You Can Make a Million Today

Anyone who has achieved success in any field of endeavor finds that he is frequently asked the same question by the people he meets: "How can I – or others – do it, too?"

Drawing upon his own experience, the successful businessman can find parallels and analogies to given business problems and situations and offer his considered opinions on what he would or would not do if confronted by them. He is often able to recognize and point out potential opportunities which may not be apparent to younger, less seasoned and sophisticated men. Beyond this, anyone long active in the business world should be able to make some fairly well-educated guesses about future prospects for business and businessmen. To these extents, the veteran businessman is able to advise others on how they, too, may achieve success and wealth in the business world and to estimate their chances for attaining their goals under existing conditions.

I began building the foundations of my own business and fortune in the petroleum industry as a wildcatting operator in the Oklahoma oil fields more than four decades ago.

"But you were lucky – you started in business at a time when it was still possible to make millions," many people have said to me. "You couldn't do it nowadays. No one could."

I never cease to be astounded by the prevalence of this negative – and, in my opinion, totally erroneous – attitude among supposedly intelligent people. Certainly, there is a tremendous mass of evidence to prove that imaginative, resourceful and dynamic young men have more opportunities to achieve wealth and success in business today than ever before in our history. Countless alert and aggressive businessmen have proved this by making their fortunes in a wide variety of business endeavors and enterprises in recent years.

One man I know was a lower-bracket corporation executive when, in 1953, he heard of the development of a new, particularly tough and versatile plastic. He perceived that it would make an excellent and economical substitute for certain costly building materials. Using his savings and some borrowed money to buy the manufacturing license and to provide the necessary initial working capital, he went into business for himself producing and distributing the plastic. By 1960, he was personally worth well over a million dollars.

John S. Larkins, a young engineer, took over the Elox Corporation – a tiny Royal Oak, Michigan, electronics equipment manufacturing firm – in 1951. Seeing that there was a great and constantly growing need for electronic control devices in industry, Larkins concentrated on developing and producing these items. Within six years, he had increased his company's gross sales from $194,000 to more than $2,200,000 per year.

Ex–World War II Army Air Force Captain Victor Muscat has built a diversified postwar business empire that includes some twenty firms ranging from toothbrush factories to life insurance companies. The annual gross income of Muscat's companies exceeds thirty-five million dollars.

There are innumerable such modern-day success stories. Among those with which I am personally acquainted, none is more telling or to the point than that of New York–born Melville (Jack) Forrester.

Jack Forrester served with distinction as an OSS agent in Europe during World War II. After V-J Day, he found himself in Paris, out of work and low on funds. He finally obtained a job as a sort of bird-dogging contact man with a large investment firm, the World Commerce Corporation. Forrester toured Europe, the Middle East and Asia, looking for promising projects and enterprises in which World Commerce Corporation could invest money. A shrewd and astute businessman, he did so well that within a few years he was made president of the firm's French subsidiary, World Commerce Corporation of France. I had known Jack before the war. I met him again in Paris in 1949. He told me what he had been doing since V-J Day.

"How would you like to do some work for me?" I asked him.

"I don't know much about the oil business," he replied with a grin. "But I suppose I can learn fast enough."

Jack did learn fast – and well. Since 1949, he has conducted many delicate and important negotiations for several of my companies. He has been instrumental in obtaining valuable oil concessions and has prepared and smoothed the way for many other operations and transactions including deals for tanker, refinery and pipeline construction.

In 1945, Jack Forrester was an ex–OSS man without a job and with very little money. He was just another of the many millions of men who were trying to "reconvert" to peacetime existence. Today, he is an eminently successful businessman – and a millionaire.

There are examples galore to prove that it can be done, that success in business and even "making a million" – or millions – are entirely realizable goals for young men starting out today. I consider myself neither prophet nor pundit, economist nor political scientist. I speak simply as a practical, working businessman. The careful, continuing study and evaluation of American and international business conditions and trends are, however, among my most important duties and responsibilities as head of the companies I control. Basing my opinion on the information I have been able to gather throughout the years, I believe that, barring the cataclysmic unforeseen, the outlook for business is good and that it will become even better as time goes on. I feel that farsighted, progressive – and, above all, open-minded – American businessmen, be they beginners or veterans, have ample reason to be optimistic about their prospects and profits for years and even decades to come. I say this fully aware that, in some American business circles, it has long been fashionable – if not downright mandatory – to bemoan lack of opportunity and the stifling of free-enterprise capitalism.

