing good, keep them good by an adherence to the same course.

If you can avoid it, do not loan your name to every needy friend that comes along. Your neighbors question your good judgment every time you have to meet a note which you were coaxed into endorsing. You would have saved yourself by loaning the money outright.

Do not deceive yourself into the belief that you are making money when, as a matter of fact, you may be losing.

You buy an article for two dollars and sell it for two and a half, and you say to yourself: “There is fifty cents made.” But is it? Let us see.

Before crediting your business with that fifty cents, you should have considered these points.

1. The loss of interest on that two dollars. 2. Your own time or other time paid for. 3. The capital invested in things not sold. 4. The rent. 5. The transportation, insurance, heat, light, bad accounts, unsalable goods, taxes, public donations, and the flood of items that go to swell the outlay of every merchant, whether in the great city or at the country crossroads.

WEEDING OUT

Every man in trade should make an inventory of his stock at least once a year. Having done this, he should give his stock a fresh appearance, whether new goods be added or not, by relegating to the scrap heap, cellar or the garret all the dingy, dirty, disreputable stuff that he could not sell or give away, and which has induced sore eyes whenever seen.

Keep a stock book.

Quite as important as keeping the stock in order is keeping the books in good shape.

At least once a year the books should be weeded out. Why carry as bills collectable accounts which you have been assured, for years, would never be paid?

Wipe them out and charge them to profit and loss.

Where machinery is used, it is a good plan to charge off every year ten per cent of the cost; this to make good the loss from wear and tear.

It is only by annual house cleanings and account clearings that you can tell about how you stand.

LET YOUR WIFE KNOW

It is usually wise for a woman, married or single, to keep her real estate and her money, if she have any, in her own name. So also with property bought with her money.

In these cases the woman should deal with her husband, or the members of her family, the same as she would with strangers with whom she is transacting business.

Some may say that this suggests a want of confidence and a lack of that affection that should exist between husband and wife or near kinsfolk. Such an objection is sheer sentimentality. Be as open handed and generous as you will with your loved ones, but when it comes to business, let the work be done in a strictly business way or not at all.

Many a good business has gone to ruin after the death of the owner and manager because he had kept his wife in blank ignorance of his affairs and the way in which he conducted them.

Many a business, that just dragged along till the death of the manager, has sprung into new life when the widow took charge. This must in part be credited to natural ability and inborn pluck and energy, but even these gifts could not have availed if the woman had been left in ignorance of business methods.

Women, like men, are awkward in new positions, not so much from a want of ability as a lack of experience.

Put the average man suddenly in charge of a house, and he will soon demonstrate his helplessness. The woman’s deftness comes from her experience.

As far as it is possible, every husband should post his wife as to his methods of doing business.

He should not keep her ignorant of his financial affairs.

If he conceal from her the amount of his secure holdings, it may be that he hopes to surprise her at his death, or long before that event. But if he have any regard for his family, he should not hide from her the obligations which may spell ruin if the wife is not prepared in advance to meet them.

Whether the husband lives or dies, the wife must still care for the children and attend to her never-lessening household duties. Think of her as taking on the added burdens of a business of which she is ignorant.

There are many prosperous husbands to whom what has just been said will not apply, but if you should ask them the secret of their success they will not hesitate to tell you that when they married they took their wives into full partnership, business secrets and all.

CHILDREN AND BUSINESS

When you send your children to school it is that the training there received may qualify them to fight the better the ceaseless life battle.

Of course, we should not regard all education from a business viewpoint. Money apart, learning is its own greatest reward.

It widens the horizon at every step, and lifts the soul into strength and a profounder worship. But it will not do to overlook the business side of the training which the child should receive in school and out of it.

It is all very well to teach children the sources of the family revenue and the way to secure it. It is right that they should be impressed with the dignity of labor and trained in the ways of earning money, but it is far more important that they should be taught how to spend money, so as to get the most good from it, once it is earned.

The boy or girl is in a safe way to learn self-control and build up character when he or she, with some nickels at command, can pass a candy or a fruit shop without being compelled to spend their cash assets.

Children, wherever it is possible, should be given opportunities for earning money, which they can feel is “really and truly” their own.

They should not be made to feel that the money is not actually theirs, to do with as they please, but they should be taught self-denial, and that they must not get rid of their earnings by the purchase of things not needed.

On the farm, children unconsciously learn much through occasional work and constant observation, but away from the farm, boys and girls are apt to know little or nothing of the work in which the father, the bread winner, is engaged.

Where it is possible, the children should be made familiar by actual contact with the father’s work.

This knowledge may never be used, still it will have value as a factor in the child’s training, for in our modern life all business is inter-related.

Let the youngsters know something about banks by entrusting them there when old enough.

Teach them to keep accounts of their own little money affairs, their earnings, their expenditures, and their balances.

If they should borrow, even a cent, see that they return it at the time agreed on. Impress on them the fact that debt is a burden which it is well to get rid of as soon as possible, if one would stand erect and be entirely free.

All this can be quietly inculcated into the mind of the child without making him old-fashioned or miserly. The more he knows of the world the more he can enjoy it in a wholesome way.