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1 WHAT IS ECONOMICS?
The Big Picture
Where we are going:
After completing Chapter 1, the student will have a good sense for the range of questions that economics addresses and will be on the path towards an economic way of thinking. The students will begin to think of cost as a forgone alternative an opportunity cost and also about making choices by balancing marginal costs and marginal benefits.
Chapter 2 reinforces the central themes of Chapter 1 by laying out a core economic model, the production possibilities frontier (PPF), and using it to illustrate the concepts of tradeoff and opportunity cost. Chapter 2 also provides a deeper explanation, again with a model, of the concepts of marginal cost and marginal benefit, beginning with the concept of efficiency, and concluding with a review of the source of the gains from specialization and exchange.
New in the Thirteenth Edition
A significant change to this chapter that you probably want to spend some time on is a new section that presents data about the economics major and how well it ranks in the income spectrum of all majors. Most of the other content of this chapter remains the same short of updates to date sensitive items. There a minor reworking in the beginning of the math appendix that added clarity to the topics discussed.
This important chapter is not one to gloss over as it lays down an important foundation that can be drawn from as you move through more specific applications later. Students relate well to the section on self and social interest which calls out issues of both efficiency and fairness and is great for class discussion. Economics in the News covers some current issues with Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg’s vision to have the Internet available to the whole world.
Lecture Notes
What Is Economics?
I. Definition of Economics
Economic questions arise because we always want more than we can get, so we face scarcity, the inability to satisfy all our wants. Everyone faces scarcity because no one can satisfy all of his or her wants.
Scarcity forces us to make choices over the available alternative. The choices we make depend on incentives, a reward that encourages a choice or a penalty that discourages a choice.
Forbes lists Bill Gates and Warren Buffet among some of the wealthiest Americans. Do these two men face scarcity? According to The Wall Street Journal, both men are ardent bridge players, yet they have never won one of the many national bridge tournaments they have entered as a team. These two men can easily afford the best bridge coaches in the world and but other duties keep them from practicing as much as they would need to in order to win. So even the wealthiest two Americans face scarcity (of time) and must choose how to spend their time.
Economics
Economics is the social science that studies the choices that individuals, businesses, governments and entire societies make when they cope with scarcity and the incentives that influence and reconcile those choices.
Economists work to understand when the pursuit of self-interest advances the social interest
Economics is divided into microeconomics and macroeconomics:
Microeconomics is the study of the choices that individuals and businesses make, the way these choices interact in markets, and the influence of governments.
Macroeconomics is the study of the performance of the national economy and the global economy
On the first day do a “pop quiz. ” Have your students write on paper the answer to “What is Economics?” Reassure them that this is their opinion since it is the first day. You will find most of the answers focused around money and/or business. Stress that Economics is a social science, a study of human behavior given the scarcity problem. All too often first-time students (especially business students) think that Economics is just about making money. Certainly, the discipline can and does outline reasons why workers work longer hours to increase their wage earnings, or why firms seek profit as their incentive. But Economics also explains why a terminally ill cancer patient might opt for pain medication as opposed to continued chemotherapy/radiation, or why someone no longer in the workforce wants to go to college and attain a Bachelor’s degree, in their sheer pleasure of learning and understanding. Stressing the social part of our science now will help later when relating details to the overall bigger picture (especially when time later in the semester seems scarce, no pun intended!).
The definition in the text: “Economics is the social science that studies the choices that individuals, businesses, governments, and societies make as they cope with scarcity and the incentives that influence and reconcile these choices,” is a modern language version of Lionel Robbins famous definition, “Economics is the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means that have alternative uses.” Other definitions include those of Keynes and Marshall: John Maynard Keynes: “The theory of economics does not furnish a body of settled conclusions immediately applicable to policy. It is a method rather than a doctrine, an apparatus of the mind, a technique of thinking, which helps it possessors to draw correct conclusions.”
Alfred Marshall: “Economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life; it examines that part of individual and social action which is most closely connected with the attainment and with the use of the material requisites of wellbeing.”
A “shorthand” definition that resonates with students is: “Economics is the study of trying to satisfy unlimited wants with limited resources.” Students can and do easily abbreviate this definition to “unlimited wants and limited resources,” which captures an essential economic insight.
II. Two Big Economic Questions
How do choices wind up determining what, how, and for whom goods and services are produced?
What, How and For Whom?
Goods and services are the objects that people value and produce to satisfy human wants. What we produce changes over time today we produce more MP3s and CDs than 5 years ago.
Goods and services are produced using the productive resources called factors of production. These are land (the “gifts of nature”, natural resources), labor (the work time and work effort people devote to production), capital (the tools, instruments, machines, buildings, and other constructions now used to produce goods and services), and entrepreneurship (the human resource that organizes labor, land, and capital).
The quality of labor depends on human capital, which is the knowledge and skill that people obtain from education, work experience, and onthe-job training.
Owners of the factors of production earn income by selling the services of their factors. Land earns rent, labor earns wages, capital earns interest, and entrepreneurship earns profit.
Do Choices Made in the Pursuit of
Self-Interest also promote the social interest?
You make a choice in your self-interest if you think that choice is the best one available for you.
An outcome is in the social interest if it is best for society as a whole.
A major question economists explore is “Could it be possible that when each of us makes choices in our self-interest, these choices are in the social interest?’
The Two Big Economic Questions
Don’t skip the questions in a rush to get to the economic way of thinking. Open your students’ eyes to economic in the world around them. Ask them to bring a newspaper to class and to identify headlines that deal with stories about What, How, and For Whom. Use Economics in the News Today on your Parkin Web site for a current news item and for an archive of past items (with questions). Pose questions but hold off on the answers letting them know that “we can have a much more fruitful discussion when our toolbox is full ” Remind them that this course is about learning simple economic models that provide tools to seek answers to complex issues.
Students (and others!) often take the answers to the what, how, and for whom questions for granted. For instance, most of the time we do not bother to wonder “How does our economy determine how many light bulbs, automobiles, and pizzas to produce?” (what), or “Why does harvesting wheat from a plot of land in India occur with hundreds of laborers toiling with oxen pulling threshing machines, while in the United States, a single farmer listening to a Garth Brooks CD and sitting in an air-conditioned cab of a $500,000 machine harvests the same quantity of wheat from the same sized plot of land?” (how), or “Why is the annual income of an inspiring and effective grade school teacher much less than that of an average majorleague baseball player?” (for whom). Explaining the answers to these types of questions and determining whether the answers are in the social interest is a major part of microeconomics.