"Confiscatory taxation," "excessive labor costs," "unfair foreign competition" and "creeping socialism" are the "causes" most often cited for what the doom-mongers would have us believe is the imminent disintegration of the American Free Enterprise System. To my way of thinking, all this is sheer nonsense. The complaints are merely convenient alibis for the unimaginative, the incompetent, the nearsighted and narrow-minded – and the lazy. True, taxes are too high – and far too numerous. One of these days – and soon – our entire tax system will have to be over-hauled from top to bottom. A logical, equitable tax program will have to be devised to replace the insane hodgepodge of federal, state, county and city levies that make life a fiscal nightmare for everyone. In the meantime, however, businessmen will just have to live with the situation. Let's be honest about it: that they can live with it is obvious enough. Income taxes – the most abused whipping boys – are, after all, levied only on profits. There are proportionately more well-to-do businessmen in the United States than ever before. I've never heard of a single American firm that had to close its doors because of taxation alone.

Labor costs are also high, but I've often observed that the man who complains the loudest about excessive wages is the same one who spends fortunes on advertising and sales campaigns to sell his products to the millions. How on earth he expects the workers who form the bulk of those millions to buy his chinaware, garden furniture or whirling-spray pipe-cleaners unless they are well paid is beyond my comprehension. Labor is entitled to good pay, to its share of the wealth it helps produce. Unless there is a prosperous "working class," there can be no mass-markets and no mass-sales for merchants or manufacturers – and there will be precious little prosperity for anyone. For its part, labor must understand that high wages are justified – and can remain high – only if workers maintain high levels and standards of production. And, as long as we're talking about things that are high, I might add that I, for one, think it's high time both capital and labor realized these basic home truths and ceased their eternal and costly wrangling. Whether either likes it or not, one cannot exist in its present form without the other. I doubt very seriously if either would find the totalitarian alternatives to the existing system very pleasant or palatable.

As for foreign competition, it has long been my experience that competition of any kind is promptly labeled unfair when it begins to hurt those businessmen who do not possess the imagination and energy to meet it. Competition – foreign or otherwise – exists to be met and bested. Competition – the stiffer and more vigorous the better – is the stimulus, the very basis, of the free-enterprise system. Without competition, business would stagnate.

These facts are conveniently ignored by those individuals and pressure groups who loudly demand that the Federal Government do something about "unfair" foreign competition. The "something" they want the Federal Government to "do" is, of course, to raise sky-high tariff walls which would prevent foreign countries from trading with us – about as nearsighted a policy as one could imagine.

Creeping socialism? That particular plaint is proven to be false and without foundation by the very fact that there are so many more free-enterprise-system American businessmen to voice it today than there were ten, twenty or more years ago.

In short, I can't see any validity in the arguments advanced by the pessimists and defeatists. But then, calamity howlers have always been with us, chanting one dismal and discouraging chorus or another. In 1915, when I started prospecting for oil in the "Red Beds" area of Oklahoma, 'the chronic Cassandras in the oil camps prophesied that I'd lose my shirt in record time. "Paul Getty will be flat broke inside six months," they predicted. "There is no oil in the Red Beds."

For years, oil men and geologists had been telling each other that no oil could possibly exist in Oklahoma west of the known oil belt. Since the Red Beds were to the west of the existing fields, they never bothered to find out for themselves if there was any real basis to the long-held theory.

Despite the prevailing consensus, I went into the area, looked for structures and found them. I drilled my test wells, struck oil – and made my first million dollars.

"You're a fool to buy stocks now!" a great many people told me in the early 1930s. "The stock market has collapsed – and stock prices can only go lower. It's only a matter of time before the stock market is completely liquidated – and you'll go under with it."

I thought otherwise – and bought the stocks I wanted to buy at every opportunity, using every dollar I could scrape together. That was how I, a relatively pygmy-sized independent oil operator, eventually wound up controlling the Tide Water Associated – now Tidewater – Oil Company, one of the nation's major oil companies. That was also how I purchased stocks which have since increased as much as ten thousand percent in value.

Real estate? Hotels? In 1938 the pessimists were assuring all who would listen, "Real estate is a rotten investment – and hotels are even worse ..."

At that time, the luxurious forty-three-story Hotel Pierre, located on Manhattan's swank Fifth Avenue at 61st Street, was New York's most modern hotel. Built in 1929-1930, it had originally cost more than ten million dollars. In 1938, it could be purchased for $2,350,000 – less than one-quarter the amount that had been spent on building, equipping and furnishing it. No crystal ball was needed to show that this was an excellent buy. The country was (continued on page 72)Make a Million(continued from page 48) rapidly emerging from the Depression; business conditions were improving steadily. Business and personal travel were bound to increase greatly. There had been very little hotel construction in New York for several years, and none was planned for the immediate future. The Pierre was a bargain – and a hotel with a great potential. But the gloom-and-doom chaps were too busy titillating their masochistic streaks with pessimistic predictions of worse times to come to recognize such bargains as this when they saw them.

