Our Changing World

How Great Service and Fair Prices Can Build a Million-Dollar Business

I received a telephone call the other day that really set me to thinking. I was working in my study, and as usual, the phone interrupted my work. I think I was reading the sports page at the time. And a charming female voice asked, Is this Mr. Nightingale? And I said, Yes. And then she said, Mr. Nightingale, Mr. Spelvin can speak to you now. I thought, Well, isn't that nice. This Mr. Spelvin must be a pretty important man. I wonder what he wants to talk to me about. Well, there was a short and impressive delay at the other end of the line, and then a man's voice asked, Mr. Nightingale? Again, I said, Yes. And I don't mind admitting I was becoming pretty excited by this time. He said, Mr. Nightingale, this is Mr. Spelvin. I believe someone at your house called my office. Well, I started racking my brain why anyone at my house would call a Mr. Spelvin. You know the feeling you get when you should remember someone's name but can't? So I decided to take an embarrassing chance, and I asked, Mr. Spelvin, could you tell me what it is you do at your office? There was a pause while I began to sense that I'd really put my foot in it. And then he answered, Well, I'm the plumber. Well, I told him about the leak in the basement pipe, and he said that he'd put me on his schedule and be over in a few days. Now, I know men who head giant corporations who won't keep you waiting on the phone since they know it's bad manners, and I'm not trying to say that plumbers aren't important people because they are. If it weren't for plumbers, we'd all be up to our necks in trouble. But what I am saying is that, for the most part, the service business in this country is getting too big for its britches. Pride goeth before a fall, and when the service business gets straightened out, a lot of people in it are going to fall a long way, and they'll wind up having to put a tourniquet on their wallets. A big percentage of them are giving poor service and charging outlandish prices, and it can't last. In fact, if you're a plumber, electrician, carpenter, TV repairman, automotive mechanic, painter, or just about anywhere in the service industry, you could really build a fine and lasting business for yourself by giving old-fashioned, excellent service and charging fair prices. An auto mechanic went to Florida and started calling in person on all the businessmen in his town. He asked them if they were happy with the way their cars were being taken care of and with the prices they were having to pay. He then offered to take care of their cars on a year-round basis, do excellent work, and charge prices for parts and labor that would be honest and fair. Well, to make a long story short, he netted about $500 his first month in business and went on to make a million dollars. We've come to such a national acceptance of sloppy, half-hearted, mediocre service in this country that an honest, hard-working, conscientious man or woman stands out like an elephant in a herd of field mice. Maybe this is your big chance to start and build a really good business for yourself. All you have to do is start operating as though we had a normal economy where people could only be paid for their work, measured by its quality and promptness. You could almost go door to door and pick up enough business to get started. From then on, word of mouth would build you up in a hurry. Well, at least it's something to think about, isn't it? I'll be back in just one minute. Without a doubt, there are still a lot of very fine service people in the country, but they're in the minority. I think the others should keep in mind the fine old line from the Bible, As ye sow, so shall ye reap. You might sidestep this law for a while, but eventually it's going to catch up with you.

Acres of Diamonds: Russell Conwell on Finding Opportunity Underfoot

Hello again. To my mind, one of the most interesting Americans who lived around the turn of the century was a man by the name of Russell Herman Conwell. He was born in 1843 and lived until 1925. He was a lawyer for about 15 years, then became a clergyman. But one day a young man came to him at the church and told him he wanted to get a college education but was in such a fix financially that he just couldn't swing it. Well, Dr. Conwell decided right then and there what his aim in life was. He decided to build a university for poor but deserving youngsters. But he had a problem. He'd need a few million dollars to swing the deal. But things like that don't seem to stand in the way of people with a real purpose in life. Several years before, as I remember it, Dr. Conwell had become tremendously intrigued by a true story which had an ageless moral to it. The story was about a farmer who lived in Africa and, through a visitor, became tremendously excited about looking for diamonds. Diamonds had already been discovered in some abundance on the African continent and this farmer got so excited about the idea of millions of dollars' worth of diamonds that he sold his farm and headed out to strike it rich by discovering a diamond mine. Well, he wandered all over the continent as the years slipped by, constantly searching for diamonds which he never found. He finally wound up completely broken by the whole thing and, as I remember the story, became despondent and tossed himself into a river and drowned. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, or rather the farm he'd sold, the new owner had picked up an unusual-looking rock about the size of a country egg and put it on his mantle as a sort of curiosity. And the same visitor came by again and, seeing this rock on the mantle, practically went into terminal convulsions. Pulling himself together, he told the new owner of the farm that the funny-looking rock on his mantle was just about the biggest diamond that had ever been found, whereupon the new owner of the farm said, well, heck, the whole farm's covered with these things, or words to that effect, and sure enough it was. And I'm reaching way back to remember the exact details, but if my memory serves me right, this farm turned out to be the Kimberley Diamond Mine, the richest the world has ever known. The farmer who'd sold the place had literally been standing on acres of diamonds and then sold his farm and wound up in the river because he never found any. In telling this story, Dr. Conwell likened each of us to the first farmer. Each of us really is right in the middle of his own acres of diamonds if only we have enough sense to realize it and develop the ground we're standing on before we go charging off looking for greener pastures. Well, Dr. Conwell told this story more than 6,000 times. He must have been a terrific speaker because he attracted enormous audiences and he raised enough money to start the college for poor but deserving kids that he had his heart set on. In fact, he raised about $6 million, and the university he founded is still going strong. It's Temple University in Philadelphia with 10 degree-granting colleges and six other schools. When Dr. Russell H. Conwell talked about each of us being right on his own acre of diamonds, he sure knew what he was talking about. I'll be back in a minute right after this educational advice. I believe you can still get the book, Acres of Diamonds. Why don't you check with your neighbor, and I guess it always will be. You know, opportunity doesn't come along, as most people think. It's laying there all the time. We just have to be able to see it.

