Page 60 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

ask them if there is some other piece of equipment in which they are
interested. After you have made a few calls, you will have taken orders for
some other equipment which you can buy second-hand, rebuild and sell.
Some men who have tried this plan have orders for all the rebuilding they can
do for weeks ahead.

A safe plan to follow is to add the cost of the equipment and the cost of all
the parts and materials to a fair price for your time and labor in rebuilding.
Then add 50 per cent to this figure to arrive at your selling cost. Thus, if you
paid $7.50 for a used washing machine, spent $3.25 for new parts, enamel,
etc., and two days’ labor, your price would be, figuring your labor at $4.00 a
day, $7.50, plus $3.25, plus $8.00. This totals $18.75. Add 50 per cent and
your selling price is $28.12. This would leave you a gross profit of $9.37,
after paying yourself $4.00 a day for your work. Some rebuilders pay a
commission of 20 or 25 per cent to others for selling. To do this, you should
double your costs after paying yourself wages. For example, on the washer
which cost, including your labor, $18.75, the selling price would be $37.50,
which would carry a 20 per cent commission for selling. This price would net
you $30, or a profit of $11.25. The extra profit is to pay you for the time your
salesmen will inevitably take up, and the necessary help you will be forced to
give them.

Using Old Customers to Get New Ones

C

HARLES ANGLE , of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, raised his extract business
from an ordinary $20-a-week enterprise to one which paid him $4,000
annually by developing a customer cooperation plan among women who
bought extracts. It is a plan that might solve your problem, just as it did his.

Mr. Angle explained his plan as follows: “There isn’t a big profit in extract
sales. My special four-bottle deal, selling for ninety-nine cents, with a
generous-sized package of dessert thrown in free, is a quick seller. However,
there is only a thirty-cent profit for the salesman. You have to sell a lot of
these special offers to make any real money. I went along for a while up here