Dawson Black: Retail Merchant Part 4

CHAPTER VI

UNTYING SOME TANGLES

On Tuesday I received a request for "immediate payment" of a demand note for $3,500.00, through some shyster lawyer in New York.

I took it up to Barrington and asked him what to do about it. He gave me a paper to sign, and I put my name to it without bothering to read it.

He then spoke sharply to me, and said:

"For heaven's sake, lad, haven't you learned better than to sign your name to a paper without reading it?"

"B-but," I said, stammering, "it's different with you!"

"Different be d.a.m.ned!" he exclaimed petulantly. Then, "Excuse me, young man, but really, for a man in business you are acting very childishly.

You thought Jim Simpson was your friend and trusted him. Now, even after the mess you got into, you haven't learned your lesson, and you sign anything I ask you to, without looking at it!"

I read it through, and it was something about giving him full power to act for me in the matter of the note.

"Now," said he, "this is going to cost you some money"--I winced at this--"but I'll see if I can't save you something."

He got the New York lawyer on the long distance and offered him a thousand dollars cash in full settlement of the claim, or else threatened to contest the legality of the note. The upshot of it was that Barrington made a trip to New York to see him, and they compromised on $1,250.00.

When Barrington returned from New York he came around to the house to see me.

"Well," he said, "I think I've saved you some money this time. I've settled that claim for $1,250.00 cash, which I have paid."

He gave me also the bill of expenses which he had incurred. I put the figures on a bit of paper and twisted it nervously, wondering how I was going to pay that sum of money; for I remembered I had only $1,500.00 in the bank, and I had those bills to pay that Jim left behind and which I had unknowingly agreed to a.s.sume. Barrington and the accountant between them compromised on those, by the way, at seventy-five cents on the dollar, but there was nearly $400.00 to pay there, and if I paid that $1,250.00 with the expenses it would wipe out my bank account completely.

Barrington looked at me quizzically, and asked:

"What's worrying you now, young man?"

I told him. He laughed, and then remarked:

"That needn't worry you at all. You have your farm clear now and I'll take a mortgage on it for $1,500.00, and that will enable you to pay this bill up right away and still hold your farm. I was just looking for an investment of about that size. You are no worse off than before, and I will simply have a lien on the farm for $1,500.00 instead of Simpson having one for $3,500.00; and really, in this case, I think you will be much safer."

The next morning we fixed up the mortgage.

I hoped then that I was through with the troubles of getting the business from Simpson. But when I reviewed what it had cost me I wondered why I ever gave up my safe, easy job with Barlow! I think the trouble with me was that I didn't realize that, while I wasn't making much money, I certainly wasn't taking any risk and was learning a good business. I realized then how stupidly I used to fool away a lot of time that I was paid for. When I thought of the hours I often shirked and the jobs I used to leave undone, I wondered that Barlow didn't fire me and the other fellows long ago. I wondered if other bosses had just the same trouble? I wondered if I was just an average store clerk?

What a different view you take of things when you become a boss yourself! Already I felt that the people working for me should consider my interests, and not hesitate to work hard for me; and yet when I was a clerk only two weeks before I used to begrudge doing the least thing more than my bare duties called for, and I had always felt I ought to get an immediate cash return for anything extra I did. For the first time I realized that I used to panhandle along through the week just working for the pay envelope without much thought of Barlow's welfare at all.

Well, I had surely learned a lesson. I was a wiser man than I had been two weeks before. In that brief time more things had happened to me than had ever happened before, I guess. I had inherited $8,000.00 cash and a farm worth $8,500.00; I had bought out Jim Simpson, and then found only $8,100.00 worth of stock when I thought I was getting $9,460.00; I had given him a demand note for $3,500.00 which I thought was for twelve months; I had a.s.sumed over $400.00 worth of bills of which I didn't know anything at all; and, finally, I had found that the business amounted to only $22,000.00 a year instead of $28,000.00.

I was reciting this tale of woe to Betty when she remarked:

"Well, you can't do anything else wrong just yet, can you?"

"I don't know," I declared. "It seems to me that I can't do anything right!"

I promised Betty to follow the accountant's advice and set a deadline of expenses.