Figure 1.1 in the textbook “What Three Countries Produce” ties in nicely with Chapter 2’s later discussion on the PPF. Figure 1.1 also links the three questions of what, how and for whom nicely to the component parts of those questions: goods and services, factors of production (land, labor, capital, entrepreneurship), and incomes economic agents earn (rent, wages, interest and profit).
We can examine whether the self-interested choices serve the social interest for a variety topics:
Globalization: Buying an iPod allows workers overseas to earn a wage and provide for family
Information-Age Monopolies: A firm producing popular software leads to format standards
Climate Change: Carbon dioxide emissions led to higher global temperatures and climate change
Financial Instability: Bank bailouts with the intent of social interest may cause more risky loans to be made in the future by banks serving their own self-interests.
III. Economic Way of Thinking
Scarcity requires choices and choices create tradeoffs.
What is the difference between scarcity and poverty?
Ask the students why they haven’t yet attained all of their personal goals. One reason will be that they lack sufficient money. Ask them if they could attain all of their goals if they were as rich as Bill Gates. They quickly realize that time is a big constraint and the great leveler: we all have
only 24 hours in a day. They have stumbled on the fact that scarcity, which even Bill Gates faces, is not poverty.
A Choice is a Tradeoff
A tradeoff is an exchange giving up one thing to get another.
Whatever choice you make, you could have chosen something else.
Virtually every choice that can be thought of involves a tradeoff. Presenting a few of the following as examples can help your class better appreciate this key point:
Consumption and savings: If someone decides to save more of his or her income, savings can be funneled through the financial system to finance businesses new capital purchases. As a society, we trade off current consumption for economic growth and higher future consumption.
Education and training: A student remaining in school for another two years to complete a degree will need to forgo a significant amount of leisure time. But by doing so, he or she will be better educated and will be more productive. As a society, we trade off current production for greater future production.
Research and development: Factory automation brings greater productivity in the future, but means smaller current production. As a society, we trade off current production for greater future production.
Making a Rational Choice
A rational choice is one that compares costs and benefits and achieves the greatest benefit over cost for the person making the choice.
But how do people choose rationally? Why do more people choose an iPhone rather than a Windows phone? Why has the U.S. government chosen to build an interstate highway system and not an interstate high-speed railroad system? The answers turn on comparing benefits and costs.
Benefit: What you Gain
The benefit of something is the gain or pleasure that it brings and is determined by preferences by what a person likes and dislikes and the intensity of those feelings.
Some benefits are large and easy to identify, such as the benefit that you get from being in school. Much of that benefit is the additional goods and services that you will be able to enjoy with the boost to your earning power when you graduate.
Some benefits are small, such as the benefit you get from a slice of pizza. That benefit is just the pleasure and nutrition that you get from your pizza.
Cost: What You Must Give Up
Seeing choices as tradeoffs shows there is an opportunity cost of a choice. The opportunity cost of something is the highest-valued alternative that must be given up to get it. So, for instance, the opportunity cost of being in school is all the good things that you can’t afford and don’t have the spare time to enjoy.
Students like the “Dr. Suess Version”: Opportunity cost is the thing you would have done if you did not do what you did.
What is the Opportunity Cost of Getting a College Degree?
When the students calculate their opportunity cost of being in school, be sure they place a value on their leisure time lost to studying on weekends and evenings. Most students are shaken when they realize that when lost leisure time and income is included in their calculations, the opportunity cost of a college degree approaches $200,000 or more. Don’t leave them hanging here though. Mention that a college education does yield a high rate of financial return over.
To ensure that people do not die of any serious side effects, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires all drug companies to thoroughly test newly developed medicines before allowing them to be sold in the United States. However, it takes many years to perform these tests and many people suffering from the terminal diseases these new medicines are designed to cure will die before good new medicines are eventually approved for use. Yet, if the FDA were to abandon this testing process, many others would die from the serious side effects of those bad medicines that made it to market. People’s lives will be at risk under either policy alternative. This stark example of a tradeoff reveals the idea that choices have opportunity costs.
How Much? Choosing at the Margin
Making choices at the margin means looking at the trade-offs that arise from making small changes in an activity. People make choices at the margin by comparing the benefit from a small change in an activity (which is the marginal benefit) to the cost of making a small change in an activity (which is the marginal cost)
Changes in marginal benefits and marginal costs alter the incentives that we face when making choices. When incentives change, people’s decisions change.
For example, if homework assignments are weighed more heavily in a class’s final grade, the marginal benefit of completing homework assignments has increased and more students will do the homework.
Choices Respond to Incentives
Economists take human nature as given and view people acting in their self-interest.
Self-interest actions are not necessarily selfish actions.
Self interest can be said to be in the eye of the beholder. Thus, covering the next portion on positive versus normative analysis can be crucial to the student’s understanding how economic agents act in their own selfinterests, but perhaps not (and often not) in other’s self-interest.
IV. Economics as Social Science and Policy Tool
Economist as Social Scientist
Economists distinguish between positive statements and normative statements. A positive statement is about “what is” and is testable. A normative statement is about “what ought to be” and is an opinion and so is inherently not testable. A positive statement is “Raising the tax on a gallon of gasoline will raise the price of gasoline and lead
more people to buy smaller cars” while a normative statement is “The tax on a gallon of gasoline should be raised.”
Economists tend to agree on positive statements, though they might disagree on normative statements.
An economic model describes some aspect of the economic world that includes only those features needed for the purpose at hand. Economic models describe the economic world in the same way that a road map explains the road system: Both focus on only what is important and both are abstract depictions of the real world.
Testing an economic model can be difficult, given we observe the outcomes of the simultaneous operation of many factors. So, economists use the following to copy with the problem:
Natural experiment: A situation that arises in the ordinary course of economic life in which the one factor of interest is different and other things are equal or similar.
Statistical Investigation: A statistical investigation might look for the correlation of two variables, to see if there is some tendency for the two variables to move in a predictable and related way (e.g. cigarette smoking and lung cancer).
Economic Experiment: Putting people in a decision-making situation and varying the influence of one factor at a time to see how they respond.
