Businessperson

“ Our fair client, like many another histrionic genius, had more charm than business ability and was persuaded by an unscrupulous manager to intrust to him a large sum of money for investment in his various enterprises. ”

“ But the business man, or entrepreneur, in our day is the director and initiator of industry. He employs labor, borrows capital, sets the wheels of industry in motion; it is his expectations and fears and hopes which determine primarily whether the investment of capital shall take place in large or small amount, and whether the machinery of production shall move smoothly and effectively, or slowly, hesitatingly, inefficiently. ”

“ What I purpose doing is to carry out my business schemes by such methods as will enable those who work with me and for me to earn their own betterments in life, and then to enlighten and guide them in the spending and investment of their earnings. ”

“ And the Number One, the head-centre bull’s-eye boss of the job, is a partner in what I believe is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, contracting firms in the Empire or the world, a firm whose name is a household word, whose activities have spread over all the inhabited and a biggish section of the uninhabited globe, who control capital running well up in the millions and have fingers in all sorts of business pies. ”

“ What government failed to effect, however, with all its patronage and all its agents, was at length brought about by the enterprise and perseverance of a single merchant, one of its adopted citizens; and this brings us to speak of the individual whose enterprise is the especial subject of the following pages; a man whose name and character are worthy of being enrolled in the history of commerce, as illustrating its noblest aims and soundest maxims. ”

“ Thus banking, law, medicine, public utilities, newspapers, the church, large retailing, brokerage, manufacture, are rated at a different social value from salesmanship, superintendence, expert technical work, nursing, school teaching, shop keeping ”

“ That’s the most familiar form and it’s necessary and produces big, but there are other kinds. You know the majority of your trade never knew the founders of your company personally. When they think of your company they think of you. ”

“ I mean to get into the promotion of big things—big corporation business. A fellow that finances street railways and industrial plants, controls banks and makes towns grow—a builder; that’s what I mean to be. ”

“ A firm that dates from past generations, still carrying on business in the name of its founder, has had all its members and employés changed one by one, perhaps several times over, while the firm has continued to occupy the same place and to maintain like relations to buyers and sellers. ”

“ Can I go to a professional man, who keeps as it were his shop open for those who may think fit to come, and purchase of him, and take of his goods, and afterwards, when the goods have been used, tell him that I have not the price in my hand? ”

“ But it is unnecessary to advertise the fact to the surrounding populace, Stuart. I've come up here to do business with the owner of that property, and I shall take no more cognizance of the sex of that person than the law will take in its interpretation of any contract she may make with me. Business is business—a fact which, notwithstanding frequent repetitions, your mind seems never yet to have grasped firmly! ”

“ There are a million or two of business firms in the country, and five or ten times as many clerks; and consider the handling and rehandling, the accounting and reaccounting, the planning and worrying, the balancing of petty profit and loss. ”

“ I am always successful, if I do say it myself, and the firm know it, and pay me accordingly. They know that several other firms are after me, and would get me away if they didn't pay me my price."
"I suppose you know all about investments, being a business man?" ”

“ I agree that in numerous instances this would he wrong; but the fact is that, in many cases—I think I may say in most cases—the head of the establishment, the moneyed man, the man who, by his commercial ability (that most necessary element in all establishments) , keeps the concern going by finding lucrative orders, is not intimately acquainted with the practice of the business carried on by his firm; he relies upon some manager or foreman, who, too commonly, is not the real, but the so-called practical man. ”

“ Let me observe, in the first place, that company which is really good is very rare and very shy. But you have surmounted this difficulty, and procured him the best letters of recommendation to the most eminent and respectable in every capital. ”

“ You will see those engaged in these companies associate together, confer with each other, lay their plans before each other, investigate them, scan every branch, and every part and particle of their business. ”

“ Management, instead of being regarded as the servant of Capital exclusively, ought to be in a position to regard itself, as in fact it is, one of the necessary parties to industry, and as such entitled to a voice in matters which pertain to its administrative functions ”

“ Associated with the head of the business, usually selected from active workers who live with the business every day, are a few who are taken into intimate relations with the business policy, and who very materially assist in its development, and in the working out and building up of the system by which the business is carried on. ”

“ And the business men are not only in the most strategic and competent position to find out what the people who buy want, but to find out too, what the people who sell want. They are in the best position to know, and to know intimately, what the salesmen and saleswomen want and what they want to be and what they want to do or not do.
They are in a close and watchful position, too, with regard to the conditions in the factories from which their goods come and with regard to what the employers, stockholders, foremen and workmen in those factories want. ”

“ In the first place let me say that what we have done in our business any firm can do in theirs. It is not that we have any extraordinary talents along organization lines. We simply have taken the lessons learned in everyday trading, have tabulated and filed them in triplicate. ”

“ Their merchants, whose enterprise was proverbial, were familiar with some of the ingenious expedients that, in our day, among civilized nations, so facilitate and simplify important business transactions. ”

“ The Entrepreneur's Proper Function not Labor of Management.—In some theoretical discussions the management of a business figures as the principal function of the entrepreneur, and all or nearly all of the reward that comes to him is represented as coming in the shape of a reward for a responsible kind of labor that calls great abilities into requisition. ”