He and I had worked that out. It seemed that my expenses were far too high for the business I was doing. Said he:

"Ye are doing noo only aboot $22,000.00 a year. Ye hae a stock of approximately $8,000.00, and ye really should be doing $42,000.00 a year wi' it."

"How do you figure that out?" I asked.

"That's on the tur-rn-over."

"Turn-over?"

"Yes, ye ought to tur-rn over your investment in goods three and a half times a year--that is, ye ought to sell out your $8,000.00 stock that number of times; and as ye plan to add aboot 50 per cent. for the pr-rofit, ye should sell aboot $42,000.00 worth of goods within the peeriod of a year."

"And I am selling only $22,000.00? Then you mean to say that I am selling only about half as much hardware as I ought to with my present stock?"

"That statement of yours is just aboot correct," said he with a nod.

"Wait a minute!" I cried excitedly. "You've made a mistake. I don't make 50 per cent. profit. I make only 33 1-3 per cent., all around!"

"Ye mean," he declared quietly, "that ye make only 33 1-3 per cent. _on sales_. To get that percentage ye hae to add 50 per cent. onto your cost. Your percentage of profit on sales is verra deefferent frae your percentage o' profit on cost. Bide a wee," said he, and he did some rapid figuring on a slip of paper. "This will perhaps make it clearer to ye," and he handed it to me.

I never realized, until he worked it out, just the difference between profit on cost and profit on sales. Here it is:

20% added to cost = 16?% profit on selling price 25% added to cost = 20% profit on selling price 30% added to cost = 23+% profit on selling price 33?% added to cost = 25% profit on selling price 40% added to cost = 28+% profit on selling price 50% added to cost = 33?% profit on selling price 60% added to cost = 37+% profit on selling price 75% added to cost = 42+% profit on selling price 80% added to cost = 44+% profit on selling price 90% added to cost = 47+% profit on selling price 100% added to cost = 50% profit on selling price

I thought the whole thing over carefully, and it seemed to me that what I had to do was, first of all, to a.n.a.lyze my stock and see if there were any items in which I was too heavily stocked, and if so to reduce that stock as soon as possible, and then put the money realized in other goods that would turn over quickly. I could see that that would increase the entire stock turn-over, at the same time increasing total sales by subst.i.tuting new, fast-turning, stock for the excess stock in the lines I then had, and this would mean reducing my percentage of expense.

The accountant had remarked that increasing the turn-over was the big secret of meeting rising costs, and I would see that he was right. My head was in a whirl with percentages, costs, selling prices, gross and net profits, turn-over, increased cost of goods, higher prices of labor and a lot of other things going through it like a merry-go-round.

I decided that the next step was to arrange a definite system of keeping track of expenses. I would divide the expenses into different cla.s.ses and see that no single cla.s.s of expense exceeded a certain limit which I would set for it.

Next, I would build up a logical advertising campaign. Talking with Fellows had converted me to the value of advertising. I had asked him if there was ever a time when a man could afford to stop advertising. He replied, "Yep, a man can afford to stop advertising when he can afford to be forgotten!"

Then I would find some way of getting my help--I had five people at the time--to work better for me than they seemed to have been doing. They seemed to look upon me as a joke. I didn't know that I could blame them, for I certainly felt like several kinds of joke myself.

The accountant on looking over my expenses had thought that my salary roll was too high. I told him that in that case I would cut salaries all round. His reply was, "I wouldna do that if I were ye. A more deesirable plan would be to see if ye canna adjust your affairs to give them more money"--I gasped at this--"and reduce the number o' your employees."

I hope I never have to go through another two weeks like the first two after I bought the store. I was only a boy when Aunt Emma died and left me the money, but I think I grew up quickly--at least Betty said so. She thought it did me good.

When she told me that, I cried with amazement:

"Doing me good?--to lose all that money in two weeks!"

"Yes, indeed," she declared, "you're just beginning to realize that you've a lot to learn, and you're much nicer to be with than you were before." She gave a funny little smile, as she continued, "You know, boy, you were awfully conceited--you're awfully conceited now; but I'm glad to notice that you're not so dead sure of everything as you used to be!"