Publix Opinion (Nov 10, 1928)

1928 EK OF NOVEMBER 10rH _PUBLIX OP THE NEW COMPETITI By R. PERRY SHORTS, Vice-President, The Second National Bank of Saginaw, Michigan Br and every one friends, never heen so impressed with business dissertation as the careful reading address gave me. pointed out cibly one thing, and that is —the ever increasing opportunity for the individual who is willing to dig in and dig under in a biisiness, fully. Digest every word and see if you don’t find an ad own business. address a meena Se te ne nee ee | To The Men in enclosed — pamphiet was torwarded to me by one have } i i t Publix Theatres: | | and 1 ; ot this most for this message care inour incentive and applicable to studied you the you have me hear trom convenience you gather front contained im NEW COMPETI | his fellow—but ‘a | thousand actual | startling facts that the average life | of the manufacturing concerns was i 7 years—and | demands | scientifically determine the cause of ‘his ecollapse—so that future gener faga pank” BR ; event ' the bankers and other unpaid cred| iters. fare right that only Then in a year or two his orders| fall off and he besins to complain) of hard times. Bil doesn’t know | it, hut his business is deomed. His goods are old) his overhead jis high, methods are out of date, and his. customers aré dropping away. When Bill is in bankruptcy and the shepiff is nailing 2 “For Sale” sign on. his store.’ Too bad! Bill was a nice) poor interpreter. Yecent statistics covering several cases revealed the of retail steres 7.1 years. No’ wonder bankers prefer bonds of carly maturity! I said “bonds’—not “blondes”. : If a man drops dead on the street, everybody gets excited and the law an immediate autopsy to ations may protect |. themselves} against a similar disaster. But if} a business, no matter how long established, suddenly goes into bank | ruptcy and dies a commercial death, | | nobody gets excited, and no autop-} } SY iand suo protect other business men} is held to determine the cause! inst a similar fate. Only Dun} adstreet even record the} and the ehief mourners are} if the statistics 5 business men But surely, iin 100 are suceessful—great benefit Very truly yours, SAM KATZ. SBODY | would |} day | bankers, and when asked for an ex to the rest of us if we could. but know the causes of the failures of the other 95. heard of a business man the other} who specified in his wih that} of his pallbearers should be| come all | planation, he replied—“Well, I'm an} | appreciative fellow. These bankers} |i have been carrying me all my life >j in im. who | is filled with | Cig, SRE, Ee | nadj | of | of F72 j and | and Ta like them to finish the job.” Bradstreet’s statistics show that 1926 there were 20,024 business! failures — and among them 1772} banks, the largest number of bank} failures in the country’s. history.) The ratio of failures was .88 of 1%| —which is higher than in 19 out} the last years. Just think | banks failing and most of} “filled with vice-presidents} adding machines!” 45 them (THE PUBLICS EVER CHANGING | | t ee SEs ogressing. “oS , difficult to | | thousands more. It appears in three} achieves it pays The country | ed. American | science—and | ; is } it | cessful busi-| rdest job in| ring the past few) rican workman with | 1achinery, has in-| juction over one-|} t, distribution is f the hour. The is raging every-j succeed during the} business man | and a care-j er changing life. nervy > I want to tell you know it is true} it in the Bible—} reason it will be} you. (Laugh if; I know of one} so ignorant) thinks the} f the apost-| ime gay old) pulling a} stle, drink-| 1 his numer-| ubines, and in} tuous feast—}| 0 a panic by} hand No-| al | silk socks. MIND The truth is that a new competition has recently sprung up in| American business, which has al-| ready wrecked thousands of busi-| ness men and is daily threatening} } different forms, and first among them is the publie’s ever changing} mind. If you can figure out just} what the public wants, you can get rich overnight. Where are the village blacksmiths, the harness shops, the cob-/ blers of our childhood—ditch dig-| gers, hod carriers, wheelbarrows) and shovels— carpets, stove pipes,| writing paper and corsets—high) shoes, stiff collars, fancy vests and} night shirts—-and even the good/ old home-made bread that mother] used to make? Over 7,200 flour mills have been forced out of business in the last 20 years—partly because mother changed her mind. Somebody conceived the idea of a closed body for automobiles—and a dozen established industries were affected overnight. Men switched to low shoes and then demanded As a result, the manufacturers of high shoes and cotton socks (with their thousands of skilled workers) suffered a deadly blow. Tanners