OCR Text |
Show Author of "How to Win Friends f ' and Influence People," TRY SOMETHING NEW ! If you go to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, you see a great many colored picture postcards on sale. If you will pick up one of these cards and look at it, you will see an old-fashioned dwelling house set back from the street and sheltered by a number of trees. Well, there's quite a story behind those colored col-ored postcards. Frank Stein was a clerk in a department de-partment store in Oshkosh. But he didn't want to be a clerk all his life; he wanted to have a store of his own. He knew the only way to accomplish this was to save his money. So he saved four thousand dollars. With that money he launched himself into business; bought $25,000 worth of merchandise. He would succeed, or he would be broke in six months that he knew. He succeeded. He worked hard, saved, planned, and vas able to bid goodbye to the red figures in his ledger. Thirteen years winged by, and then one clay the owner of the property in which he had his store walked in and announced that he was, in a few months, going to raise the rent. He then quoted the figures and they were so overwhelming that Frank Stein almost staggered. Those are his exact words. He could not continue in business. The work of a lifetime life-time washed away! He looked into other rentals ; they were all beyond his means. One day, as he was pondering this problem, he saw something which changed his life. A very simple thing. A woman drove up in a car, and wanted to park it but experienced difficulty. After parking it she went into a store. Then and there an idea was born! Why not rent property for his store away from the business center where there would be adequate parking space? There was a fine, old-fashioned home built by a former official in the Diamond Match company com-pany which had stood vacant for six years. It was sold at public auction and Frank Stein bought it at a mere fraction of its original value and converted it into a store with home surroundings. Women could drive up and park and leave their cars as long as they wished and shop in a store that still had -the atmosphere atmos-phere of a home. Would the idea work ? It worked! It worked tremendously! It became be-came a landmark. Tourists drove miles out of their way just to see it. Views of it are on colored postcards at all the drug stores in town. And now Frank Stein is the owner of one of the finest stores in Wisconsin. He was able to solve a rent problem in a way that is making history. When he was pressed into a corner, he had the courage to try something new and different. And he made a success of it! |