I began negotiations for the purchase of the Hotel Pierre in October 1938, and took possession the following May. At today's land and construction costs, between twenty-five and thirty-five million dollars would be needed to duplicate the Pierre in New York City.

I'm not crowing; I'm merely trying to show that there are always opportunities through which businessmen can profit handsomely if they will only recognize and seize them – and if they will disregard the pessimistic auguries of self-appointed prophets of doom. Conditions are much different in 1961 than they were in 1938, 1932 or 1915. Just the same, the last things that American business needs are complaints, alibis and defeatist philosophies.

What American business does need – and in ever-increasing numbers – are young businessmen who are willing and able to assume the responsibilities of progressive, vigorous industrial and commercial leadership. The rewards awaiting such men are practically limitless. There is plenty of room at the top. The figurative Millionaires Club has an unlimited number of vacancies on its membership rolls. That these aren't being filled faster is, I'm afraid, due largely to the fact that too many potentially highly qualified young applicants give up before they start. They listen to cautionary defeatism instead of opening their eyes to the opportunities around them. They are apparently blind to the many examples provided by those who have made and are making their fortunes.

As I've said, I started my own business career in the petroleum industry as a wildcatter, and oil has remained my main business interest. I find it discomfiting that so many young men today have an idea that the era of the relatively small-time wildcatter is over. Actually, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Oil is a funny thing. It is likely to turn up in the most unlikely places. There are many areas in the United States where an enterprising wildcatter is quite likely to find oil – and to strike it rich. Admittedly, most structures in recognized oil belts have been located and are being exploited. On the other hand, there are many localities which have received little or no serious attention from oil prospectors.

At the time I started wildcatting, "everyone" said there was no oil in the Oklahoma Red Beds. By the same token, thirty or forty years ago, oil operators got it into their heads that there was no oil in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Iowa or Utah – to name only some states – and passed them up. This belief has influenced oil exploration ever since. That it's a theory without much fact to support it is proven by the fact that only a few years back, oil prospectors finally began drilling test wells in Utah – and discovered oil.

There are many opportunities for the knowledgeable small-scale wildcatter today. While the oil prospector has to do his exploration outside recognized – and thus already exploited – oil belts, scientific and technological advances have made the business of looking and drilling for oil easier and cheaper than it was years ago. Petroleum geology, an infant and at best uncertain science in 1914, has made fantastic strides. The modern geologist has the knowledge, experience and equipment that make it possible for him to spot the presence of oil with a much-better-than-fair degree of accuracy. It's true that most of the oil that lay close to the surface has been located, and that wells have to be drilled to much greater depths than was necessary in the early part of the Twentieth Century. On the other hand, using modern drilling rigs and equipment, an oil operator can drill to six thousand feet more quickly and more cheaply than I drilled to twenty-five hundred feet in 1916 – and in those days, a dollar was worth far more than it is now.

But the oil industry is by no means the only business that offers golden opportunities to the beginner today. All the potentials for an era of unprecedented business activity and prosperity are present – for those who are open-minded and imaginative enough to recognize them. Rapidly expanding populations at home and abroad and the awakening desires of human beings all over the world to better their living conditions and to raise their living standards are guarantees that there will be ever-expanding markets for goods and services of every kind for many years to come. The gigantic strides being made almost daily by science and technology provide the means whereby those goods and services may be produced and distributed more cheaply, in better quality and in greater quantity.

There are still fantastic demands to be met at home. No one can rightfully say that American business has discharged its responsibilities and done its job until every employable citizen has steady, full-time employment and until every American family is well-fed, well-clothed, well-housed and able to live in comfort and without fear. I do not hesitate to predict that many young men who read this will make their fortunes and spend their entire business careers dealing exclusively with domestic markets, meeting domestic demands. On the other hand, I am of the opinion that the brightest horizons of American business are to be found outside the United States, in international trade.

As this is written, newspapers all over the world are giving a great deal of prominence to stories about increasing unemployment and recession in the U.S. and the "dollar-drain" caused by an unfavorable United States–foreign trade balance. Many remedies are being suggested to correct these situations. Among them are demands for "emergency" measures designed to cut down or even halt imports of many materials and products from foreign lands.

"The United States must cut all its foreign imports to an absolute minimum," a junketing American businessman declared to me not long ago. "That's the only way American business will be able to survive."