“ They who suggested it were moved by the success of those great enterprises which every day develops around us, and which, by the magic word 'Company,' assume vitality and consistence; they speculated on immense profits just as they could compute a problem in arithmetic. ”

“ His success is their success, and without favorable results neither he, nor they, can prosper.
Teach ’em, Red—show ’em their responsibility! Fire their minds and hearts with the fact that they’re not working for the company—bless your heart, Boy, they are the company to all intent and purpose on their territory, and either their lackadaisical or their aggressive, businesslike demeanor and actions will be interpreted by their trade exactly as they appear and the company will be so reflected. ”

“ This is the constant multiplication of intervening agents—middle-men, factors, brokers, speculators, contractors, and distributors of every sort—between the producer and the consumer, or between the primary owner and the ultimate owner of almost everything which is the subject of ownership and trade. Those two, who are the actual persons brought chiefly into relationship by the thing in question, are put quite out of sight of one another in most of the transactions of modern industry and commerce ”

“ As to the wages paid to the men engaged in the routine of competitive selling, as salesmen, buyers, accountants, and the like, - much the same holds true of them as of the income of the business men who carry on the business on their own initiative. ”

“ The upshot was, that we found a worthy young merchant or shipping-broker, not long established in business, who wanted intelligent help, and who wanted capital, and who in due course of time and receipt would want a partner. ”

“ As events have turned out, so far from being penniless, she is, shall we say, the three-fourths proprietor of a flourishing business, with, probably, all the capital at her command which is needed for its development. ”

“ Today intellectuals, as cooperators, are active in many of the following professions or lines of business and the demand for such experts is increasing: Accountancy, publicity, law, research, teaching, organization work, architecture, store management and merchandising, bakery management, restaurant management, laundry management, banking, insurance, dairying, contracting and building, coal distribution. ”

“ There are the business managers, public and private, the political organisers, brokers, commission agents, the varying grades of financier down to the mere greedy camp followers of finance, the gamblers pure and simple, and the great body of their dependent clerks, typists, and assistants. ”

“ The entrepreneur, as we shall use the term, is neither the manager nor the capitalist, and when we have occasion to speak of either of these functionaries, we shall call him by his own distinctive name; though we know perfectly well that, in actual business, it is desirable [Pg 120] and often quite essential that the same one who acts as an entrepreneur should also put into the business some labor as well as some capital. ”

“ In this great business community there was no better man of business, no man by whom the humdrum obligations—punctuality, method, preciseness, and economy of time and speech—were more keenly recognized or more severely practised. ”

“ The modern business man, entrepreneur or manager, and all those assisting him in the discharge of his duties, perform functions in two directions: first, in the direction of the market in the establishment of price, in the selling of his goods, and in attending to all matters which flow therefrom, and secondly toward the production plant itself ”

“ True enterprise is constantly on the alert to discover some new want of society, some fertile source of profit or honor, some unexplored field of business, and is ready to supply the one or to take advantage of the other. ”

“ I soon became expert at the business, and, in obedience to my father’s injunctions, drove it on with spirit while I was at it. The making of money I found far more profitable than the making of purses. ”

“ In large businesses, however, where the volume and complexity of the commercial activities make it impossible for the executive, on whom rest the responsibilities for the successful conduct of the business, to have an intimate personal knowledge of all phases of the business, it is very necessary that some means be employed for supplying him with this vital information. ”

“ On work which is repeated over and over again and the volume of which is sufficient to permit it, the plan of making a contract with a competent workman to do a certain class of work and allowing him to employ his own men subject to strict limitations, is successful. ”

“ As one of many illustrative cases, the Rubber Goods Manufacturing Company may be taken as a typical instance of a corporation organized in a conservative but up-to-date manner for permanent success and stable value. ”

“ The absent entrepreneur would be, in the eye of the law, the purchaser of all the elements which go into the product, since all the purchases are made in his name. The managers are only his agents, and when they buy raw materials or supplies for the mill, they buy them for him and by his authority, and he is under the obligation to pay for them. ”

“ Of course, with the development of the market the complexity of office management increased. In modern times the business man concerns himself not only with the duties of the merchant and exchanger, but also with the organization of industry and economical procedure. ”

“ This created confidence and desire on the part of his employer to see him prosper, and a disposition to assist him. In course of time his employer lends him capital, or makes him a partner in the business, and then his fortune is assured. ”

“ ‘Industry,’ said Mr Chester, ‘is the soul of business, and the keystone of prosperity. ”

“ Agents, Pedlars, Canvassers, Booksellers, News Agents, &c., throughout the country, who wish to make money on a small capital, would do well to address the undersigned, who will furnish a complete outfit for a comparatively small amount. ”

“ Now passing at once to our own times and bringing the truth of our text to illuminate them, I should like to say a little to people engaged in business, whether as employers or employed, whether the business is wholesale or retail. ”

“ It comprises Commercial Travellers, Canvassers, Insurance Agents, Commission Agents, the greater number of Shop Assistants, the majority of Clerks, Workmen employed in the construction and adornment of business premises, People occupied with what they call "Business", which means being very busy without producing anything. ”

“ There are many items of great volume and consequence that do not fall within the immediate score of these business principles. The housewife's work, e.g., as well as some appreciable portion of the work on farms and in some handicrafts, can scarcely be classed as business enterprise. ”