used to brag that there would always be a demand) for sole leather as long as babies} were born “barefoot’—but rubber soles are now coming strong and babies feet are still born bare. Automobiles kept us busy for a time burning gas and tires both day} and night—but now radios and movies demand our presence indoors. Book stores used to prosper; —but How can a fellow read books) today and at the same time keep up his golf? “We have 2,500 bookstores in this country, and 500,000 tobacco dealers—200 times as much 4| effort to supply smoke as to supply | brains.” doom of That night Beishaz-j and forced out of the} his kingdom passed] the nds. .zzar has now been dead} appears} urbing fre-| appalling part of} feasts. | L of beguiling} it will last forever. | prosperous today,' lways be prosper-| see, and fewer} > handwriting on} >t it is on the walls) 1eet, where mer-| here manufacturers | homes and halis}| , factory and every| ientific Daniels are} high priced—and so the ness man must read nd ecess or failure 2 accuracy of his in , be prosperous toss is booming and a million dollars.” | shave I can remember when every bar | ber shop had a private shaving mug for every customer—but the safety razor put a kink in the mug business and also taught father to at home. We used to buy crackers in bulk—cheaper and just as good—but now mother wants them in dainty little packages and this feminine whim has built up a tremendous paper box business which will continue to pay handsome dividends until mother changes her mind again. For genérations the iceman has been an institution in every home, but now the electrician is after his job with a refrigerator that doesn’t use any ice—-and back of him stands a pow-~erful corporation with twenty millions in plant and a five million dollar advertising program for a single year. The wood shed finally gave way to the coal shed—and now Old King “Coal” is fighting a battle of his own to keep oil out of the domestic furnace. While experimenting with some nitrocellulose left over from the war, chemists discovered a kind of lacquer which hardened so quickly that they had to go further and invent a spray brush with which to wakes up—his. business! walk out on } ness. | highest order. spray it on before it could dry. Duco becomes a substitute for paint, what will become of ail our paint factories and their associated. linseed Gil, zine, varnish and. turpentine makers, and their thousands of skilled workmen—and what about the thousands of painters we have today? Tabor reads the handwriting on the wall and as a the Painters’ Union has declared the spray brush an outlaw “and will any job where it is the painters “finish” Will Duco “finish” the will used,” Duco—or painters? ; Until recently every factory had to have its own power plant and was therefore located with regard to ports, rivers and -railways—but now our public utility companies have a capacity of over 56,500,000 horsepower and can deliver all the power you want right at your door. This change has been hard on the boiler makers and the old time engineers. and firemen—but it . has concentrated. the power making facilities of our country into one vast power house and linked together the the American people into one endless chain. ‘ Twenty-five years ago skirt-binding factories were numerous and prosperous, They made a tough binding for the bottom of women's aresses—to protect them from the pavement. But women changed their minds and their skirts too, until now it’s the shorter the better —and from present indications a revival of the skirt-binding business hasn’t a chance in-the world. But I don’t blame some women for wearing short skirts—for in that | way they can shift attention from their faces to their knees! Anes This new form of competition may be hard to understand and harder still to master—but it is here to stay and no business man can long survive who is not alert to its ever changing moods and able to meet them. Ideas—ever new ideas—are our only salvation, and the only power that can preyent our yearly balance sheets from showing a heavy loss. SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH The second form of this new competition is Selentifie Research. A great war is being waged between the old way and the new. Science itself is getting into busiSomebody asked a college professor how science helped business and he replied: “What would the suspender business amount to without the law of gravitation?” A large industry is no longer safe without a research department. The public -igs constantly demanding lower costs, search can lower them. The man who can do business at the lowest cost is bound to make the largest profit—and it goes without saying that that man is a scientist of the The best brains in industry are now being