Economic Model vs the General Lee Car Model
When I was a kid, I had a plastic model car that I put together that was from Dukes of Hazard television show (you can insert your own “model” as you’d like). Tell the students, “Even though we all know the model car is not a “real” car, it does give us insights into what the real car is like. You have number on the door, the confederate flag on top, the proportions are correct and if you lift the little hood you can see what a V8 engine looks like”. An economic model is similar in that it gives us a glimpse of reality under some certain assumptions and although it is not reality it gives us insights about reality.
Economist as Policy Adviser
Economics is useful. It is a toolkit for advising governments and businesses and for making personal decisions.
For a given goal, economics provides a method of evaluating alternative solutions comparing marginal benefits and marginal costs and finding the solution that makes the best use of the available resources.
The success of a model is judged by its ability to predict. Help your student’s appreciate that no matter how appealing or “realistic looking” a model appears to be, it is useless if it fails to predict. And the converse, no matter how abstract or far removed from reality a model appears to be, if it predicts well, it is valuable. Milton Friedman’s Pool Hall example illustrates the point nicely. Imagine a physicist’s model that predicts where a carefully placed shot of a pool shark would go as he tries to sink the eight ball into the corner pocket. The model would be a complex, trigonometric equation involving a plethora of Greek symbols that no ordinary person would even recognize as representing a pool shot. It certainly wouldn’t depict what we actually see a pool stick striking a pool cue on a rectangular patch of green felt.
It wouldn’t even reflect the thought processes of the pool shark that relies on years of experience and the right “touch.” Yet, constructed correctly, this mathematical model would predict exactly where the cue ball would strike the eight ball, hit opposite the bank, and fall into the corner pocket. (You can easily invent analogous examples from any sport.)
V. Economists in the Economy
Jobs for an Economics
Major
Economists work for private firms, governments, and international organizations. Some have a bachelor’s degree, while others have a master’s degree or a PhD.
On their jobs, economists often collect and analyze data on production and use of resources, goods, and services in order to predict future trends or devise ways to use resources more efficiently.
Economists have jobs as market research analysts, financial analysts, and, less often, budget analysts. There were about 850,000 of these jobs in the United States in 2014.
Will Jobs for Economics Majors Grow?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has forecast that from 2014 to 2024, jobs for PhD economists will grow 6 percent; jobs for budget analysts will grow by only 2 percent; but jobs for financial analysts will grow by 12 percent; and jobs for market research analysts will grow by 19 percent.
Additional Problems
1. You plan a major adventure trip for the summer. You won’t be able to take your usual summer job that pays $6,000, and you won’t be able to live at home for free. The cost of your travel accomodations on the trip will be $3,000, gasoline will cost you $200, and your food will cost $1,400. What is the opportunity cost of taking this trip?
2. The university has built a new parking garage. There is always an available parking spot, but it costs $1 per day. Before the new garage was built, it usually took 15 minutes of cruising to find a parking space. Compare the opportunity cost of parking in the new garage with that in the old parking lot. Which is less costly and by how much?
Solutions to Additional Problems
1. The opportunity cost of taking this trip is $10,600. The opportunity cost of taking the trip is the highest-valued activity that you will give up so that you can go on the trip. In taking the trip, you will forgo all the goods and services that you could have bought with the income from your summer job ($6,000) plus the expenditure on travel accommodations ($3,000), gasoline ($200), and food ($1,400).
2. The opportunity cost of parking before the building of the new parking garage is the highest-valued activity that you forgo by spending 15 minutes parking your car. The opportunity cost of parking in the new parking garage is $1 that you could have spent elsewhere. If the opportunity cost of 15 minutes spent parking your car is greater than the opportunity cost of $1, then the new parking garage is less costly.
Additional Discussion Questions
1 Why are economists so concerned about the material aspects of life? Explain that this is a myth! Economists are often criticized for focusing on material well-being because of the general public’s view that economics is about money Explain that there are economists that research social and emotional (or spiritual) aspects of life. You may also add that these parts of life often depend heavily on attaining material well-being. You may want to reference the Economic Freedom Index (www.freetheworld.com) and its explanatory power on issues of world hunger and poverty. Ask them to consider the need for lifeenhancing goods and services such as health care or education to support spiritual or emotional well-being. Ask how protestors would be able to voice their opinions without low-cost air travel and the power of the Internet to coordinate the activities of hundreds of protesters. (Be careful not to seem to be either condoning or condemning these activities.) Most students will begin to see that the more efficient we are at producing material
prosperity, the more time and opportunity everyone has to promote emotional (or spiritual) goals.
2. Mini Case Study Illustrating How Economists Use Modeling:
Women are unfairly underpaid when compared to men Ask your students whether this statement is positive or normative. Mention that the media frequently reports that the average woman gets paid only 3/4 the wages of the average man. Is this “fact” a sufficient test of the positive statement?
If women were paid more than men in one or two professions (like professional modeling or elementary teaching) is that sufficient evidence to conclude that women in general are not underpaid when compared to men? Ask the students to think about how to properly test the model. Are these counter examples enough to discard the idea that women are underpaid?
What would you take into account when you collected data to compare women’s salaries versus men’s salaries? Remind the students that any model directly comparing men’s and women’s wages should control for any differences in wage-relevant characteristics between working men and women. You can discuss many different reasons why a gender wage gap can occur, including:
Women are underrepresented in higher paid occupations and are overrepresented in lower paid occupations (the problem may not be unequal pay but instead it may be unequal access to high paying jobs (glass ceiling?);
Women are underrepresented among those earning advanced degrees, though mostly among older age cohorts (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment and Earnings, Vol. 45, January, 1998). Here the problem here might not be unequal pay but unequal access to higher education;
Women have relatively less occupational-specific work experience and have relatively less unbroken work experience, as many women struggle between pursuing a career and raising a family. For example, one study found that women who were not mothers earned 90 percent of men’s salaries, whereas those who were mothers earned only 77 percent (Waldfogel, “Understanding the ‘Family Gap’ in Pay for Women with Children,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1998).
Does it further the public interest (and the interests of women workers specifically) to propagate normative statements about wage inequality based on statistics without taking account of all relevant factors? Summarize the discussion by noting that economic studies have indeed found evidence that a gender gap in wages exists in the United States, even after controlling for all known relevant factors. However, the gender wage gap is much less than the 1/3 number often quoted by the media, and has been decreasing significantly over the last few decades (Blau, “Trends in the Well Being of American Women, 1970-1995,” Journal of
Economic Literature, Vol. 36, No.1, March 1998). Get the students to see how properly applying the science of economics to social issues helps us strip away inflammatory rhetoric and examine the problem carefully and objectively.
