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Discovered! 505
Odd Enterprises

Hidden Dollars

How to Make
Money at Home

Small Business
of Your Own

You Can Own
a Business

Twelve years ago the man who first offered a diaper-washing service was hooted at; yet at the end of World War II it was necessary for the National Institute of Diaper Service to organize an advisory committee to aid all the veterans who wished to go into this business.

The baby boom after the war pointed up the need and the fulfillment of a baby-formula service. Omaha, Nebraska, and Long Island, New York, both claim to be the home of the first outfit offering safe, filled-to-prescription baby formulas. Nurses fitted their talents and experience on Long Island into filling daily bottles for tired mothers. In Omaha it was a man who pioneered. The need had always existed, but it took someone with ingenuity and imagination (that word is going to hound you right through this book) to fulfill and profit by it.

Too often your good ideas are left to die on the theory that if you could only live in a large city you could use those ideas to make money. Never underestimate the small town; tailor your ideas to fit your locality. One man, who was just another person trying to sell his advertising service in highly competitive New York, returned to Concord, New Hampshire, and his one-man agency now employs three full-time workers. The firms that once found it necessary to go to Boston for guidance in their advertising problems welcomed specialized knowledge right at hand. They are pleased at savings in long-distance calls; they relish having a man right on the spot with plenty of "know-all" at their disposal.

The people in one town are very much like those in any other.

D'Alton B. Meyers, of the Division of Small Business, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, in Domestic Commerce writes:

Many communities are in need of services and products which are customarily obtained in nearby larger towns or imported from a distance. Frequently communities could use goods and services whose existence has been unknown to them or perhaps a community has grown so quickly that few people are aware of the many new and more specialized businesses which the town could profitably support.

Perhaps your town is one of these that have grown so fast that many services are lacking.

Study your town. What problems for business men could you solve? Could you do bookkeeping at home, take care of their tax records? Many professional services could be carried on from home. An accountant makes both his home and his office in a trailer, which is equipped with the latest in bookkeeping machines, and moves this home right along with him.

But many a mind becomes blank at the thought of thinking up a service that a community needs and that is, as yet, unfulfilled. Turn to your telephone book for help. Make a list of all the services in the classified directory of a large city phone book (say a population of at least 80,000) against the classified listings in the phone book of a city of about 15,000. You will be amazed to note how many of the services listed in the larger phone directory are used by and brought into the smaller community. If you live in the smaller town, could you profitably offer any of these services? With your own talents and locality in mind, study the list; you may find just the service your town needs.

The service must fit your own locality. A party-planning service would hardly be profitable in a farming community where everyone is schooled to use his own resources in creating his own entertainment. But every town has youngsters, just out of high school or college, who need someone to write letters of job application for them.

Ann Honeycutt opened Casserole Kitchen in New York City. It was a success, although, as in most small businesses, the profits the first year were small. Bachelors and business women and maidless apartment households liked having their dinner delivered completely cooked, ready to serve. The chances are that the small town would not use such a service, but it is more than likely that any town of over 5,000 population would support a one-hot-dish service whereby the customer could pick up for lunch or dinner a hot dish, ready to serve.

The small town would not need an "At Your Service, Inc.," which, for a price, will do everything for you but your thinking. But a "Mr. Fixit" who can repair, or will find someone to repair, anything brought to him is needed in every community.

Here before you are many services. The idea for your own home business is somewhere in these pages, but again I say, only you can find it. Check those ideas which appeal to you as you give the book a first hasty reading; later, go back and study them. It will take time—you will get discouraged. You will have moments when you are convinced that there is nothing in this book with which you can make money at home. Nevertheless, the idea is here. Eventually when you have let loose that imagination and thought all those dark thoughts, one idea will stand out away ahead of all the others, and you will find yourself saying, "That's the one for me!"

Skates, skis, and all kinds of second-hand sports equipment should be handled. The owner of the shop should realize about 30 per cent of each sale. That is, if a mother brings in a clean (insist upon this) girl's winter coat that her daughter has outgrown, and says that she must have five dollars for it, then the coat will go on sale at $6.80 with the $1.80 going to the owner of the children's old-clothes exchange.

One mother of four opened such a shop and completely clothed all her children from the garments brought in to her. She was an expert needlewoman and instead of her children wearing the clothes exactly as they came in, this mother always made them appear different by adding a bit of fur, changing the buttons, and so on.

An attractive name for the shop, one to intrigue kiddies so that they will take pride in wearing the clothes picked up there as bargains, is a necessity. It must not savor of an "old-clothes exchange," but might be called Jack and Jill's, or Noah's Ark, or The House that Jack Built.

