Just one more time, I thought to myself, releasing the paper for the hundredth time. I’d been practicing throwing newspapers onto my porch for days. Inside, my mom must have been going crazy listening to the newspapers thudding on the front porch.
Over and over I threw the newspapers. Sometimes standing on the sidewalk. Sometimes riding my bike in the middle of the road. Sometimes blindfolded. This wasn’t just a newspaper throwing obsession, to me it was a matter of good service. And, of course, the many tips that came from my happy customers.
This was my first business lesson, and I was only 11.
Business Basics 1: No one ever gets to keep all the money
I remember the first time I counted all the money collected after the first month of delivery. The cost for the newspaper in 1973 was 2.65 per month, and I had 70 houses on my route. It felt great having that $185 in my hand.
With this amount of money, my young mind began to race as I thought about all the things I could buy. Like 1,850 candy bars or that new Schwinn 10 speed with racing strips. I was so excited, I ran up to my mom and said – “Hey mom look how much money I made!”
She wasn’t trying to dash my hopes, but I can still remember her words, “No Silly, you don’t get to keep the money. It all belongs to the newspaper company”.
I was devastated turning in all the money I worked so hard to collect. My portion worked out to about 15%. Then to add insult to injury, the next month my bike was stolen (with my paper bags on them). Now I had to buy both a new bike and a pair of bags. This was just the beginning in learning things like overhead costs and the value of profit margins. And every business owner needs to find ways to keep more money… Not just paper boys.
Business Basics 2: Making money is hard work
Back in the 60’s and 70’s, kids who delivered papers were responsible for pretty much everything. You were responsible for waking up early and going to the local station to pick up your papers. Then you had to add inserts, fold and distribute the papers to all the houses on your route. During a typical day, you could be assaulted by inclement weather, chased by dogs, yelled at by angry customers and come to a screeching halt by a flat tire.
If you missed a house, broke a window or someone complained, you were given negative write-ups and penalized. You were also responsible for collecting the payment every month (which is a lot of work since routes could have over 100 houses and quite often customers weren’t so willing to give you the money they owed). You were also expected to increasing your route by selling to houses that currently didn’t subscribe to the paper. Yet it seems this was all taken into consideration some years later. Because somewhere along the way, children on bicycles were replaced by adults throwing papers on sidewalks out of moving vehicles, with payments being made online. But the lesson was learned, making money is indeed hard work, and not only for paper boys.
Business Basics 3: Sometimes You lose money
I would have to say that the hardest lesson learned was when all my hard work actually lost me money. This didn’t just happen when a bike was stolen or I had to pay for a broken window or potted plant. It happened because there were always some worthless, lying, cheapskates who didn’t want to pay for the service. Quite often people would try to hide, or pretend they weren’t at home, when I knocked on the door.
My all time favorite excuse was the old, “Don’t worry son, I’ll pay you next month”. People not paying was a big problem for us poor paperboys and girls. This was because some customers would lie and tell the newspaper company that they already paid, and that we had lost the money. So, it really didn’t matter if each house paid for the paper or not, because if we were short it came out of our pocket.
This is a hard lesson for any businessperson, because not everything we do makes money, and sometimes our business can even cost us dearly. So be ready to suffer loss and don’t quit even if you lose your bike and bags.
Business Basics 4: Successful ventures consistently fulfill some type of need
Like I stated previously, it was required for us to go out and try to get more customers along our routes. We called it, ‘getting starts’ (people starting a yearly subscription). The best part was we both increased our pay and even won prizes. Kind of like bonuses.
It was up to us to explain why people needed the newspaper delivered to their door everyday. And all for a onetime fee of 2.65 per month. One of my best sales pitches was to show them the coupon sections and then add up how much money could be saved. I even told them my mom saved enough to buy me extra school clothes every year. This helped them see how their need for daily news and information could be fulfilled, as well as their need for saving money. I also discovered that consistency was important for successful customer satisfaction. This included prompted delivery and the consistency of placing the newspaper on their front porch each and every day.
Business Basics 5: Successful business needs determination & perseverance.
These two cannot be understated and are what separates good from great. Sometimes we had to go back many times to get payment from stingy customers. You wouldn’t believe how many times we had to sit outside someone’s house waiting for them to get out of their car, so we could catch them before they got inside their house. And we had to do this more often than you’d expect. I often wondered how stupid people must have felt hiding inside their house pretending not be at home, just to get out of paying a lousy 2.65. And this was chump change for having 365 newspaper’s delivered to their door by little children. Although similar things also happened to me later in life in other business ventures. And it’s times like these we need determination and perseverance.
Business Basics 6: Sometimes you gotta let go, and train others
Even though I did not own the newspaper company, I treated my job as if it were my own business. Taking pride in ones work, and being willing to do everything is important in the beginning of any business venture. However after a few years of delivering papers, I began to tire of doing everything myself and especially hated the 5:00 morning weekends. One day, I found some younger kids living in my neighborhood who were willing to do my route in the mornings. So, after a few days of training and some monetary negotiations, I found the joy of sleeping in on the weekends while others did my job was the only way to go. Especially since I paid them less than I actually made on those morning routes. Through this I extrapolated a few pertinent lessons.
1. If your entire company rests on your abilities alone, or everything falls apart when you are not around, then you’re not really a business owner. Your just self-employed.
2. If everything doesn’t depend on your abilities, and you have people who are able to run things when you are not around, then you are on your way as a business owner.
Not that one is necessarily better than the other, but it is vital to decide which one you want to be, before you get in too deep. Also training others allows you the time and energy to focus other things, like having a life outside of work.