Dollars and Sense | Page 6

the manufacturers come to him.
Stop a moment and look over your own experience, and you will recall
numerous instances where it has been to your advantage to close a deal

in your own office.
There is nothing in what we have written in this series of talks that has
less theory in it than this particular chapter.
There is no point we have made more surely proven by experience.
The army that attacks the enemy in the enemy's country has the odds
against it, as all wars have proven. Men fight best at home on their own
vantage ground.
Whether you are buying or selling try to close the deal in your own
place of business.
If you have travelers on the road let it be part of their business and duty
to invite and persuade customers to call at your place of business when
they are in town.

Ambition
A man without ambition had better content himself with learning a
trade. A good mechanic is fairly sure of three dollars a day, and
fifty-two weeks' employment in the year.
The mechanic does not have many worries. He does not have notes to
meet at the bank. He does not have to face the ingratitude of employes
and petty jealousies, for he has no employes working for him.
He lays down his tools when the bell rings and goes home to his family.
His ambition is to have a good place to sleep, plenty to eat, money
enough to buy clothing for his family and to send his children to school,
and extra spending money enough over his fixed charges to allow him
to take his family to the circus when it comes to town.
Ambition makes men strive to get ahead. Ambition cultivates taking
chances.

Nearly every man is a gambler. Some of you will be shocked at this
statement, yet upon careful analysis nearly every move a successful
business man makes is a gamble. He is betting that he will take in more
money than he lays out on a new plan. The man with ambition is a
gambler. The man who learns a trade and does not strive to increase his
earnings is not a gambler.
We pride ourselves on our ability to buy cheaply, because the cheaper
we can buy the greater our earnings will be and the less our gamble.
Any man with two hands and ordinary health can earn a livelihood, but
the ambitious man wants to make a name for himself and to make a
success in business, so he works harder than he would do if his problem
were only the obtaining of money enough to buy the things necessary
for his existence.
The moment a man loses ambition, his progress, so far as business
advancement is concerned, ceases.
Nearly every successful business today is successful because the
proprietors, in the infancy of the business, were filled with ambition
which made them work hard.
We are all familiar with the successful business man who loses his
ambition. It is an absolute certainty that as soon as a man loses
ambition his business falls off, unless he makes it an object to take care
of the ambitious young men in his employ, so that they may keep up
the pace of progress he established.

Lawyers
Keep in touch with a lawyer, but don't take his advice on business
matters.
A lawyer should be like a dictionary--a place of reference.
Lawyers by the very nature of their vocation have much to do with

concerns who are in trouble, and with firms who are poorly managed.
Lawyers know law first and business second; the business man knows
business first and law second.
The advice of one successful business man is worth the advice of
twenty-three lawyers on a matter of business.
Use the lawyer to keep you out of trouble. Let him see your contracts
and the papers and agreements pertaining to leases, sales, purchases,
royalties, and all documents which may from their nature be brought
into court as evidence. These things are the ones on which to take the
lawyer's advice.
When you are pushed into a corner and must fight, then get the best
lawyer, for in a fight in court, like a fight in the prize ring, the best
trained and equipped man usually wins.
It's more often the best lawyer wins than the best side of the case.
Legal struggles seldom pay. Law suits take up time and money, and the
result, even if in your favor, seldom offsets the time, money and worry
you have expended.
The good lawyer keeps you from fighting. Many lawyers, however, are
grafters, and they advise fight, for they win whether you do or not.
Settle disputes even if you are imposed on. There is