City dailies constantly carry advertisements for telephone solicitors. Why can't the small-town coal dealer, dairies, insurance companies, and the like be sold on the virtues of a telephone soliciting service to bring in new customers? Commissions may be taken on the new business you bring in, or you may charge a flat rate per call. Call on any firms you think might be receptive to such a service in person—not by telephone; the more personal contacts you make, the better. The firm's heads will want to look you over anyway to make sure you are the kind of a person they would want to represent them.

Joanna Feehan, of East Hartford, Connecticut, who solicits by telephone, says:

"I usually get about eighty-five cents to one dollar per hour. I have worked for two realtors, one on a commission basis and the other on the hourly rate, and my average in both cases brought me about a dollar per hour, or slightly more on a commission basis. However, I really prefer an hourly wage because I feel the contacts are more accurately followed up by the concerns I'm working for.

"A furrier paid me eighty cents an hour and wanted me to put in as many hours as possible. There was a bonus for each contact made and a 1 per cent commission on any repair job or coat for storage which I brought in. Telephoning is highly successful, this employer told me. He also employed an invalid who was confined to her home, and she was very good at the work. It's the amount of contacts that counts. The law of averages, if you call enough folks, is bound to make sales.

"A straight telephone-answering service with no sales involved brought me in twelve dollars a month, and I answered about seven to ten calls weekly for each firm. I have just completed work with a paving contractor; he will have nothing more until spring. The usual charge of twelve dollars per month for each firm is for service from Monday until Friday, usual office hours, but I took calls throughout the week as late as nine P.M."

Even though there are no sales involved in a straight telephone-answering service, you would naturally know your client's prices, the services he offers, and so on. The better informed you are, the more efficient your service will be.

The larger mail-order houses, such as Sears, Roebuck and Company and Montgomery Ward and Company, have stores to accept mail orders. It is not unlikely that many a large city department store would use a man or woman who could offer their customers in his or her district a telephone shopping service. I wouldn't contact a department store that was over seventy-five miles from my home. When you find one that is interested (you may have to try several) offer your services on a flat weekly basis and, of course, agree to keep regular office hours, at which time you'll take telephone orders resulting from the store's newspaper advertising, or special orders for customer's needs.

Send in your orders every day, and no mistakes allowed! A clerk in the store can make mistakes, but you are on your own and representing an important firm in your community. That firm won't be so tolerant of your errors as it would be of the clerk who can be criticized right on the spot.

You might, once you have sold yourself—and your own personality will have much to do with whether or not you sell this service—agree to work on a commission basis on orders received. Many people dislike ordering by mail and would welcome the chance to give their orders to you by phone. One reason why more branch telephone offices are not opened is simply that the right people don't apply for the job or show the stores the possibilities in this service. Maybe you can.

For the young fry's parties you would have at least one meeting with the mother. Later, if you engineer teen-age parties, you would have to consult the young hostess' wishes. Actually, the less discussion you have on a children's party with the mother, the more likely she is to be pleased. After this one meeting, at which the over-all price for the party is decided upon, you go ahead writing and mailing the invitations, buying or making the favors, planning your games or entertainment schedule, and if you have taken on the catering end you will, in addition to planning the menu, cook the simple courses.

One woman who does this says she arrives at the house about the middle of the morning if the party is to be, say, at two o'clock. She sets the table, hides toys for the games, prepares the food, and then, just before the little guests arrive, changes into her best party clothes to give herself a festive air. If possible, she shoos the mother off to the movies or some other form of recreation, but for the most part her mothers are those who work. It would be either working mothers, who realize the importance of a first-class birthday party, who would pay for this service; or mothers in the upper income brackets, who would not consider such a service a luxury.

Anyone starting such a service should keep files and have on tap complete plans for decorations, games, and favors for many different types of parties. This practice would cut down on the time involved in preparations, and although there should not be duplication of parties in the same neighborhood, there could be in the same city. The guest list would show whether or not any children were to be present who had been at the last party you gave.

Exclusive of the food, the cost to the average mother for a party for fourteen children is about ten to twelve dollars. This covers your fee of six dollars and the other six or so would go into the tablecloth, favors, and decorations. One party lady says that if she made her own decorations, such as the candy, nut cups, and the centerpiece, she could make greater profits, but for the time being she prefers to buy them.

Always give the small guests something to take home with them; no child ever likes to return empty handed. Games such as "Pin the Feather on the Indian," a change from the old-timer of pinning the tail on the donkey, can be used over and over again. Once you have got your party down to a system, the time involved in preparations is small. If this type of enterprise interests you, try and find some other service to carry on in conjunction with it.