Before You Buy the Dream: The First Rule of Business Success

Many years ago, when I was on the air in Chicago, I got a letter from a woman with a problem that must come to someone every day in a week in every town in the country. She wrote that she and her husband were thinking of going into the motel business in Florida, and she wanted my opinion on whether or not I thought the motel business was a good business to go into. She went on to say that her husband was retired and that they'd saved quite a bit of money through the years in addition to their home, which they'd completely paid for, and which would be worth quite a bundle in itself. Well, I thought about that letter for some time, and then I practically dictated a book to my secretary, and when I got through, I put it on my program, and then I mailed it to the lady who'd written to me. She and her husband had never been in business for themselves, so they didn't understand the first rule, and this is that there are no good or bad businesses, so to speak. They're only good and bad managers. One person will do just fine in a particular business, finally sell it and retire to his cabin cruiser in the Bahamas, and the man who bought it, even though it was a real moneymaker with nothing changed but the management, would fall flat on his face and wind up selling in desperation before bankruptcy. A lot of people seem to think that just because you're in business for yourself, you can sit back and spend your time counting and bailing all the money that comes flooding in. Such is not now, never was, and never will be the case. Running your own business takes thorough knowledge and experience and harder work than most would believe possible, particularly during the first five years or so. Good managers can make a success out of just about any business. Bad managers can wreck just about any business. The next thing I told this couple was to leave their savings right where they were and not to touch them with a 10-foot pole. They'd worked too hard and too long accumulating a pile to toss it away in a business they knew nothing about, and then I told them that if they were interested in the motel business in Florida, to go down there, pick the town they liked and would like to live in, and get a job running a motel for a year or so, even if they had to work for nothing. In a year, they'd know the motel business pretty well. They'd know its headaches and pitfalls and profits, and during that time, they could really study the motel business and know about such things as location, the size to build, the cost of building or buying, what kind of profits to expect on your investment. At the end of that time, if they still wanted to go into the business, fine. They'd know what they were in for. They'd know what was a good buy and what wasn't, and they'd still have their money and their nice home in case they decided their dream wasn't all it was cracked up to be. This is the way to go into business for yourself, and don't let some fast-talking Jasper with a fast line and a million cubic miles of blue sky talk you into anything until you've checked him, his proposal, and have the know-how to succeed. Running your own business can be a way to all of your dreams, if you go about it scientifically, but it can give you ulcers and make you a prime candidate for the Laughing Academy, if you don't. I'll be back with a word about this in just one minute. Don't ever believe the old wives' tale that opportunity knocks but once. Opportunity's knuckles are bleeding and raw to the bone from knocking every day of your life. You just have to be able to see it. And don't get excited about every little opportunity that comes along. Save your money and wait for the big one. As long as you're watching and waiting, you can just bet it'll come along, and then you'll be ready for it.

