Page 49 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

would be to call only on prospects that needed an extinguisher. This had not
occurred to me, but it sounded good, so I spent the next day studying the
classified telephone directory and made up a list of firms which I believed
needed extinguishers. I listed twenty-seven firms in one business district.
These calls were fairly close together, and I routed them so I wouldn’t waste
time going from one to the other. That day’s commissions totaled thirty-six
dollars.”

DePries sets a quota of twenty-five calls a day. Out of these twenty-five calls
he averages sales of twelve fire extinguishers. This does not mean that he
sells twelve different concerns, for one small factory may give him an order
for ten or twelve extinguishers. There was one week when his commissions
amounted to a little over three hundred dollars, and in one ten-week period he
earned nearly a thousand dollars in commissions.

DePries concentrates his calls on small factories, wholesale houses,
warehouses and garages. Fire insurance underwriters have approved the
extinguisher he is selling, and, as a consequence, he is able to point out to
prospects that possession of his extinguisher will reduce the cost of their fire
insurance.

The company which manufactures the equipment which DePries sells does
not require experienced salesmen, nor does it demand a cash investment from
salesmen. Any ambitious man or woman may make a salesman’s connection
with the organization.

A Business Selling Mending Fluid

W

HILE visiting a friend, Dwight C. Ritchie, of Pablo, Montana, noticed a tube
of mending liquid lying on a table. “What’s that for?” asked Ritchie. “Why,
it’s for mending small holes in shirts and socks. It’s great stuff. Takes but a
minute to mend a tear, or a hole in a silk stocking,” the friend replied. Ritchie
made note of it. He wasn’t married and had to mend his own clothes, so he
bought a tube. Later he wrote to the manufacturer, and requested a connection