Chapter 1 Appendix, Graphs in Economics
Lecture Notes
Goggle Theory
Explain to students that you are going to ask them to use three sets of goggles to view math in the course. I have found this to be a great tool for students to understand why we present data in different ways.
1. Equation Goggles: Write an equation in slope-intercept form and explain that this is one way to show relationships between two variables. I like to use X and Y for this one and then quickly explain that economics is much more fun than math because we may be talking about X-rays and YoYo’s. This helps some students break the barrier early on what “variable” means.
2. Graphing Goggles: Work through a graph of the equation you wrote highlighting slope and intercept. Indicate that this may be a Demand or Supply curve for instance.
3. Now you can explain that they will see all three of these forms of math at different times during the course and it is important for them to understand that you can move between all three anytime. We usually have it shown just one way for convenience. It is also fun during lecture to say, “I need you to pull out your graphing goggles.”
I. Graphing Data
Graphs are valuable tools that clarify what otherwise might be obscure relationships.
Graphs represent “quantity” as a distance. Two-variable graphs use two perpendicular scale lines. The vertical line is the y-axis. The horizontal line is the x-axis. The zero point in common to both axes is the origin.
Scatter diagram a graph that plots the value of one variable on the xaxis and the value of the associated variable on the y-axis. A scatter diagram can make clear the relationship between two variables.
II. Graphs Used in Economic Models
Graphs are used to show the relationship between variables. Graphs can immediately convey the relationship between the variables:
A positive relationship (or direct relationship) when the variable on the xaxis increases the variable on the y-axis increases. A straight line is a linear relationship.
A negative relationship (or inverse relationship) when the variable on the x-axis increases, the variable on the y-axis decreases.
A maximum or a minimum when the variable has a highest or lowest value.
III. The Slope of a Relationship
The slope of a curve equals the change in the value of the variable on the vertical axis at the point where the slope is being calculated divided by the change in the value of the variable on the horizontal axis at the relevant point.
In terms of symbols, the slope equals y/x, with standing for “change in.”
The slope of a straight line is constant. The slope is positive if the variables are positively related and negative if the variables are negatively related.
The slope of a curved line at a point equals the slope of the straight line that is tangent to the curved line at the point.
The slope of a curved line across an arc equals the slope of a straight line between the two points on the curved line.
IV. Graphing Relationships Among More Than Two Variables
A. When a relationship involves more than two variables, we can plot the relationship between two of the variables by holding other variables constant.
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submerge you so deep that your old friends who are now starting on the right road will forget about you.
Think how different life would be if you lived in a pretty home. If you felt satisfied you were going up the ladder instead of down, down, down, year after year.
Would you prove yourself capable of doing things if you had the opportunity? Don’t credit the success of your friends to luck. When they saw an opportunity they took advantage of it. We are laying right before your eyes a number of plans which will start you and your discouraged husband on the road to success. Will you pass it by?
WHAT EVERY GIRL WOULD LIKE TO DO
Get up in the morning when you have your sleep out. Arrange your working hours to suit your convenience. Engage in some kind of employment that you could do at home. Earn enough money to buy beautiful clothes, live in a comfortable home and command all the other comforts and luxuries incidental to a happy life.
On the following pages we will outline a plan which offers an opportunity for you to live the life so much wished for by hundreds of girls. You can sit right in your home and earn two or three times what your present position pays you without one-half the effort. You will be your own boss. You can start to work in the morning when you feel like it and stop when you feel like it. You can sit in your bedroom in your negligee or dress any other way you please. If you want to accomplish big things and operate a large office you can do so. What could be a more ideal situation than this? No labor to mar your hands or otherwise mar your physical appearance. The cleanest, most enjoyable and most profitable work any girl can engage in. The only qualification necessary is to be able to read and write.
Here is the plan:
We will send you a quantity of folders which tell all about the Book of Good Manners and the Woman’s Library. We will also send you a quantity of envelopes. You address these envelopes to all the girls and women in your vicinity. You can get their names from the telephone directory. Next you insert these advertising folders in the envelopes which you have addressed and mail them with a one cent stamp. We also send you a quantity of small envelopes which you address to yourself and inclose with the folder together with an order blank which reads as follows:
FREE COUPON
MARY BROWN
Mt. Hope, Mo.
I herewith enclose $3.00 as full purchase price of The Book of Good Manners. In addition to the Book of Good Manners I am to receive, ABSOLUTELY FREE, the woman ’ s library consisting of six books, as follows: “Plain Talks On Avoided Subjects”, “How To Prepare and Serve A Meal and Interior Decoration”, “Physical Beauty”, “Color Harmony and Design in Dress”, “How To Make Money”, “The Book of Culture”. You are to ship them at once wrapped in a plain box to the following address:
Name
Street and No.
Town and State
Now let us see what happens:
You make $1.50 on each set of books. Suppose that you only sell twenty people out of each hundred to whom you send the folder. Your profit would be $30 on each hundred folders you send out. One person can address about 1,000 envelopes each 8–hour day, so if you sent out 1,000 folders each day you would make $300 per day if you sold twenty people out of each hundred you sent them to. If you only sold ten people out of each hundred, you would make $150 per day, and if you even only sold five out of each hundred you would make $75 per day, provided you sent out 1,000 folders each day.
When you finish mailing to everyone in your vicinity, start mailing to the near-by towns. You can employ other girls to do your addressing after you get started.
What could be more pleasant than having the postman bring you an armful of mail each morning with each letter containing $3 of which $1.50 is profit to you?
If you wish, you can use your own name and address. Some girls work their plans under the name of The Woman’s Library and either use their home address or just rent a lock box at the Post Office. If for
any reason you do not want people to know who is running this plan, the latter suggestion is better.
When you get started with this plan, we will furnish you with other things to sell by mail. The first thing you know you will be proprietor of a large mail-order establishment.
Later on in this book we will tell you how to get started on this plan.
HOW FORTUNES ARE MADE
When you hear of some one making a fortune you will find that nine times out of ten it was made by selling something. It does not matter what you are doing, you cannot go very far unless you have learned the art of salesmanship, for after all we are all selling something. The doctor sells his skill to heal, the professor sells his knowledge, the bookkeeper his ability to keep books, the carpenter his ability to build houses, and the daily laborer his services. You see, we need salesmanship even though we do not happen to be selling shoes, flour, books, etc. Your advance in life is measured by your sales ability, and this is the reason that you should understand the art of salesmanship if you would climb up the ladder of success.
