Automatic Age

T
he
A
u t o m a t ic
A
ge
15
1 m. Things began to move, and once more it was demonstrated that
oftentimes the mark of wisdom in the owner of a business is his
ability to select the proper man to do the active management, while
he himself stands in the background.
There are some men who seem to be born with the knack of man­
agement— or else are born lucky. Anyway, when you get a man of
this type and who has sterling character, the biggest act of your
business life may be the time when you get him properly interested
in the management of your business. He will make money for him­
self and he will make more for you than you will make by letting
the business rock along in the same old ways.
Finding Solid Ground
Business history has well shown that periods of wild speculation
and high financing inevitably lead to such periods of depression as
to make sensible men wish that there was some way of avoiding the
speculative period. Now that we are paying the price of one of these
speculative periods, it is a good time to look for solid ground upon
which to build for more stable progress as soon as the upward trend
is definitely here again.
Thoughtful men have about come to the agreement that one of the
wild goose chases that many firms and corporations went on during
the past few years was a wild craze for volume without due regard
for selling at a profit. Any fair appraisal of business sense will in­
dicate that all legitimate business enterprise is entitled to a fair and
just rate of returns for the goods or services produced. And the
business world has been moving along for a long enough period until
it is comparatively easy now to estimate what is a fair rate of profits
on most any business. But when stocks were being boomed it was
easier to talk volume to the sky than it was to take the long look
ahead and go contrary to popular opinion. Many a poor sales man­
ager no doubt found himself in the position where he just had to pro­
duce volume, or else let someone else take his place. Short-sighted
stockholders supplied the pressure that was needed to force managers
into the orgy of volume production and selling. But it is so easy to go
into preachments on the cause of it all that the purpose of this edi­
torial is simply stated to be that of making two suggestions for the
automatic trade.
Most of the firms engaged in the manufacture and sale of coin
operated devices are classified either as small or medium-sizel busi­
ness enterprises. Many of them are privately owned or operate as
closed corporations. For such of these as can weather the storms,
opportunity is now here for making a careful reckoning of fhe whole
situation and deciding on a sound policy of production and sales in
the future that will allow a legitimate profit on every sale made. If
a majority of the manufacturers in the automatic trade will decide
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