CHAPTER IX.
MONEY IN AGENCIES.
The Omnipresent Agent—What He Says and What He Sells—Power of the Successful Drummer—The Five Secrets of the Book Agent—Five Thousand Dollars Commission on a Patent—How Seven Men Carry $7,000,000 Insurance—A Man Who Receives $5,000 a Year and Does Nothing—How Teachers Pay for Their Positions—Searching for a $10,000 Preacher—The Matrimonial is Often a Matter-of-money-all—A New Way to Get Good Servants—The Farm Supply Company.
Few occupations offer such inducements for persons with little or no capital as that of the agent. There are two classes of agencies. In one, as a book or patent agency, the agent works for one or two persons at a fixed commission and needs no capital. In the other, as that of servants and of supply companies, the agent is also in a certain sense a principal; he obeys no one’s orders, fixes his own commissions, and makes his profits directly from the public. Here are a few points for agents:
287. Book Agency.—The book agency depends partly upon the kind of book, but chiefly upon the kind of man. The right man selling the right book can make enormous wages. An agent selling a commentary on the Bible made sometimes $25 in half a day. An agent for the “People’s Encyclopædia” earned $3,000 in one year, and spent only about half the time in the work. Many agents for “Memoirs of General Grant” earned from $10 to $20 a day. Ordinarily, an agent should be satisfied if he can make from $3 to $5 a day. From this sum must come his expenses. Book agents receive from 25 to 45 per cent., according to the nature of the work. Forty per cent. is considered excellent compensation.
288. The Patent Agency.—Considerable business is now done in the selling of patent rights. The agent studies the lists that come out weekly in the “United States Patent Gazette,” and sends his circulars to those who have secured patents. The agent will charge from five to ten per cent., if he can arrange with a patentee for the sale of the patents. In other cases, he charges a fixed sum, which is paid in advance, and is considered an equivalent for his services whether or not he is successful in effecting a sale, on the same principle that doctors and lawyers are paid whether they gain or lose a case. In extent and profit, the business varies from the itinerant vender with half a dozen patents in his valise to the established business house with sub-agencies in all parts of the world. What the profits are in the latter situation may be judged from a single case in the former, where a traveling man received as commission on a single patent sold the sum of $5,000.
289. Commission Merchants.—A vast business is done in the sale of general merchandise on commission. Foreign houses have their agencies in this city. Also much of the produce of the farm and of the products of manufactures are disposed of in the same way. Take a case of the former kind. A man hires an office in New York and storage in a warehouse. Then he sends circulars to Westerndealers, stating that he is prepared to take their stock or grain on commission. When he can make quick sales he saves the expense of storage, but rental in a warehouse is necessary in holding for futures. He receives in one day 100,000 bushels of wheat at seventy-five cents per bushel, which, after paying freightage, he sells at one half of one per cent. profit. Gain of one day, $500. He will not receive so much every day, and some days he will have to sell at a loss; but, taken altogether, there are good chances of wealth in the commission business.
290. Insurance Agency.—Insurance, both fire and life, is a mine of wealth, and has opened wondrously during the last few years. The present magnitude of the business is shown by the statement that there are $2,500,000,000 invested in life insurance in the United States, while the fire insurance agents last year wrote more than $16,000,000,000. There are seven men who have an aggregate of $7,000,000 on their lives. But the business is yet in its infancy. The field of life insurance is not nearly covered, and if it were, ten million persons will come to maturity during the next ten years, all of whom may be considered as candidates for insurance, and all the policies will have to be renewed in a short time. Insurance agents receive as commission from ten to twenty-five per cent. Some companies secure to their agents a regular percentage on the premium so long as the policies continue in force. If, therefore, an agent gets fifteen per cent. commission, and the company receives $10,000 per year as premiums from the policies he has written, his share will be $1,500; and thus he enjoys an annuity without any further work for a long period of time. The larger old-time companies, also, have general agents whose positions are still more lucrative. Many of them are in circumstances of affluence, and have very little to do. In fact, it is in the insurance business as in many other occupations, that as one rises the salaries are larger, and the actual work, aside from the responsibility, is smaller.
291. Traveling Salesman.—In some houses a traveling salesman is allowed a standing commission on all goods bought by firms whose custom was secured through his influence. As the commission continues as long as the customer continues the trade at that house, some agents, after a few years of active work are enabled to retire on incomes of $2,000, $3,000, and in some cases of $5,000 a year. The business done by drummers is immense. Three hundred million tons of goods are shipped by them yearly, and the business amounts to nearly $2,000,000 a day.
292. Supply Companies.—A supply company differs from an ordinary merchants’ firm in that it does not keep goods in stock. It is a mammoth general agency for procuring whatsoever you desire. Specimens only are kept in the store, and from these the customers make selections. The advantage of supply companies is the saving of large rentals, of expensive clerk-hire, and of loss or damage in the long keeping of goods, and, most of all, of risk in unsalable articles, and in the fall of prices. Thus, a supply company can undersell an ordinary dealer, and if alert and prompt can make vast profits. Another great advantage is the smallness of the capital required. Here are great opportunities for bright young business men of limited means.
293. Agencies for Teachers.—The number of teachers in the public schools in the United States is 400,325. The matter of engaging school teachers varies in different States, and often in different parts of the same State. Sometimes it is done by county superintendents, often by the Board of Education, but most frequently by the school trustees, commissioners, or committees. One going into the business of a Teachers’ Agency must ascertain the particular method in every part of the country, and learn the name of the persons authorized to act in that capacity. Then he should issue circulars by the hundred thousand. For the eyes of applicants, he should use the advertising pages of the newspapers. Teachers should be charged a commission upon their salaries in something like the following order: Five per cent. on first year’s salary, three per cent. the second year, and one per cent. the third year. After that it may be allowed to lapse. The contract should be rigorously drawn, and, where possible, payments should be collected in advance. There are great profits in the business when systematically and vigorously conducted. One agency in the eastern part of the United States is receiving commissions from ten thousand school teachers. Owing to frequent changes, the majority of these are paying five per cent.; but if we suppose the average to be only the amount payable the second year—$3 commission—the income would be $30,000.