The first thing I would come upon would be a convention. It is one of the automatic ideas or conventions of business men—not to believe in themselves.
XVI
THE BUSINESS MAN, THE PROFESSIONAL MAN, AND THE ARTIST
Why is it that if a professional man or an artist does or says a certain thing—people believe him and that if a business man does or says precisely the same thing—most business men are suspicious?
When I say in the first sentence of an article on the front page of the Saturday Evening Post—as I did awhile ago—"I would pay people to read what I am saying on this page,"—everybody believes me. As people read on in one of my articles in the Post, they cannot be kept from seeing how egregiously I am enjoying my work. Anybody can see it—that I would pay up to the limit all the money I can get hold of—my own, or anybody's—to get other people to enjoy reading my stuff as much as I do. Nobody seems inclined to deny that if I could afford to—or, if I had to—I would pay ten cents a word to practically any man, to get him to read what I write.
Precisely the way I feel about an article in the Saturday Evening Post so fortunate as to be by me—or, about a book written by g.s.l., a man I know very well—W. J. —— feels about a house or about a bank created by W. J. ——. But if W. J., a designer—contractor—a builder—pretends he enjoys his creative work in building as much as I enjoy writing—if W. J., a business man, were to go around telling people or revealing to people that he would like to hire them to be his customers by handing back to them twenty, thirty or forty per cent of his agreed upon profits when he gets through (which is what he practically does over and over again) there are very few business men who would not say at first sight that W. J. is a man who ought to be watched.
And he is too, but for precisely turned around reasons most people have to be watched for. W. J. in designing and constructing a house, or a bank for a client, sets as his cost estimate a ten per cent maximum profit for himself, as a margin to work on; aiming at six or five per cent profit for himself, on small contracts and at a four, three or two and one-half per cent profit for himself on million dollar ones. Changes and afterthoughts from his clients in carrying out a contract are inevitable. W. J. wants a margin on which to allow for contingencies and for his customers' afterthought.
The three things that interest W. J. in business are: his work on a perfect house, his work on a perfect customer and his work on making enough money to keep people from bothering his work.
A perfect house is a house built just as he said it would be which comes out costing less than he said it would cost—possibly a check on his client's dinner plate the first night he dines in it.