Another party giver worked up a mail-order party service and advertised:

Buy A Party—Give a successful party. I personally arrange a typewritten guide and layout with full directions for parties for any occasion; from the proper invitations, decorations, place cards, games, menus, recipes, serving, prizes, etc. Write me two weeks before date of party, giving age and sex of person to be so honored, also number of guests and occasion for which party is being held. On receipt of this information and $2 I will arrange your individual party guide, and mail promptly.

Still another angle to parties is a party-planning service; nine mimeographed issues for a dollar a year are mailed out explaining in detail interesting parties for both children and adults; costumes are taken up in detail for each holiday and over two thousand families subscribe to this party-planning service.

If you decide to make favors, and one woman does this for pin money, do keep a scrapbook. She makes place cards and nut cups for a caterer and large commercial banquets. Using paper, buttons, pipe cleaners, and almost anything she can think of, she makes tiny bodies for the place cards. For the snow months and at Christmas, she has been known to make a marshmallow snow man drawing a sled, with candy-bar top, and sled runners of small red and white candy canes. She has made life-saver rolls into tiny golf-club bags; and for March, crepe-paper donkeys dragging a load of shamrock green candies.

This worker plans some day to utilize all her ideas by making favors on a larger commercial scale. Through studying the women's magazines and their many ideas for using crepe paper, combined with her own ability to use the commonest candies and cardboard, wires, pipe cleaners, and the like, she now has over twenty notebooks full of ideas. When a caterer or business firm calls, she is ready at once to give them an idea for a favor. Since her time is limited, her output brings in only a few hundred dollars a year, but if she made it a full-time job she could, with simple advertising, bring in all the business she could handle in an eight-hour day.

The first step in making any favor is to study nut cups, place cards, and favors already sold in stores, and then individualize them to take them out of the commercial class. Dennison's of New York sells a bulletin that gives the ins and outs of crepe-paper craft.

First, Mrs. Gallagher soaks the curtains in lukewarm soapy water. If hot water is used the dirt will not come out so easily. If they are very soiled she gives them two soapings and then rinses them in hot water, adding a little bleach if the curtains are naturally white—but just a little, since curtains are usually of a delicate material and the bleach might burn them. Bleach is never used on nylon or silk materials.

Next, the curtains are rinsed in cold water to which a little blueing has been added. Last comes the starching, which varies as some customers like their curtains very stiff while others want them softer.

Mrs. Gallagher dries all her curtains on stretchers as it is faster and she says that none of her customers seem to object to the pinholes that the stretchers make. (Newer stretchers on the market eliminate these holes.) Only the center of the curtains is put on the stretcher, and when they are dry the only parts left to be ironed are the ruffles, which are dampened with a soft cloth as she goes along instead of being sprinkled, which would crease the curtain.

Some ruffled curtains have a tiny ruffle along with the large one and Mrs. Gallagher does not attempt to iron this by hand as it would take too long, but instead with her fingers she pulls this little ruffle out and gives it a little twist so that it looks as nice and even, she says, as though she had spent an hour ironing it by hand.

Mrs. Gallagher timed herself and found that it takes just twenty minutes to iron the ruffles on three pairs (six curtains).

Curtain washing isn't difficult, but the fact that many women are convinced that it is makes the service easy to sell. The biggest investment is in curtain stretchers, which minimize the ironing; for, as Mrs. Gallagher said, most curtains after being dried on stretchers need only have their ruffles ironed.

Mrs. Crowley, back in 1938, borrowed one pair of stretchers and started the curtain laundry on a modest pin-money scale, but the full task of making a living became hers the next year. As most hobbyists know, there is a gap between spare-time puttering and pursuits that make an adequate family income. The quality of Mrs. Crowley's work, however, was becoming known. One satisfied customer would tell another, and so it went. This advertising has proved sufficient along with an occasional notice in the classified columns of the town's daily papers, particularly during spring house-cleaning time. Mrs. Crowley is also listed in the classified section of the telephone book.

At present the Crowley's laundry equipment consists of twenty-two pairs of stretchers, in their special drying room, and two washing machines. Each curtain goes through two sets of suds and is never rubbed; next comes the starching, and the curtains are ready for stretching. Organdy and nylon curtains are not ordinarily stretched. Some people like the ruffles stretched, but not ironed; this gives a more fluted effect. Most people, though, Mrs. Crowley says, prefer the ruffles stretched and ironed so they will fall according to the pattern determined by the tucks in them.