What Is Charm? Earl Nightingale on Beauty, Posture, and the Inner Self

Well, how are you feeling today? Are you what they call a charming person? I used to wonder what they meant exactly when they referred to someone as being charming. And the other day I had a long talk with, and you can be sure of this, a very charming woman. Her name is Bess Rothman. She's an expert on this business of charm. She's taught it at colleges and traveled all over the country telling men and women how to be charming. She lives in Chicago now and devotes her time to helping people find the type of work they're best fitted for and at the same time improving them as individuals. She told me that any woman can be beautiful and, as a matter of fact, should be beautiful. She also told me that every man could look a whole lot better than he does and make a very striking appearance wherever he goes. So I asked Miss Rothman, actually she's a wife and mother but keeps her professional name, I asked her, what is charm? And she smiled, which gave me the feeling I wasn't the brightest person she'd ever talked to, and said, Mr. Nightingale, charm is an inner thing. An inner thing. I then verified her first impression by asking, what do you mean by that? And in essence, this is what she told me. She said, as far as a woman is concerned, charm has nothing to do with individual features. A woman can have a big nose or a long skinny neck or practically no neck at all or too many teeth or be a mite too wide across what a woman calls her hips or not have a movie star's legs and still be a very attractive and charming person. It seems, according to Miss Rothman, that every woman on earth has some beautiful features. It might be her eyes or skin or hands or what have you. So what she should do is dress and make up as a composite, complete woman, making the best use of her good features and minimizing and not worrying about the features she's not too proud of. But this is only the beginning. It's what she is inside that she shows on the outside. If she's calm, cheerful and loving on the inside, she radiates this terrific inner self like a hot stove on a cold morning. And this is something everyone can control, although it takes practice if it doesn't come naturally. When she told me this, I remembered reading something by the great American educator, William Lyon Phelps of Yale. He said, the most interesting people are those with the most interesting pictures in their minds. Realizing that we can only reflect on the outside what we've got on the inside, Dr. Phelps liked to point out that the inside of a person's mind was sort of like a picture gallery, each mind with a certain kind of pictures. If they're happy, interesting pictures on many subjects, well, you get the idea. Ms. Rothman then told me that the third most important point for a man or woman to be charming is, and this is just as important as the first two, is this business of posture, the way we walk, stand and sit down. You'd be surprised how quickly you can form the habit of walking straight and erect. It makes you feel better, as she pointed out, you look better, and the world suddenly begins to think you are better. And when this happens, you are. I'll be back in one minute. To be charming then takes at least three things. Accentuate your good features and don't worry about the ones that aren't so good. Remember that you have to be charming inside before you can be charming on the outside, and posture, the way you look to the world. It's really amazing, and of course the experts go along with this completely, how what you act like on the outside has a way of affecting how you feel on the inside. As Dorothea Brand put it in her fine book, Wake Up and Live, act as though it were impossible to fail.

The 5 Percent: Why Independent Thinkers Rise Above Conformity

Thank you and hello again. Here's an interesting question for you. Do you think you're just like 95 percent of the people? Well, you'll probably answer no. Maybe you're not. One of the strangest things about human nature is that every person likes to feel he's an individual, different from every other human being on earth, and it's true. There are literally no two human beings who are exactly alike, but the paradox comes into the picture when you realize that while most people like to think they're different, they then try as hard as they can to be just alike. In the last few years, you've probably read and heard a lot about a word that's pronounced conformity. People are always yelling at us to be different, to think for ourselves, to be individuals, but do you know why? Well, let me tell you why I think it's a good idea to take a good long look before you start acting and thinking like everybody else. It seems that from the earliest beginnings of the human race, there have been two main groups of people. One of the groups is large and is estimated to be about 95 percent of the human race. The other group is small, about five percent, and it seems almost uncanny how no matter which way you look at the population, it seems uninsisting in breaking into these two groups. The big group, the 95 percent, might be called the followers, and the little group of five percent of the people seem to be always the leaders. Now, it seems that this 95 percent bunch is the group that historically has never gotten the word. This group seems to make pretty much of the same mistakes over and over again and wind up with the short end of the stick. For example, I mentioned in one of my earlier broadcasts, out of all the young men who start even at age 25, 40 years later, by the time they're 65, only five percent is financially independent, and the rest miss the boat. And while money isn't everything, it is an indication of how people operate their lives. Any man, barring a rare catastrophe, can save enough money in a working career that lasts 40 years to be financially independent by the time he's 65, but only five percent knows enough at the beginning to do it before it's too late. The others don't seem to do it, and then they say, I wish I had. Now, the big question is, why didn't they know about it in the beginning? And look at this business of education. In this country of ours, anyone can get a good education for himself, even if he hasn't enough money to go to college. Every town has a public library bursting at the seams with knowledge, all perfectly free if you get the books back on time. But you know how many continue to learn and develop their minds after they get out of school? That's right, about five percent. In fact, a well-known educator once said that as far as 95 percent of the people are concerned, all the great books with their priceless store of knowledge, which is freedom, could be taken out in the field and burned, and they'd never be missed, except by the five percent. Now, what all this boils down to is the fact that you can't even give knowledge away as far as the great mass of people are concerned. A high school and college diploma are fine, but they're only meant to prepare us for a life of learning and developing so that we can continue to improve and move to new and better successes. Most folks just go along, acting alike, thinking alike, and doing the same things, and while there's nothing wrong with that, the trouble is they're following the wrong crowd, the crowd that just never seems to get anyplace. I'll be back in one minute with an idea that might be of use to you. If you want to follow in somebody's footsteps, that's fine. Just make sure you know he or she is worthy of emulation. Your friend down the block might not know where he's going. Make sure the person you're following arrived at a destination you'd be happy to settle for. Thank you.