If you have travelers on the road let it be part of their business and duty to invite and persuade customers to call at your place of business when they are in town.
Ambition
A man without ambition had better content himself with learning a trade. A good mechanic is fairly sure of three dollars a day, and fifty-two weeks' employment in the year.
The mechanic does not have many worries. He does not have notes to meet at the bank. He does not have to face the ingratitude of employes and petty jealousies, for he has no employes working for him.
He lays down his tools when the bell rings and goes home to his family. His ambition is to have a good place to sleep, plenty to eat, money enough to buy clothing for his family and to send his children to school, and extra spending money enough over his fixed charges to allow him to take his family to the circus when it comes to town.
Ambition makes men strive to get ahead. Ambition cultivates taking chances.
Nearly every man is a gambler. Some of you will be shocked at this statement, yet upon careful analysis nearly every move a successful business man makes is a gamble. He is betting that he will take in more money than he lays out on a new plan. The man with ambition is a gambler. The man who learns a trade and does not strive to increase his earnings is not a gambler.
We pride ourselves on our ability to buy cheaply, because the cheaper we can buy the greater our earnings will be and the less our gamble.
Any man with two hands and ordinary health can earn a livelihood, but the ambitious man wants to make a name for himself and to make a success in business, so he works harder than he would do if his problem were only the obtaining of money enough to buy the things necessary for his existence.