PLAN No. 115. BECAME A SECRETARY-BY-MAIL
Being a secretary by mail is a man’s-size job, and few there are who can fill a position so exacting and often so delicate in the performance of its manifold duties. However, a Denver young man, of literary tastes and a lot of good business sense, felt that he could do it, and found that he could.
He began by catering to the mail-order merchants who wish to keep posted on new advertisements and schemes, and answered all such ads. for his clients, sending them the replies received. He wrote attractive business-getting letters for mail-order and other people who were poor letter writers themselves, but who knew the value of good ones. He attended to business matters in his city for his clients, occasionally made collections for them, and performed many delicate forms of service that proved of great value. In short, he did the work of a regular secretary, but did it better than most of them are capable of doing, the main difference being that he was secretary for some 200 men or firms, instead of for only one; and, though his charges in each case were very small, they amounted to a good deal in the aggregate, and brought him a nice income for comparatively little effort.
It was a successful combination of the right man and the right plan.
PLAN No. 116. FREE MOTION-PICTURE TICKETS
A Seattle man worked out the following plan.
He called upon the managers of half a dozen or more of the 5 cent motion-picture houses and told them if they would sell him tickets at one-half the regular price, to be paid for in cash, in lots of 500 or more, he could greatly increase the attendance at their theatres, as the tickets would not cost the holders anything, and everybody who had free tickets would be sure to come.
Practically all of those approached accepted this offer, and then he had several thousand coupons printed, at a cost of 50 cents per 1,000, and used a special tint of paper to prevent counterfeiting.
Thus armed, he next called upon a number of merchants with a proposition that, for $1.25, he would give them 100 of these coupons, twenty-five of the 5 cent admission tickets, and an attractive show-card calling attention to the fact that he was offering his cash customers free motion-picture tickets. The twenty-five tickets alone, at their face value, were worth the amount he asked for the entire outfit.
Most merchants were glad to give a discount of 5 cents on each $1.00 cash purchase, as it had a tendency to convert many credit customers into cash buyers, and the favorable publicity it gave was worth a good deal. He gave one coupon with each 25-cent cash purchase, four for a $1.00 purchase, and these four coupons entitled their holder to a free 5-cent theatre ticket. He gave out, on an average, 100 of these coupons and twenty-five tickets each day, with cash purchases amounting in all to $25.