I'm afraid he was very surprised when I told him that, in my opinion, the policy he advocated was tantamount to economic suicide. The way I see it, the long-term solution to our country's economic problems lies in more, not less, foreign trade. I'm certain that by the time this article is published much will have been done to reduce unemployment and restore the American economy to health. But the immediate measures which will have been taken will be at best relatively short-term remedies. For the long haul, U.S. business will have to embark on a gigantic, farsighted program of international trade, seeking and expanding markets in foreign lands. There is no room for isolationist business philosophies in our present era. The world has grown far too small. The American economy cannot batten upon itself; American business must develop new and more overseas trade. And, in order to sell to other countries, we must also buy from them. It's that simple. I firmly believe that the young businessman who can rid his mind of outdated, preconceived notions and gear his thinking to these needs of the times will reap tremendous rewards. He will make his millions.

For, despite rumors and reports to the contrary, most foreign countries want very much to have us sell them goods. They want to buy from us.

I travel extensively abroad, and I (continued on page 123)Make a Million(continued from page 72) have business interests on five continents. I have found very little evidence to indicate there is any lessening of demand for products which bear the "Made in U.S.A." label. The American way of life remains the golden symbol of good living everywhere. To duplicate or imitate it is still the goal of most people in foreign lands – and the promise that they will do so is still the most glowingly attractive and effective promise foreign government leaders and politicians can make to their own people. Even Mr. Khrushchev admits this when he makes his predictions that Russian production and living standards will equal or surpass prevailing American levels. Whatever may have happened to American political prestige in recent years, there has been no appreciable loss of what, for want of a better term, I would call American "product prestige."

The proofs of all this are plain enough to anyone who lives or travels abroad with open eyes and an open mind. Most of the world outside the Iron Curtain happily sips American cola and hopes some day to own a Sheaffer pen. American automobiles are still status-symbols for those who own them in foreign countries – and so are American refrigerators, washing machines, TV sets and a host of other items. Arrow shirts, Colgate toothpaste, Gillette razors and blades – these and a thousand and one other American trade-marked products are high on the preferred lists of foreign shoppers. In Communist countries, even such common place American-made items as ballpoint pens, lipsticks and nylon stockings fetch black-market prices ten or more times their open-market cost. Any American who has resided abroad for any length of time knows what it is to be bombarded by requests that he order this or that item from the States.

The demand is there – have no doubt about that. Foreign markets are wide open to the enterprising American businessman – more so now than ever before because the wealth and buying power of people in many foreign lands have multiplied many times in the last decade.

"But we can't compete with foreign manufacturers," a U.S. industrialist complained to me recently. "They can always undersell us."

First of all, it's not true that foreign manufacturers can "always" undersell American producers. Take just two random examples. American coal, mined by highly paid American miners, is sold in a great many parts of Europe at a lower price than English coal, which is produced by English miners who earn far less than their U.S. counterparts. An Italian-made shirt of a quality equal to that of a five-dollar American shirt sells for more than eight dollars in Italy.

The secret of competing in the foreign market lies in realizing that no foreign country has truly mastered the techniques of high-quality mass-production to the degree that we have. Nor do most foreign businessmen understand the theory behind volume turnover at comparatively small per-sale profits. In the main, they still cling to the long-out-moded principle of making large profits per sale and contenting themselves with relatively small turnover.

Unquestionably, import duties levied by many foreign countries often raise the prices on American goods well above those of like items produced within the countries themselves. As I see it, enterprising American businessmen can best serve their own – and the public's – interest by demanding that the U.S. Government use all the resources at its disposal to prevail upon other countries to lower or abolish their import duties on American products. This – not the raising of our own tariff walls – will provide a bulwark against recession and unemployment.

At the same time, it is the American businessman's job to devise new means and techniques which will enable him to produce more at lower cost while rigorously maintaining traditional American standards of quality. Then, he must sell his products abroad just as imaginatively and energetically as he does at home.

"But how is it possible to reduce production costs when wages and prices on everything from raw materials to machinery are constantly rising?" is a question I've heard more times than I'd care to count. I maintain that production can always be increased and costs can always be cut if one knows enough about his business to know where to look for waste and inefficiency. There are always means whereby economies may be achieved without lowering standards of quality.

To start with, it's an old manufacturing law that when production is doubled, production costs are automatically reduced by twenty percent. I hardly think any further comment is needed on this. Then, there is administrative over-head – a cost item which can almost invariably stand a great deal of judicious pruning. It's very seldom necessary for an assistant vice-president's secretary to have her own secretary. I've run my business personally for decades – and I've never found any need for more than one secretary. Truth to tell, much that is dictated and then typed in multiple copies could be passed on faster, more efficiently and more cheaply by the simple expedient of dialing a telephone. And I'll wager that most firms could slash their "entertainment" budgets by fifty percent or more without losing a single sale. I can take a drink or two myself, but I've observed that one generally does far more business in fifteen minutes over a cup of coffee than he can possibly do in three hours over a six-martini lunch.