employed to reduce costs and there is a life and death struggle all along the line from manufacturer to retailer. Herbert Hoover startled the whole country when he showed that approximately 50% of all the material, labor and money spent in of our largest industries was actual waste. The evil of odd sizes alone has cost our country billions of dollars. Manufacturers are getting wise to this waste and rapidly cutting it down. There used to be 66 sizes of paving bricks—and now there are only 4. Blectric lamp sizes have been reduced from about 50 to 5; bedsteads from 78 to 4—) and milk bottles from 49 to 9. Railroad axles have been reduced from 56 to @—and even the types of coupling pins from.26 to 1. Think of the millions saved all along the line from manufacturers’ cost to retailers’ shelf room and storage— and think of the millions thus rejeased for investment in other inaustries! Competition demands | lower costs—and science finds the way. The chain stores too can teach us many lessons for they use scientific methods. For example—they figure the value of a store location by the foot traffic past the door, Footsteps make values. When they want to locate a new store in any town they make a scientific traffic count to find the particular location past which the largest number of people walk every day. That spot is the best location in town. And they know by stop watch tests the kind of a window display that will bring the largest number of people to a halt. Get up some new ideas to bring more people to your store and you will increase the value of your location and the volume of your business. The secret of a merchant's crowd-drawing power is the secret of his success. Gradually our country is _becoming a nation of investors. We now have about 15,000,000 stockholders in our great corporations. “The men of millions and the millions of men are becoming joint owners of American business.” This is public ownership of the right sort. Neither you nor I are rich enough to. hire the great Colonel Stewart to work for us—but we can accomplish that very result by buying stock in the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, The trouble is that the average man never stops to figure that corporations fall in eae, result} industrial activities of) -heard and nothing but re: many) If business the saine as individuals— and the bigger they are, the harder they fall. ? American business is increasing in volume about 3% per year, but the high cost of this modern competition is making it a profitless prosperity for many. The first result is the frantic consolidation of Producers, as witness the General Motors. Corporation of yesterday, and then comes the equally frantic consolidation of Distributors, as witness the Chain Stores of today. It is claimed that distribution costs are now three times what they used to be fifty years ago. Producers merge to reduce costs, and Distributors merge for the same reason. The insolvency record is now on the same level as it was in the 1921 depression. During the five-year period from 1921 to 1925, 41%% of all the manufacturing corporations in the United States didn’t make a dollar of profit, and yet the average man buys steeks with his eyes tight shut and with no inyestigation at all as to whether or not the management is in scientific hands. I recently looked over the balance sheet of a large corporation that hadn’t paid a dividend in ten years. IT couldn’t account for its poor showing until I finally learned that it had never spent a cent for research. Gradually its business had gone to pot and it hadn’t spent a nickel to find out why, or to create new ideas with which to meet tne ever changing conditions of the times. For a number of years phonograph manufacturers were smothered in luxury as a result of unof, prosperity—when some brilliant genius invented a radio— and the Victor company passed its dividends and the rest went to the industrial hospital. It is said that during’ the war there were 44 American companies engaged in the production of potash and now there is only one—and that one was the only one that maintained a research department. What about the widows whose money was invested in those concerns? For generations, paper manufacturers regarded their ability to make paper as a favored inheritance from their ancestors—like brown eyes. Nobody was fool enough to dream of making paper from Southern pine—but one young chemist with a head full of brains did it— and now our Southern mills are making paper and money too. They remind me of the fellow who asked a scientist if a boy could inherit his father's wooden leg, and he replied: “No, but he could his wooden head.” : One of the greatest efforts of research is to find cheap substitutes for everything that is expensive. Artificial