You have probably read about the schools of salesmanship—many of them correspondence schools—and you have undoubtedly heard of hundreds of men and women who have increased their earnings from a scant living to salaries ranging from ten to twenty-five thousand dollars per year. Many girls who clerked in stores, or did clerical work at $15 or $20 per week, increased their earnings to an unbelievable figure. Men who earned only a living wage by hard labor or tiresome routine work without a future, rose to positions where they became citizens of influence and wealth—all through applying salesmanship to their daily lives.
Do you know that the average salesman earns three times as much as the average position pays?
Do you know that salesmen are made, not born?
Do you know that the demand for salesmen always has and always will be three times greater than the supply? To convince yourself of the unlimited demand for salesmen just look over the “want ad” section of a city Sunday paper. You never see an “ad” for a salesman
read “small salary at start.” A salesman’s earning power is regulated by his ability. He gets paid what he earns. He does not place himself at the mercy of an employer to regulate his income.
What could be more pleasant work than going from city to city, riding on Pullman cars, living at the best hotels, meeting high-class people from all over the world, and spending a few hours each day taking orders which pay you a handsome income?
How could you ever expect to gain the knowledge this experience would give you? How could you ever make the acquaintance of such prominent and influential people as this vocation brings you in contact with?
But you will say: “I am a woman, and what do I know about salesmanship?”
And we answer: “It is just because you are a woman that we are telling you this; if you are ambitious and willing to do your part you can become a better salesman than the average man.”
Do you know that large New York firms are replacing their traveling men with women? Why? Because they have discovered that a woman who is willing to work can sell more orders than the average man. It is a rare occurrence to hear of a woman failing to make good selling. We know of girls whose experience was limited to bench work in factories and domestic work, who after taking a course in salesmanship proved winners and are now earning five times their original wages, besides living a life of luxury as compared to their former state.
HOW TO SECURE A FREE COURSE IN SALESMANSHIP
Most everything you learn at school or from books requires a great deal of actual practice before you can become perfect at it. In order to become a successful salesman through a salesmanship course you must put into actual practice what the course teaches you. You must get this actual experience right while you are studying. The author of this work has spent his entire life either selling or directing salesmen and has discovered that most people who have taken a course in salesmanship had a great many practical things to learn before they were successful. A course in salesmanship gives you the basic principles; actual experience teaches you how to apply these principles.
We have prepared a complete course on scientific salesmanship. This course is not complicated or difficult for the average man, woman, or girl to learn. The author has simply written the same instructions in this course that he has used in training salesmen for years. These lessons have made hundreds of people successful salesmen. There has never been a more complete or practical course on this subject ever written. Everything is explained in clear, simple language.
Our course teaches you
How to develop a pleasing personality.
How to analyze your buyer.
How to acquire confidence in yourself.
How to keep up your courage.
How to cultivate the power of observation, imagination and enthusiasm, to cultivate tact, self-control, ability to talk, good judgment.
How to get a hearing.
How to create interest by your opening remarks.
How to arouse desire.
How to build a sales talk.
How to sell by demonstration.
How to sell by convincing arguments.
How to sell by reasoning.
How to close the sale.
We could cover pages explaining the various branches taught you in this comprehensive course. If you are sincere in your effort to learn salesmanship there is no reason in the world why you should fail. Every principle of general business transactions is explained in detail.
This course in salesmanship which The Social Mentor Publications give you absolutely free, would cost you $50 if you learned it from a correspondence school. We are perfectly willing to teach you how to sell just as we teach all our salesmen how to sell before we send them on the road. We want you to be successful, since your success means our success, and we are willing to give you the benefit of our years of practical selling experience free, if you are willing to prove to us that you are sincere in taking the course, and are energetic and ambitious enough to pull up your end. We want men and women to join our organization who are looking and thinking ahead; who believe they are capable of doing bigger things than their present situations offer. This course is intended for both men and women regardless of age.
The difference between our system of teaching salesmanship and some of the salesmanship schools, is that we are not an assembly of impractical professors who never sold a dollar’s worth of merchandise in their lives and only teach you theory. We are a large business organization, whose business is and always has been selling merchandise. We tell you in plain, understandable English the successful methods we and our salesmen have used in the past and are using to-day. Not theory, but practical experience—common sense.
WHO ARE YOU?
If you are a married woman and have some spare time, we will show you how to earn $25 to $50 per week during your spare hours.
If you are a single girl and will devote all your time to our proposition, we will show you how to earn $100 per week or more.
If you are a man, the same opportunities are offered you.
On the following pages we will outline some of the plans from which you can select. Each one of these plans gives you an opportunity to take our complete course in salesmanship absolutely free, right while you are getting actual selling experience. You earn while you learn!
PLAN NO. 1
If we were to tell you that within one month we can make it possible for you to become Circulation Manager for your local daily newspaper, you would probably doubt us. Nevertheless, we can do this very thing if you will follow our instructions and if you possess ordinary intelligence, plenty of energy and lots of ambition. If you owned a newspaper and some one came to you with a plan that would almost double your subscriptions, wouldn’t you want to employ them?
Before we tell you the details of this plan we are going to tell you some facts about the newspaper business. Do you know that the two cents which you pay for your daily paper does not pay for the cost of the paper and printing? Perhaps you wonder how a publisher can make any money. His profit comes from selling advertising space. The amount they receive for advertising space depends on how many subscribers they have. For instance, a paper which has 5,000 subscribers receives $100 from a store for a full page advertisement. Now, if they can increase the number of subscribers to 10,000 they would receive $200 for the same ad. This ad would be read by twice as many people, therefore, it would be worth twice as much to the store. Now you can see why the newspapers want to increase their number of subscribers and why they are interested in anyone who can show them how to do it.
Almost every daily paper sells a ten weeks’ subscription for $1. They will pay 35 cents each to a solicitor for getting new subscriptions and will also pay him 35 cents each for getting renewals from old subscribers, provided he secures cash in advance.
Here is the plan:
Go to your newspaper and make them this proposition. “We have worked out a plan to double the circulation of your paper. Our plan is to give absolutely free a ten weeks’ subscription to your paper and the Woman’s Library consisting of six volumes, which every home needs and will buy, to each person who buys ‘The Book of Good Manners’ at its regular price $3.
