How Cord Earned His First $1,000

 How Cord Earned His First $1,000 

   E. L. CORD, president of the Cord Corporation, who built up the Auburn Automobile Company, and is the directing head of many important business enterprises, made his first money rebuilding Ford cars. He bought a $75 second-hand Model T Ford. He geared it for high speed, added a homemade racing body, gave it a coat of paint and sold it for $675. The plan worked so well that he bought twenty Fords, put them through the same rebuilding process and sold them all for an average profit of $500 per car. Of course, this opportunity is gone today. But there are other similar opportunities. Second-hand goods of all kinds are constantly being traded in on new goods. Washing machines, radios, vacuum cleaners are frequently traded in long before their life usefulness has ended. A few new parts, a coat of paint or enamel will put them into a salable condition. There’s a real opportunity in almost every town or city for the man who is mechanically inclined, who has a few tools and isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty, to make a good living reconditioning second-hand household equipment. Almost every dealer who takes in second-hand equipment offers a pitifully small allowance on it. To get rid of it he is often willing to sell it for just what he paid. At times even less. There is a steady market for rebuilt and reconditioned household equipment. Hundreds of people who do not want to pay the price of new equipment are good prospects for rebuilt equipment. All you need to start is a few tools and one second-hand machine, such as a washer, vacuum cleaner or refrigerator. The first step is to take the equipment apart, clean it thoroughly, replace worn and broken parts, refinish where needed. Then you are ready to make your first sale. Offer your first rebuilt piece of equipment to your next door neighbor. If he doesn’t buy, offer it to the next nearest neighbor, and so on until sold. As you make each sales call, ask them if there is some other piece of equipment in which they are interested. After you have made a few calls, you will have taken orders for some other equipment which you can buy second-hand, rebuild and sell. Some men who have tried this plan have orders for all the rebuilding they can do for weeks ahead. A safe plan to follow is to add the cost of the equipment and the cost of all the parts and materials to a fair price for your time and labor in rebuilding. Then add 50 per cent to this figure to arrive at your selling cost. Thus, if you paid $7.50 for a used washing machine, spent $3.25 for new parts, enamel, etc., and two days’ labor, your price would be, figuring your labor at $4.00 a day, $7.50, plus $3.25, plus $8.00. This totals $18.75. Add 50 per cent and your selling price is $28.12. This would leave you a gross profit of $9.37, after paying yourself $4.00 a day for your work. Some rebuilders pay a commission of 20 or 25 per cent to others for selling. To do this, you should double your costs after paying yourself wages. For example, on the washer which cost, including your labor, $18.75, the selling price would be $37.50, which would carry a 20 per cent commission for selling. This price would net you $30, or a profit of $11.25. The extra profit is to pay you for the time your salesmen will inevitably take up, and the necessary help you will be forced to give them. 

  

 Using Old Customers to Get New Ones 

    CHARLES ANGLE , of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, raised his extract business from an ordinary $20-a-week enterprise to one which paid him $4,000 annually by developing a customer cooperation plan among women who bought extracts. It is a plan that might solve your problem, just as it did his. Mr. Angle explained his plan as follows: “There isn’t a big profit in extract sales. My special four-bottle deal, selling for ninety-nine cents, with a generous-sized package of dessert thrown in free, is a quick seller. However, there is only a thirty-cent profit for the salesman. You have to sell a lot of these special offers to make any real money. I went along for a while up here in Milwaukee doing a big business but not getting much profit. Then I interested a woman in boosting my flavoring extracts to friends, promising her four bottles and the special dessert free for each five she sold for me. This worked out so well that I made the same offer to another woman living two blocks away. She promptly got busy on the telephone and turned in orders for 39 specials in less than a week. I rewarded her by giving her a pair of silk stockings in addition to the promised bottles of extract. “After that experience, I made more effort to secure customer cooperation than I did to make direct sales. In two months, I had established 34 cooperating customers on this plan in the Milwaukee area, each of whom averaged 12 sales a week for me. I gave them some inexpensive prizes for their efforts. “I have discovered that women will gladly do their best to recommend a worth-while product if they feel their efforts are appreciated. They like to believe you are not going to forget them. A card at Easter and Christmas was sufficient to line up several women who had fallen out of the habit of cooperating with me last year. One woman, who had been very active helping me get business, but who had given up for several weeks, was once more added to the active list when I sent her little girl a birthday card.” Angle has always been a hard-working salesman, but admits that without the cooperation of his women customers, he would never have climbed out of the small earning class. He points out that the cost of the gifts distributed to the women cooperators seldom exceeds one-third of the commission, an amount he can well afford to pay. He declares that were he to appoint these same women as subagents, however, they would not secure the same amount of business for him. The extracts and flavoring Angle sells are of good quality. He buys at wholesale, and the bottles come in special containers. He is not required to buy any definite quantity to secure the wholesale price. The company supplying him gladly ships in any quantity, regardless of the size. For this reason, Angle, without capital, has been able to build up a good business. Today, there are 46 women boosting his sales in, and near, Milwaukee. They phone in their orders after five-thirty, when he returns home from making his canvass of the district. An average of two sales daily is turned in by these women, which, with Angle’s personal sales, brings daily profits between $14