The son tried to revive the business through the mail-order route, but failed, and was trying to sell out, when an idea came to him through the remark of a casual acquaintance. The idea was: A circulating music library!
As practically every family in his town and the surrounding country owned a phonograph, and most of them were growing tired of the records they had used so long, they were all anxious to get hold of new ones, but most of them felt they could not stand the extra expense.
To these people John’s plan to organize a circulating music library, with a membership fee of $1 a month, and supply the members with new records for their phonographs, as well as new sheet music for those who had pianos, came as an agreeable surprise, and it was almost no time until 500 members were secured. The twelve records or six music rolls, which each member received every month, aroused a new interest in that music-loving community, and John was entrusted with many extra commissions, which added considerably to his income. He paid the postage when sending out the new records or rolls, while the members prepaid the return charges, and as most of the members had old records of which they were tired, he took these in and sent them to other members to whom they were new, thus keeping them in constant use.
The monthly receipts from 500 members were $500. The expenses, including the purchase of new records and rolls, were usually about $250, so that his net profits from the plan were $250 a month.
PLAN No. 387. “KNOCK-DOWN” PICTURE FRAMES
In every home in the land are many valuable pictures that are lying around loose, with excellent prospects of being soiled, torn or lost, simply because the owners of them to do not feel able to pay the high prices asked for frames already made, or made to order.
A Kansas City man, who thoroughly understood this condition, decided upon a plan by which thousands of these pictures could be enclosed in handsome and appropriate frames at comparatively little cost.
Being handy with tools, and having but little available capital, he bought a modest stock of picture-frame mouldings of various styles, sizes and grades, a mitre-box, a saw, a small mortiser, some tacks, etc. He also provided himself with stationery and an illustrated circular concerning picture frames, showing the difference in prices between frames already made and those ready to put together, besides cuts showing the different styles and prices of “knock-down” frames, and the manner of putting them together, particularly emphasizing the saving in cost by using those he advertised.
Through a local agency he placed ads. in a large number of newspapers circulating mainly in the country, and from these he received several hundred inquiries. In answer to these he sent his illustrated circular—which must have been a good one for it brought orders by the score—and these he filled with such satisfaction that he was soon busy enough to hire a boy to make the frames, while he put up the orders. The complete outfit, packed neatly in a box, contained the four sides of the frame, the corners grooved so as to be put together with glue, four small tacks for the corners, two screw eyelets and three or four feet of picture wire; in fact, everything except the glass, which could be obtained at any crossroads store.
And the business grew until its profits were several thousand dollars a year.