“The price of the Woman’s Library is $2 per volume, or $12 for the six volumes; the price of ‘The Book of Good Manners’ is $3 and the price of a ten weeks’ subscription to your paper is $1. Therefore, we will give $16 worth of books and the daily paper for $3.
“All we ask you to do is to run a full-page advertisement in your paper each day similar to this one (show him copy of ad which we furnish you). All the mail orders you receive you turn over to me, together with the $3. I will be out soliciting orders and will probably have a crew of people working for me. I will turn over the subscriptions to you together with 65 cents for each subscription. This gives you your regular price for a ten weeks’ subscription after you pay your solicitor. I will furnish each subscriber with the set of books.”
Now, of course, it will be your business to convince the newspaper why people will want this set of books. Where does your profit come in?
The complete set of 7 books costs you $1.50 The ten weeks’ subscription to paper costs you .65
Your total cost of each subscription will be $2.15 and you will receive $3 for each subscription. Your profit will be 85 cents on each subscriber.
Suppose that you took twenty subscriptions per day yourself by personal calls; your profit would be $17 per day. Suppose that in addition to this, people would either bring or send 20 subscriptions each day direct to the newspaper from this full-page ad. This would give you $17 per day additional.
Now, suppose that you employed ten other people to solicit for you and pay each one of them 50 cents for each subscription, which would still leave you 35 cents profit on each subscription they took. If each of these ten solicitors sold ten subscriptions per day they would make $5 each per day, and each one of them would make $3.50 per day for you. Ten solicitors would make $35 a day for you.
We furnish you complete information telling how to hire and train people to work for you. We furnish a complete series of sales talks for
you to use in securing subscribers. We furnish you copy to give the newspaper to use for their ads.
We tell you how to go from town to town and manage campaigns for newspapers; how you can conduct two or three campaigns in different towns at once. Our course in salesmanship teaches you every phase of selling and our course in “sales-management” which we also give you absolutely free tells you how to organize, train and manage salespeople.
Before we go into the details of how you can get started in this highly profitable profession, we want you to read every one of these plans and thoroughly understand them.
WOULD YOU ENJOY TRAVELING ALL OVER AMERICA?
Would you enjoy sitting on the observation platform of a modern train in company with interesting people from everywhere, seeing scenic America from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to the Gulf—mountains, prairies and cities? Who has not dreamed of this wonderful experience! Who would not enjoy living in America’s magnificent hotels where the traveler enjoys every luxury which money can buy?
You can claim this wonderful life if you are willing to say: “I will do it!”
It does not matter what your present position in life is. It does not matter how limited your education may be, provided you can read, write and talk fair English.
It does not matter about your age.
It does not matter whether you are a man, woman, young man or young girl.
The only things that matter are these:
You must get it out of your head that you are not capable of doing big things. You must realize that the reason you are not doing big things is that you have never had an opportunity to learn. Every successful person in the world to-day thought just the same things which you are thinking at some time in their lives. They had to learn how, too. You must grit your teeth and start. Close your eyes to everything but success. The most difficult thing about being successful is making up your mind that you are going to succeed. Once you overcome that fear which haunts you, which holds you back, you will become master of yourself and the whole world can’t stop you.
Don’t let timidity, fear, self-consciousness, or what others think rule you. You know you are capable. Surely you believe in yourself, so close your eyes to these petty obstacles and work for your own future instead of to please your present associates.
Here is the plan that will give you your start on a successful career. Read it. Think while you are reading how easy it would be to explain this plan to a buyer even without practice or instructions. When we put you through our salesmanship course you will look back at the things which now appear impossible and laugh. How very easy it all is when you once understand. And how different the whole world looks to you when you are on the road to success. The dread of facing another day of routine, which is torture, of associating with people whom you dislike; of feeling dependent upon certain people for your existence—all these thoughts vanish like magic. How pleasant it is to be prosperous and successful! What a satisfying feeling it is for a married woman to be able to help her husband bear the burden, and how wonderful it is for her to have plenty of spare money to do and buy the things she has so much wished for!
And the single girl!—the single girl who is obliged to earn her support. Few indeed are fitted to do work that pays more than enough to barely exist upon. What dreadful thoughts hover over her! She has her choice of loneliness and poverty, or marriage at the first opportunity. Stop and look about you! Look at the girls in your circumstances who married for a home. How many of these girls are living the life you have so often dreamed you want to live? Don’t stumble along blindly. Close your eyes and think—think of yourself ten years from now!
Do you see happiness—do you see yourself the dainty wellgroomed lady of your dream? Are you living the luxurious life and surrounded by the cultured circle you expected? Or are you shut up in a few lonely and dingy rooms with nothing but sadness and poverty as your lot?
What a dreadful thought! All the things which are so dear to you— a dainty skin, attractive figure, youthful and radiant face—all changed in ten short years. Surely you must see yourself as you will be in ten years, slovenly dressed with a worn and tired face, rough skin and straggly hair; nothing but poverty and worry.
What a different picture you will see when you have had a touch of success. When you are no longer dependent upon others for your existence; when you no longer get up in the morning with the dreadful worry of another day of torture before you. When you no longer think of marriage as a means of securing a home. And what a difference it makes when you are successful and can afford to dress the way you have dreamed of, and can associate with the cultured young men and women you have so often envied. How different it would all be if you could afford to live in the sort of home you have fancied! This is the reward of success. And the difference between success and failure is expressed in these few simple words:
“I will start to-day—NOW—to learn the things which will make me successful. If servant girls, clerks, factory girls, stenographers, and every other kind of girls can succeed in learning salesmanship and rise from their humble positions to the top of the ladder, I too will succeed! I must succeed! I have firmly determined to start now!”
If you had bought a hat, a pair of shoes, an overcoat and a dress, and two weeks later discovered that you had outgrown all of them, would you be interested in seeing some one who had a plan to sell these clothes for you and get more money for them than you originally paid? Would you listen to them?
Would a man who owned a furniture store listen to you if you would tell him you had a plan which would permit him to get all his money out of the dead stock he had in his store? We mean such things as odd chairs, tables, rugs, etc.; things which he had bought over a year ago and for some reason couldn’t sell.
