The Omnipresent Agent–What He Says and What He Sells–Power of the Successful Drummer–The Five Secrets of the Book Agent–Five Thousand Dollars Commission on a Patent–How Seven Men Carry $7,000,000 Insurance–A Man Who Receives $5,000 a Year and Does Nothing–How Teachers Pay for Their Positions–Searching for a $10,000 Preacher–The Matrimonial is Often a Matter-of-money-all–A New Way to Get Good Servants–The Farm Supply Company.
Few occupations supply such inducements for individuals with little or no capital as that of the agent. There are two lessons of companies. In one, as a ebook or patent company, the agent works for one or two individuals at a set fee and wishes no capital. In the opposite, as that of servants and of provide corporations, the agent can also be in a sure sense a principal; he obeys nobody’s orders, fixes his personal commissions, and makes his earnings immediately from the general public. Here are a number of factors for brokers:
287. BOOK AGENCYThe ebook company relies upon partly upon the type of ebook, however mainly upon the type of man. The proper man promoting the fitting ebook could make huge wages. An agent promoting a commentary on the Bible made generally $25 in half a day. An agent for the “People’s Encyclopædia” earned $3,000 in a single 12 months, and spent solely about half the time within the work. Many brokers for “Memoirs of General Grant” earned from $10 to $20 a day. Ordinarily, an agent needs to be glad if he could make from $3 to $5 a day. From this sum should come his bills. Book brokers obtain from 25 to 45 per cent., in accordance with the character of the work. Forty per cent. is taken into account wonderful compensation.
288. THE PATENT AGENCYConsiderable enterprise is now performed within the promoting of patent rights. The agent research the lists that come out weekly within the “United States Patent Gazette,” and sends his circulars to those that have secured patents. The agent will cost from 5 to 10 per cent., if he can organize with a patentee for the sale of the patents. In different circumstances, he fees a set sum, which is paid upfront, and is taken into account an equal for his companies whether or not or not he’s profitable in effecting a sale, on the identical precept that docs and attorneys are paid whether or not they acquire or lose a case. In extent and revenue, the enterprise varies from the itinerant vender with half a dozen patents in his valise to the established enterprise home with sub-agencies in all components of the world. What the earnings are within the latter state of affairs could also be judged from a single case within the former, the place a touring man acquired as fee on a single patent offered the sum of $5,000.
289. COMMISSION MERCHANTSA huge enterprise is completed within the sale of basic merchandise on fee. Foreign homes have their companies on this metropolis. Also a lot of the produce of the farm and of the merchandise of manufactures are disposed of in the same way. Take a case of the previous type. A person hires an workplace in New York and storage in a warehouse. Then he sends circulars to Westerndealers, stating that he’s ready to take their inventory or grain on fee. When he could make fast gross sales he saves the expense of storage, however rental in a warehouse is critical in holding for futures. He receives in someday 100,000 bushels of wheat at seventy-five cents per bushel, which, after paying freightage, he sells at one half of 1 per cent. revenue. Gain of someday, $500. He won’t obtain a lot day by day, and a few days he should promote at a loss; however, taken altogether, there are good possibilities of treasure within the fee enterprise.
290. INSURANCE AGENCYInsurance, each fireplace and life, is a mine of treasure, and has opened wondrously throughout the previous couple of years. The current magnitude of the enterprise is proven by the assertion that there are $2,500,000,000 invested in life insurance coverage within the United States, whereas the fireplace insurance coverage brokers final 12 months wrote greater than $16,000,000,000. There are seven males who’ve an combination of $7,000,000 on their lives. But the enterprise is but in its infancy. The area of life insurance coverage is just not practically coated, and if it have been, ten million individuals will come to maturity throughout the subsequent ten years, all of whom could also be thought-about as candidates for insurance coverage, and all of the insurance policies should be renewed in a short while. Insurance brokers obtain as fee from ten to 25 per cent. Some corporations safe to their brokers a daily proportion on the premium as long as the insurance policies proceed in drive. If, due to this fact, an agent will get fifteen per cent. fee, and the corporate receives $10,000 per 12 months as premiums from the insurance policies he has written, his share will probably be $1,500; and thus he enjoys an annuity with none additional work for a protracted time frame. The bigger old-time corporations, additionally, have basic brokers whose positions are nonetheless extra profitable. Many of them are in circumstances of affluence, and have little or no to do. In truth, it’s within the insurance coverage enterprise as in lots of different occupations, that as one rises the salaries are bigger, and the precise work, other than the duty, is smaller.
291. TRAVELING SALESMANIn some homes a touring salesman is allowed a standing fee on all items purchased by companies whose customized was secured by means of his affect. As the fee continues so long as the shopper continues the commerce at that home, some brokers, after a number of years of lively work are enabled to retire on incomes of $2,000, $3,000, and in some circumstances of $5,000 a 12 months. The enterprise performed by drummers is immense. Three hundred million tons of products are shipped by them yearly, and the enterprise quantities to almost $2,000,000 a day.