pearls and silk and fur and leather are fighting to supplant the “real things” and at the same time, the “real things” are fighting one another. A few years ago competition existed only between competitors in the same line, but now a retail clothier must compete with movies and radios, restaurants and jewelers to get his share of the public purse. There is a rapid chase not only for the last dollat the consumer has, but for all he hopes to have for a year or two in the future—thanks to the installment selling plan. Oil is fighting coal to heat the country and electricity is fighting ice.to cool it—and now gas makes a bid to monopolize the whole show by producing both heat and cold. Steel is fighting wood, cement is fighting steel, lumber is fighting cement and celotex is giving lumber the eatest fight of its long and honorable career. Simply announce that you are a building a house ard you will be hounded to death by 57 varieties of material men. From the cellar to the garret you must listen to arguments of brick agaiwst cement, metal against wood, wallboard on ake plaster, and so on to the roof—and when at last your house is finished and furnished and you thréw yourself exhausted into the Sockoetee re. of your dear old feather bed—another lawless salesman breaks down your bedroom door and “bawis you out” because you didn’t buy his “Ostermoor.” And the sad part of it is that one prominent authority tells us we are all paying 100% more for building materials than we should, all due to the cost of competition. ae rea And when it comes to food stuffa, the battle is flercer than ever. Every method known to science is being used to sell food in one form or another. As one writer puts it, ‘If plain rice won't sell at 7c a pound, they change it into puffed rice and sell it at 61¢; wheat at 2%c becomes puffed wheat at 68¢; corh at 1%4%c becomes corn flakes at 20c.” Fish are fighting fowl—and both are fighting beef. Every food from soup to nuts is fighting for a bigger place in our poor old American stomach—sauer Kraut and pickles, prunes and spaghetti, coffee and postum, oatmeal and grapenuts—no wonder John D, Rockefeller is sufpee from indigestion! ‘ And here again, ideas—ever new ideas—are the only life boats upon which we can depend. Ideas have] never been so vital as they are] right now. Over 80,000 applications for patents go through th ; States ‘Patent. Office Soxery year == s —all fixed b aggressive think son refused an ( restore his hearin devil by UNTRUTHEUL | And the third @ form of this ne untruthful adverth this evil has alwi but it was never 80 as it is right now, mires the man W on their merits— is unconfined A goods on merits the; Honest advertising | able thing—but fa the basest fraud. . these advertiser goods nowadays, look like a_ piker, a yeast cake @ | ‘your youth and remoy your conscience? that a particular “that school-girl tried both and look are they trying to. soap or complexic firm advertise Phi when mahogany x the Philippines? One J elry selling as platinul was found test to than $1 worth of estimated that the out of $15,000,000 a. measure by 1 —and $100,000,000 weight in bread—” Not even our sentim are being overlooked have a “Mother's Day” —a “Father's Day’ dasher—and the — “Suicide Day” for t Nor does the price the quality of the — Engineers found that produced the 4 tually sold for the hi Rubber parts worth abe sold in a fountain pen | infectant selling at $9) was found to con emt water—and published the price 4 An American-made $60 and sold for often the best is cheapest is best. . quality, but to are all like a blind ma ing hopelessly helpless if looking for a black ha there. As Abe Martin si we want nowadays is an’ more of what we're | The United States Goy perhaps the only buyer” that gets its money's maintains a Bureau to test everything it tising and sales talk here—just quality—and f our government $100,000,0 Uncle Sam pays 23¢ a qui —while you and I pay § gallon for varnish nil $6.75; 16c a pound for while we pay 45c. E we who asapend mill a the pea erage ps : ave no place to go fol knowled s and patient public | against all this in not establish a of our own in ¢ E Union to test and pub quality.of the neces e! What chance an facturer or me lying. pirates? has the — labo works like a dog to little family—again trickery arra: every hand? e is the more they could you help | than by making it to buy better ; money? This is eve an inerease in a thorough and this subject, s Worth,” by Stu Schlink from wh statistics > What is the b leather, the best comes only from wants to sell yo We already have for cement and ("sterling” silver hy where, and so is “Port p y laborate not for all of the necei and thus protect all of this bun tna Wet an e not every honest H ae a every year—' ;