There is no federal statute that requires all salesmen and executives in a company to fly "de luxe" wherever they go, when they can get where they're going just as fast, almost as comfortably – and at an impressively lower cost – on tourist flights. There are many other areas in which the smart young businessman will find that he can effect important economies. There is always room for improvement – and for savings – in business, be it in the home office, the plant or wherever.

I'm not advocating senseless penny-pinching. I am, however, saying that there is no excuse for waste or unnecessary expenditures if one is faced with heavy competition. In any all-out business battle to capture markets, it is necessary to reduce all costs wherever possible – an axiom some firms and individuals tend to forget during peak boom periods.

Young men who want to start making a million today have a wide variety of business fields from which to choose when selecting their careers. The one an individual selects will, of course, depend largely on his particular talents, interests, background, training and experience. The alert manufacturer knows that there is a great demand for new and improved products of all kinds. The man with a flair for merchandising will see the great potentials in wholesaling or retailing. Other men will realize they can make their fortunes by providing new and better services to industry or the public at large. Simply stated, it all adds up to this: the man who comes up with a means for doing or producing almost anything better, faster or more economically has his future and his fortune at his fingertips. Don't misunderstand me. It is not easy to build a business and make a million. It takes hard – extremely hard – work. There are no nine-to-five hours and no five-day weeks for the boss.

"I studied the lives of great men and famous women," ex-President Harry S. Trauman remarked, "and I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm and hard work."

There are no absolutely safe or surefire formulas for achieving success in business. Nonetheless, I believe that there are some fundamental rules to the game which, if followed, tip the odds for success very much in the businessman's favor. These are rules which I've applied throughout my entire career – and which every millionaire businessman with whom I am acquainted has followed. The rules have worked for them – and for me. They'll work for you, too.

1. Almost without exception, there is only one way to make a great deal of money in the business world – and that is in one's own business. The man who wants to go into business for himself should choose a field which he knows and understands. Obviously, he can't know everything there is to know from the very beginning, but he should not start until he has acquired a good, solid working knowledge of the business.

2. The businessman should never lose sight of the central aim of all business – to produce more and better goods or provide more and better services to more people at lower cost.

3. A sense of thrift is essential for success in business. The businessman must discipline himself to practice economy wherever possible, in his personal life as well as his business affairs. "Make your money first – then think about spending it," is the best of all possible credos for the man who wishes to succeed.

4. Legitimate opportunities for expansion should never be ignored or overlooked. On the other hand, the businessman must always be on his guard against the temptation to over-expand or launch expansion programs blindly, without sufficient justification and planning. Forced growth can be fatal to any business, new or old.

5. A businessman must run his own business. He cannot expect his employees to think or do as well as he can. If they could, they would not be his employees. When "The Boss" delegates authority or responsibility, he must maintain close and constant supervision over his subordinates.

6. The businessman must be constantly alert for new ways to improve his products and services and increase his production and sales. He should also use prosperous periods to find the ways by which techniques may be improved and costs lowered. It is only human for people to give little thought to economies when business is booming. That, however, is just the time when the businessman has the mental elbow room to examine his operations calmly and objectively and thus effect important savings without sacrificing quality or efficiency. Many businessmen wait for lean periods to do these things and, as a result, often hit the panic button and slash costs in the wrong places.

7. A businessman must be willing to take risks – to risk his own capital and to use his credit and risk borrowed money as well when, in his considered opinion, the risks are justified. But borrowed money must always be promptly repaid. Nothing will write finis to a career faster than a bad credit rating.

8. A businessman must constantly seek new horizons and untapped or under-exploited markets. AsI've already said at some length, most of the world is eager to buy American products and know-how; today's shrewd businessman looks to foreign markets.

9. Nothing builds confidence and volume faster or better than a reputation for standing behind one's work or products. Guarantees should always be honored – and in doubtful cases, the decision should always be in the customer's favor. A generous service policy should also be maintained. The firm that is known to be completely reliable will have little difficuly filling its order books and keeping them filled.

10. No matter how many millions an individual amasses, if he is in business he must always consider his wealth as a means for improving living conditions everywhere. He must remember that he has responsibilities toward his associates, employees, stockholders – and the public.

Do you want to make a million? Believe me, you can – if you are able to recognize the limitless opportunities and potentials around you, will apply these rules and work hard. For today's alert, ambitious and able young men, all that glitters truly can be gold.