292. SUPPLY COMPANIESA provide firm differs from an peculiar retailers’ agency in that it doesn’t maintain items in inventory. It is a mammoth basic company for procuring in anyway you want. Specimens solely are stored within the retailer, and from these the shoppers make alternatives. The benefit of provide corporations is the saving of enormous leases, of pricy clerk-hire, and of loss or harm within the lengthy retaining of products, and, most of all, of danger in unsalable articles, and within the fall of costs. Thus, a provide firm can undersell an peculiar vendor, and if alert and immediate could make huge earnings. Another nice benefit is the smallness of the capital required. Here are nice alternatives for brilliant younger enterprise males of restricted means.
293. AGENCIES FOR TEACHERSThe variety of academics within the public colleges within the United States is 400,325. The matter of partaking college academics varies in several States, and sometimes in several components of the identical State. Sometimes it’s performed by county superintendents, typically by the Board of Education, however most incessantly by the college trustees, commissioners, or committees. One going into the enterprise of a Teachers’ Agency should verify the actual technique in each a part of the nation, and study the identify of the individuals approved to behave in that capability. Then he ought to problem circulars by the hundred thousand. For the eyes of candidates, he ought to use the promoting pages of the newspapers. Teachers needs to be charged a fee upon their salaries in one thing like the next order: Five per cent. on first 12 months’s wage, three per cent. the second 12 months, and one per cent. the third 12 months. After that it could be allowed to lapse. The contract needs to be rigorously drawn, and, the place attainable, funds needs to be collected upfront. There are nice profits in the business when systematically and vigorously carried out. One company within the japanese a part of the United States is receiving commissions from ten thousand college academics. Owing to frequent adjustments, nearly all of these are paying 5 per cent.; but when we suppose the common to be solely the quantity payable the second year–$3 commission–the earnings could be $30,000.
294. CLERICAL AGENCYHere is a chance for an unoccupied clergyman of large clerical acquaintance. There are hundreds of vacant pulpits and different hundreds of ministers anxious for calls. Establish an company by means of whose medium the provision shall meet the demand. Your record ought to comprise the names of all churchless pastors, along with these desirous of change; and their expertise, {qualifications}, schooling, household, age, private look, along with different fascinating info, needs to be correctly tabulated for the inspection of church committees. Candidates needs to be graded in accordance with {the catalogue}, and despatched out so as as pulpit candidates. As clerical engagements are generally for much longer than these of academics, it’s proper that it is best to obtain a bigger per cent. to your companies. If a church pays its pastor a wage of $10,000, and you’re profitable within the seek for an obtainable man for its pulpit, it could hardly be a presumption so that you can cost $500 to your companies.
295. MATRIMONIAL AGENCIESThese needs to be carried out with the best care, and solely by probably the most conscientious individuals, on account of the nice duties concerned. They are, nonetheless, able to huge growth, and of immense good. In Massachusetts alone there are seventy thousand females in extra of the males, whereas in Illinois the boys preponderate to the variety of fifty thousand. Your process of bringing collectively the unmated is a most delicate one, and it is best to accordingly be properly compensated. Where there may be a lot treasure on both aspect, your fee could also be expressed in three figures, and even in 4. One thousand {dollars} is a small sum for a person to pay who secures an achieved spouse and a cheerful dwelling. We have recognized a number of marriages made on this strategy to prove exceedingly properly.
296. AGENCY FOR SERVANTSThis is just not new, however you would possibly revolutionize it by a brand new plan. Written suggestions are nugatory, as a result of nearly each one will compensate the frustration of the discharged servant by a certificates of excellent habits, within the writing of which the elasticity of the conscience is kind of drawn upon. Instead of accepting a worthless paper, let an worker of the workplace personally go to two or three of the locations the place the servant has been employed. The woman of the home will inform you many issues she wouldn’t write within the letter. This will devour time, however the compensation is within the higher class of service you will be enabled to offer. When it’s recognized that you simply make private investigation, sifting out the ineffective and providing solely first-class assist, your patronage will probably be vastly elevated, and you may cost a lot larger commissions. Tell your patron that on the finish of a month she could pay you $10 if glad; and most of the people would favor to do this than to pay a half or quarter of that sum upfront with small assure of health.
297. AGENCY FOR FARM HANDSThere are hundreds of idle folks within the nice cities who would gladly go on farms for a portion of the 12 months. If they make private utility, they’re generally regarded by the farmer as tramps. Besides these, there are literally thousands of emigrants arriving in quest of work. Many of them are beneficial as farm assist, having tilled the soil at dwelling. An agent who has a eager data of human nature, and is aware of methods to ask questions, sifting out the ineffective and the vicious from the dear and the virtuous, can by means of correct promoting in agricultural papers, ship no less than a thousand of those males into the nation each summer time. Through an association with the farmer by which $5 of the primary month’s wages shall be withheld and forwarded to the agent, the sum of $5,000 as fee for these one thousand laborers is secured. But the energetic agent should do much better than this.