Of course he would. He would be willing to spend two hours finding out how you could do it. Surely, you will not admit that you could not tell him this plan. You don’t have to tell it just the way we will tell it in this book. Tell it in your own language. Tell it just as you would relate it to a girl friend. The simpler your words the more effective they are. He isn’t interested in big, fancy words. He wants you to be yourself and tell him facts. Here is the way we would talk to Mr. Brown, who owns the furniture store:
“Good morning, Mr. Brown. I wonder if you would be good enough to let me explain a sales plan to you. The plan which I would like to tell you about is one that has been successfully worked in many furniture stores throughout the country. It is especially designed to
clean up odd pieces of furniture which are dead stock with you, and does not require an investment on your part until you have tried it out and have found it successful. If it works, you want it. If it doesn’t work, you don’t want it.”
What happens next? Well, if you owned the furniture store and had a lot of odd pieces of unsalable furniture, wouldn’t you be interested in hearing of some plan to get your money out of this dead stock? All right, then what will Mr. Brown say?
“If you can show me a way to get half of my cost out of my dead stock you are just the person I am looking for. Go ahead and tell me your plan.”
Wouldn’t you feel the same way Mr. Brown feels if you were in his place and some one had approached you in this manner? You see there are no mysterious tricks in salesmanship. Just put yourself in the other fellow’s shoes and say the thing that would sound reasonable and interesting to you—common sense, that is the keynote.
Now we will tell Mr. Brown all about our plan:
“You know better than I do, Mr. Brown, how the average woman’s mind works. She wants something for nothing. Bargain is her watchword. She will actually buy something she doesn’t need simply because she thinks it is a bargain. I once saw a woman buy two picture frames at $1.98 each, which were marked ‘Reduced from $3.’ After she had bought them I heard her husband ask her what she intended to do with them. He told her they had no pictures to put in the frames. She answered: ‘Yes, John, but think only $1.98.’ Later I was in another store and saw the same frames selling regularly at $1.75 each. I have repeated this incident, Mr. Brown, to show you how a woman’s mind works, for my plan to sell your dead stock is a big bargain sale that has been worked successfully all over the country. Here is a set of seven books. We call them the Woman’s Library, for they cover the six most interesting subjects in the world to women. Before I go into the details of my plan to dispose of your dead stock, I want to tell you briefly what there is about this set of books which makes women want to own them. Remember, I am not trying to sell you books. In fact, I am not trying to sell you anything. I am simply offering a plan whereby we can both profit. I will sell the books and your dead stock. You will get your money out of the dead
stock and I will make a profit on the books. Mind you, I do not ask you to invest a dollar in books. All I ask is your cooperation. Now, as I started to say, it will be necessary for me to explain the nature of these books in order to convince you that women will snap them up like hot cakes. If you were a woman, I know you would appreciate their strong appeal and salability.
“This is ‘The Book of Good Manners.’ It tells you how to do and say the right thing on all occasions. It tells you how to introduce, what form to use when you introduce an elderly man to a young girl, a distinguished man to a group of people, etc. It tells you how to acknowledge an introduction and when to shake hands. It tells when and how to make formal and informal calls; what should appear upon calling cards; how invitations should be written, sent and acknowledged; how to acquire perfect manners at the table; when and how to use the knife, fork and spoon; how to eat asparagus, olives, corn on cob and other foods so difficult for most of us; in fact, every conceivable question which women are interested in is answered. It is simply a dictionary of etiquette. Do you know, Mr. Brown, that almost every woman in this town feels the need of this book every time she entertains or calls on her friends? Every woman has been placed in many a humiliating position simply because she did not know the rules of etiquette. It is surprising how little most of us really know about good manners. Here is a simple little test which not more than one woman out of a dozen can answer.” (You hand Mr. Brown a folder with the questions printed on it. He will probably smile and remark that he doubts if he can answer them. While he looks at the folder you continue talking.)
“Incidentally, Mr. Brown, one of our methods of making people realize the need of this book is to ask a lot of questions in our ads, similar to the questions you are reading. You see our plan is to make them realize that they are continually committing social blunders which make them appear crude and common in the eyes of their friends. When I explain about these other books I will show you how we handle the advertising and copy of ads which have proved very successful.
“This volume is called ‘Color Harmony and Design in Dress.’ It is difficult for a man to understand what a problem it is for a girl or woman to buy the clothes which are becoming to her. You see certain
girls can not wear certain colors. For a girl to appear ‘at her best’ she must know what colors harmonize with her hair, eyes and complexion. If she is too stout, she must know what designs and colors will make her appear slender, and on the other hand, if she is too thin, she must know how to make herself appear in proportion. And then there are the tall ones whose problem is to decrease their height by the camouflage design and color combination; the short ones who have the problem of increasing their height. Perhaps this sounds silly to a man, but you know how vain most women are, Mr. Brown. They will spend their last penny for a box of powder or something that will make them beautiful. Of course, I am an exception (?) ahem!” (This remark will bring a smile and relieve the strain for a moment. Mr. Brown will pass a few complimentary remarks which you will take good-naturedly, and continue.)
“I know that you are not interested in hearing all about a woman’s troubles, Mr. Brown, but as I said before, I must tell you this in order to show you how these books answer all of their problems. I am trying to impress you with the fact that the Woman’s Library is not a collection of ordinary books. They are the only combination of their kind published, and I will wager that every woman in this town will want them if they are put before them in the right way. They are the very keys which open the door to a woman’s most perplexing problems. They are to a woman’s life what a furniture trade journal is to your business life. You read the trade paper because you want to keep in touch with what the best type of furniture dealer is doing, and try to improve your store. It is a woman’s business to be as attractive as possible, and there isn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t grab at the chance to find out how to become more so. You can’t appreciate what a problem the average girl or woman is up against trying to buy or make clothes that magnify instead of mar her good looks.
“Now, this volume tells ‘how to prepare and serve a meal.’ It tells just how the table should be set; where each piece of china and silver should be placed; at which side of a person you should stand when serving or removing dishes. In addition to answering hundreds of these questions it contains menus for every occasion from simple home dinners to elaborate afternoon teas. Each menu is followed with recipes telling how to prepare each dish listed.
“Do you know, Mr. Brown, that not one woman out of ten actually knows these things? Do you know that every time the average woman entertains she is self-conscious and afraid she has committed some terrible blunder which ‘gives her away’ to her friends.
“The last half of this volume is devoted to ‘Interior Decoration.’ It tells how to arrange furniture and bric-à-brac to beautify the home. It tells what color draperies harmonize with certain colors in floor coverings, upholstery and walls. In short it tells how to plan a home that will reflect good taste and a genuine homelike atmosphere.
