Part 34

Whenever anyone does something for you, your first concern should be to show appreciation.

Gratitude is one of the most priceless gems in nature's collection. There is nothing lower on the face of the earth than an ingrate and a snake's belly.

Dressing

Many persons look upon the good dresser, and think that good dressing is an evidence of success. In dressing, as in everything else, the extremes should be avoided. The man who is temperate has the right idea. A man must be temperate in dressing as in all other things.

We have all seen the solicitor and the business man who look like a fashion plate or tailor's model. Each day he appears with a different suit. He wears the latest ties, the latest shoes, and appears in the height of fashion. This extra dresser is a four-flusher, for he is trying to appear as something that he is not. Grizzly Pete says "It ain't what's on a man but what's in him that counts."

In proportion as a man's character or mental training is lacking, he often tries to make up for it in dress. With some it is a case of ninety per cent. dress and ten per cent. man, and with others ninety per cent. man and ten per cent. dress.

In trying to find a word of cheer for the good dresser, the writer vainly endeavored to recall some successful business man who had climbed the ladder step by step through a period of years, during which he was always dressed in the height of fashion. We recall to mind several extreme dressers who are possessed of millions, but these millions were the result of accident or inheritance rather than ability. We cannot remember any instance of a plodder who started in with nothing and made his millions who during the operation dressed in extremes.

We have an autographed photograph of Marshall Field, and we venture to say that there are fifty men in Field's store more expensively dressed than Marshall Field was at the time this picture was taken, shortly before his death. Not that Marshall Field was poorly dressed, but that he was dressed like a gentleman. A gentleman does not wear extreme collars, extreme neckties, extreme coats. Marshall Field's clothes fitted him well, the goods were of splendid quality, but of modest design. Marshall Field was ninety per cent. man and ten per cent. dress.

When a man recognizes he has not the ability to make a name for himself on account of his brains, he resorts to dress in order to give him distinction.

The ability to dress in the extreme of fashion is an advertisement to the world that dress is your specialty, and if you are a specialist in dress you will not be a specialist in business.

Declare Monthly Dividends

Make it a rule to declare dividends every month. We venture to say to the business man that you are meeting all your fixed charges, paying your rent and employes, paying for postage stamps, lights, taxes and all other fixed charges. When the Government put a two cent tax on your checks you paid that tax. You certainly can add one more fixed charge to your business, and that fixed charge should be a percentage of your cash receipts.

It is usually a difficult thing to draw your profits out of your business in a lump at the end of the year, but if you draw your profits out in monthly installments, you can do so without any burden.

The business man should figure what percentage of his cash receipts is profit, and this percentage should be deducted every month, less a little leeway to make the matter easier. Make the percentage a fixed charge and put this money away in a special account as a reserve fund if you do not wish to draw the dividends out of your business. If you have this reserve fund drawn out in monthly installments, you are ready for attack if your creditors call on you suddenly.

If you have a snug little sum in a separate bank as a reserve sufficient to withstand any attacks on your business, your step will be more elastic, you will have more confidence in yourself, you will have less worry than if you are keeping your nose to the grindstone and have no reserve.

There is some amount between a dollar a week and a thousand dollars a week which you can draw out of your business without affecting it. If you make this a fixed charge you will take care of it, and you will arrange your business and your purchases so that this fixed charge will be properly taken care of each month. You will trim your expenses a little closer, and your business will thus benefit by having this fixed charge.

Nearly every failure is due to sudden calls of creditors or refusal of the bank to extend further credit. This fact shows plainly the necessity of having a reserve fund.

Take your figures for several years back and find what percentage of the total receipts was profit. If, for instance, your business earned $9,000 and your total sales were $100,000, then 9% of your receipts represents profits. You can therefore declare a monthly dividend of 8%, and when Christmas comes you will have an extra dividend, being the accumulated 1% each month you did not draw out in dividends.

Debt

If it were not for debt most banks would go out of business, for banks live because debt is a recognized factor in business.

The plan of getting rich through saving is a very difficult and practically impossible road to wealth.

The man who is working himself out of debt puts in better effort and longer hours into his business than the man who does not owe a cent. Go in debt reasonably and carefully, and you can make money with other people's money.

Money has a fixed value in itself in the matter of earning capacity. This fixed value is 5% or 6% or 7% as the case may be. One who puts his money in securities gets his money which the cash earns without effort on his part. The hustler, however, can make 10%, 15% or 20% on the money, plus his hard work. Therefore there is an opportunity for a hustler to borrow money at 5% or 6%, and with that money and his energy earn 10% or 15%.

The active man can therefore pay 6% per annum for money, and use that money to discount monthly bills at from 2% to 5%.

The building and loan association, the installment firms and monthly payment real estate concerns show what people can accomplish who go into debt. Thousands of families now live in their own homes because they went into debt. Few of these families would have homes if they started in on the saving-the-money-first plan and bought for cash.

Don't go in too deeply. Calculate your earnings in business. Allow a wide margin for discount on your figures. Hard times and unlocked for reverses come, therefore you should play safe. Go into debt on a 25% or 50% basis of what you are reasonably sure you can pay.

Up to forty years of age a man is sowing and tilling, and after forty he reaps. The farmer goes into debt during the spring and summer, and reaps in the fall.

Very few of our great men had much money before they were forty years old. Up to forty is the debt period. Up to forty a man pays interest; after forty he collects interest.