Page 255 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

Ten years ago he bought a run-down radio broadcasting station in
Shenandoah, rehabilitated it, and has used it ever since to sell even more
goods by radio than he ever sold strictly by mail. He is now known as a
“radio-order” merchant as well as a mail-order merchant. He does most of his
own broadcasting, and where once he called personally on hundreds of
customers, then wrote letters and sent catalogs to thousands, now his voice is
heard by literally millions throughout the whole Middle West. In the twenty-
five years from 1899 to 1924 his mail-order sales grew to a $600,000 annual
volume. Since he has been able to get closer than ever to his customers over
the air, they have grown to $3,000,000.

But in spite of the huge plant which his business occupies, in spite of the
acres of fields where his seeds, plants and bulbs are now grown, in spite of
his broadcasting station and the huge department store which covers the
ground floor of the building, all the million customers on the books of the
company still feel that they are dealing directly with Henry Field. They may
never have seen him in person, although each year close to half a million
farmers and small-townspeople visit his plant, but through his letters and
broadcasts and catalogs they feel that he is an old and trusted friend. That’s
why they continue sending in their orders by mail at a rate of a thousand
every day.

Reaching the Smoker by Mail