“You know how funny women are on this subject. You see it every day right here in your store when they buy furniture. How often have women displayed their total ignorance of color harmony when buying upholstered furniture from you. How often have they asked: ‘Will the blue velour upholstery on this suite match well in a room papered green?’
“This volume is called ‘Physical Beauty.’ It tells how to become beautiful; how to care for the skin, develop a good figure, remove wrinkles, double chin, freckles and all other blemishes which mar a woman’s beauty. It tells how to care for the hair, hands and teeth. Also home preparations which have been used by famous beauties are given in detail.
“It goes without saying that this volume touches one of the most tender spots in women.
“‘Avoided Subjects Discussed in Plain English’ is a book on sex. It outlines every single mystery of sex in plain English. I feel that the title of this volume speaks for itself. You know without me saying so what a strong appeal this subject carries.
“‘The Book of Culture’ contains a series of essays on subjects related to self-development. Here are the titles of the essays: (show him the book opened at the index page).
“This volume on ‘How to Make Money’ gives a number of practical ways for the average man, woman or girl to utilize her spare time profitably. Every aggressive woman is interested in ways and means of making money.
“Now, Mr. Brown, I think you will have to agree that this set of books is something every woman wants and will buy.
“Here is my plan for disposing of your dead stock: Suppose that you have a lot of kitchen tables which cost you six dollars each, a lot of chairs that cost you five dollars each, a lot of mirrors that cost you four dollars each, a lot of rugs that cost you seven dollars each, and a lot of pedestals that cost you eight dollars each. All of these are dead stock to you. Let us make up a list of the dead stock as follows:
Twenty kitchen tables your cost each $6 your regular selling price $10 each.
OUR BARGAIN PRICE $9.98 each and the Woman’s Library given free with each table. You make the sale, collect the cash and pay me $3 on each sale for the set of books. You will get your cost out of the tables and $1 profit on each sale after you pay me for the books.
Thirty chairs your cost $5 each your regular selling price $9 each.
OUR BARGAIN PRICE $8.98 each and the Woman’s Library given free with each chair. After you pay me for the set of books you make $1 profit on the sale and get your cost out of dead stock.
Twenty-five mirrors your cost $4 each your regular selling price $8 each.
OUR BARGAIN PRICE $7.98 and the set of books free with each sale. You make $1 profit on each sale after you pay me for the books.
Fifty small rugs your cost $7 each your regular selling price $12 each.
OUR BARGAIN PRICE $11.98 and a set of books free with each rug. Your profit on each sale after you pay for books.
Ten Pedestals your cost $8 each your regular selling price $12.50 each.
OUR BARGAIN PRICE $12.48. You make $1.50 profit after you pay for books.
“Now let us see what we have done. We have turned $800 worth of dead stock into ready cash and made you $190 profit besides. We have given your customer a set of books which is worth $5 more than they paid for books, chair and all. Will they sell? Well, Mr. Brown, as I said in the beginning, I will prove to you by actual sales that they will sell. We will sell your regular customers and we will bring you new customers who probably would never otherwise have come to your store. I have twenty sets of these books, and am willing to come to your store and help fix up your window. We can fill your window
with the chairs, tables, rugs, etc., and attach a large card stating that the Woman’s Library will be given absolutely free with each chair. In the center of the window we will make a big pile of the twenty sets of books with an attractive sign on them. I have here copy for advertisement which you can run in our daily paper (we furnish you copies of ads to show Mr. Brown). We will sell your dead stock so quickly you will wonder how it was done. This plan, Mr. Brown, has been tried all over the country. We know it works.”
Now, honestly, couldn’t you sit down and tell the facts just related to most anyone after you had familiarized yourself a little more with the books, etc.? You see that after all, selling goods is more a matter of common sense. When you have something good to sell and are convinced people will buy it, you have won half the battle.
Suppose that you were going to sell Mrs. Jones our “Book of Good Manners.” The first thing to do is to write down all the good reasons why you think Mrs. Jones should buy it, and then arrange these reasons into a short interesting talk. Try to think of all the objections she will raise and have an answer ready for her. We have repeated the above conversation between a saleswoman and the buyer of a furniture store simply to show you that all there is to selling is:
First: Having something good to offer.
Second: Knowing all about your article.
Third: Explaining your proposition with simple words in the same way you think it would sound well to you if you were the buyer.
Fourth: Knowing when to stop talking and close the deal.
You could probably explain this plan to your buyer in many different ways and sell him. Each person has distinct methods of getting results.
Now let us see where your profit will come in. Each sale made would net you $1.50 profit. Suppose 200 sales were made. You would make $300 on the one store. When you complete the sale with this store you ask them to give you a letter recommending the plan to other stores. Each store you sell you secure a letter of recommendation. After you secure these letters from five or six good stores you will have no trouble in selling the best store in each city you visit. Remember, we furnish samples of advertisements to you. Each one of your customers can copy these advertisements in their daily papers.
The girl or woman who is willing to study our free course in salesmanship can make from $150 to $300 for two or three days’ work in each city she visits.
How can you get started? What must you do to get this free course in salesmanship? We want you first to read every one of these plans. When you finish reading, we will explain how simple it is to get started.
Have you ever known a crowd of girls who went around together, to dances, parties, shows, etc., and then one day one of these girls was promoted to a position where she superintended a number of other girls?
Did you notice any marked change in her, or in the attitude of the other girls in the crowd? You know very well you did! You know very well that something about that girl commanded more respect and more attention than any other girl in the crowd. Of course, you said a lot of things behind her back, but just the same you were only too glad to have her invite you for a walk or to a show. You never failed to mention the fact that Margaret called you up, and you went to the show with her. You might have said some nasty things about her having a “swelled head,” etc., but you said these things just because you envied her. What a difference this promotion has made in Margaret’s life. Everyone is anxious to cater to her. When she speaks every one is silent. When there is a prominent or honorary office to be filled in your clubs, Margaret’s is the first name mentioned.
How pleasant life must be for Margaret. What a difference it makes when one is invited out to meet a young man or a set of girls, when they have all been confidently informed that “Margaret is a remarkable girl. You know, she is at the head of the Smith Company and has complete charge of the entire force.”
Surely, you must have wished to occupy a position that would command respect. You must have dreamed of filling a position where people would look up to you and feel dependent upon you. Perhaps you have even dreamed of having your own office with your name on the door, your own bank account, two or three assistants and a score of girls working under you. You have even thought of the thrill it would give you when your friends paid you a call at your office and
