Let us
here introduce some very practical
suggestions
as to how the laws of Imagination, Cooperation
and
Pleasing Personality may be blended, or
coordinated
to profitable ends, through the creation of
usable
ideas.
Every
thinker knows that "ideas" are the
beginning
of all successful achievement. The question
most
often asked, however, is, "How can I learn to
In part
we will answer this question in this lesson
by
suggesting some new and novel ideas, any of which
might
be developed and made very profitable, by
almost
anyone, in practically any locality.
IDEA
NUMBER ONE
The
world war has deprived Germany of her
enormous
trade in toys. Before the war we bought
most of
our toys from Germany. We are not likely to
buy any
more toys from German manufacturers in our
time,
or for a long while afterward.
Toys
are in demand, not alone in the United
States,
but in foreign countries, many of which will
not buy
toys from Germany. Our only competitor is
Japan
and her toys are of so poor a quality that her
competition
means nothing.
But
what sort of toys shall I manufacture and
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where
will I get the capital with which to carry on the
business,
you will ask?
First,
go to a local toy dealer and find out just
which
class of toys sells most rapidly. If you do not
feel
competent to make improvements on some of the
toys
now on the market, advertise for an inventor
"with
an idea for a marketable toy" and you will soon
find
the mechanical genius who will supply this
missing
link in your undertaking. Have him make you
a
working model of just what you want, then go to
some
small manufacturer, woodworker, machine shop
or the
like, and arrange to have your toys
manufactured.
You now
know just what your toy will cost, so
you are
ready to go to some big jobber, dealers, dropshippers, (merchant) wholesalers
or
distributor
and arrange for the sale of your entire
product.
Note: Drop shippers are another type of limited-service
wholesaler. Although drop shippers take title to the goods, they don’t actually
take possession of them or handle them, oftentimes because they deal with goods
that are large or bulky. Instead, they earn a commission by finding sellers and
passing their orders along to producers, who then ship them directly to the
sellers. Mail-order wholesalers sell their products using catalogs
instead of sales forces and then ship the products to buyers. Truck jobbers (or
truck wholesalers) actually store products, which are often highly
perishable (e.g., fresh fish), on their trucks. The trucks make the rounds to
customers, who inspect and select the products they want straight off the
trucks.
If you
are an able salesman you can finance this
whole
project on the few dollars required with which
to
advertise for the inventor. When you find this man
you can
probably arrange with him to work out a
model
for you during his spare evening hours, with a
promise
that you will give him a better job when you
are
manufacturing your own toys. He will probably
give
you all the time you want in which to pay him for
his
labor; or he may do the work in return for an
interest
in the business.
You can
get the manufacturer of your toys to wait
for his
money until you are paid by the firm to which
you
sell them; and, if necessary, you can assign to him
the
invoices for the toys sold and let the money come
direct
to him.
Of
course if you have an unusually pleasing and
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convincing
personality and considerable ability to
organize,
you will be able to take the working model
of your
toy to some man of means and, in return for an
interest
in the business, secure the capital with which
to do
your own manufacturing.
If you
want to know what will sell, watch a crowd
of
children at play, study their likes and dislikes, find
out
what will amuse them and you will probably get
an idea
on which to build your toy. It requires no
genius
to invent! Common sense is all that is
necessary.
Simply find out what the people want and
then
produce it. Produce it well - better than anyone
else is
doing. Give it a touch of individuality. Make it
distinctive.
We
spend millions of dollars annually for toys
with
which to entertain our children. Make your new
toy
useful as well as interesting. Make it educational
if
possible. If it entertains and teaches at the same
time it
will sell readily and live forever. If your toy is
in the
nature of a game make it teach the child
something
about the world in which it lives,
geography,
arithmetic, English, physiology, etc. Or,
better
still, produce a toy that will cause the child to
run,
jump or in some other way exercise. Children
love to
move about and moving about is of benefit to
them,
especially when stimulated by the play motive.
An
indoor baseball game would be a ready seller,
especially
in the cities. Work out an arrangement for
attaching
the ball to a string that will be suspended
from
the ceiling so one child may throw the ball
against
the wall and then stand back and strike it with
a bat
as it rebounds. A one-child baseball game, in
other words.