The curtains are folded in half, so that top and bottom ruffles meet, with the side ruffle toward Mrs. Crowley for ironing first. Always starting from the left, she does the side ruffle on the board to the fold and then turns the curtain over and does the other half. Next, turning the top and bottom ruffles toward her, she flips back the top one and irons the other. This completed, she drops the finished ruffle between the two boards and can proceed to iron the top ruffle. Thus, with a minimum of handling, curtains are ironed more swiftly and with less wrinkling.

According to Mrs. Crowley, anyone can operate a curtain laundry. It doesn't call for any particular skill or teaching; naturally one becomes more adept at it with experience. Curtain stretching, simple when you know how, presents problems for the beginner. Using regular stretchers, sold in hardware and department stores, Mrs. Crowley starts in the upper left-hand corner and works halfway across the top, then halfway down the left side, the right, and the bottom. "Doing it in halves," she says, "allows for more tightening or loosening and eliminates the danger of tearing the curtains." She and her two children of eleven and twelve are skillful at this, but she advises beginners to tape their thumbs until they get the "hang" of it and don't prick themselves on the sharp nails placed at one-inch intervals.

The Crowley laundry does as many as 150 pairs of curtains a week at various prices. You would have to set your own price after considering your time and all expenses. Seventy-five cents to a dollar is about standard for ruffled curtains; straight ones that require no ironing may be done for less.

The customers are so widespread about town that delivery service is not offered, so the job is done when the curtains are wrapped and tied; Mrs. Crowley says she does not want her job expanded to mail-order proportions.

Reports of travelers indicate that flowers are used far more widely in many other countries than in the United States. In England and Western Europe, cut flowers are commonly found in the living rooms and on the dining-room tables of even the more modest homes. Flowers are sold everywhere, not only in regular florist shops, but on street-corner stands and in markets of all kinds—even in fish markets.

Mr. Thompson believes that we must make flowers more freely available in this country. One major step in this direction would be the development of markets for field-grown flowers, which are lower in quality than those demanded by the regular florist trade. For many uses, the consumer prefers high-quality flowers. But the housewife, considering whether to purchase a bunch of flowers to brighten up the dining-room table, may be less particular about size or the niceties of contour and color. Price is a major consideration.

Right now, according to Mr. Thompson, there is little to stimulate the average consumer into purchasing flowers. Most people are not accustomed to visiting florist shops except for special occasions, such as funerals and weddings. Telephone purchases for delivery by the florist are relatively expensive. The sale of prepackaged cut flowers in self-service supermarkets might be one answer to this problem. It is possible that the retail margin on flowers could be cut one-half or more by the application of self-service methods in selling in supermarkets.

But you are not interested in selling flowers in the supermarket. You are looking for a way to make money at home. How close are you to the nearest greenhouse? Do you and your neighbors find it convenient to visit? Is it not possible that your own home might be an outlet for your florist? If you are interested in opening a branch shop in your home, contact the florist and work out some terms that would be agreeable and profitable for both of you. You would probably start by receiving the flowers on commission, therefore having no expensive stock to buy in advance. Try to have the florist install a refrigerator in your home. Take orders for corsages and work up a telephone trade for dinner parties and weddings. Make an arrangement with a church to take your flowers left over from Saturday night at reduced prices.

Ask questions of your new boss and learn all there is to know about the care and feeding of house plants. Keep a stock on hand and sell them to customers who come in for cut flowers.

It may be a little too ambitious, the idea of having a florist install a refrigerator in your home. I wouldn't invest any money in it myself until I was certain I was going to have a market for the flowers. It is possible that you might find a second-hand electric refrigerator for sale very cheap, which you might use as cold storage for your blossoms.

Many city offices have this weekly flower service, but the small towns and cities also need such a service. Small stores, as well as offices, should welcome a weekly bunch of flowers.

The first step would be to gain rapport with the florist; he must be in sympathy with your service and agree to sell you flowers at wholesale. You should realize a 100 per cent profit in order to make it worth while. In short, you should not pay over fifty cents for the flowers that you would sell for a dollar.

This is not an idea for a depression. The woman who has a bread route will sell her products, come what may; your flower service would be one of the first to be cut out. On the other hand, do not consider a flower route (either for home or for office) as a luxury, that will be successful only in times of great prosperity. Flowers are a necessity, even if they are not in the class with bread. And they are a commodity to be sold when the country is traveling its middle road between prosperity and a depression.

Such items as jewelry and personal garments could be filled in later by the owner himself. I think if this job interested me I would contact my local insurance agent to obtain his good will and a list of the customers insuring with him. Contacting them by telephone would bring in business.

Everyone should have the contents of his house or apartment listed. If you do this, you should have some knowledge of the value of antiques and modern furniture, although much of the insurance money paid out, in case of fire, is based upon the original cost of the items. This cost the owner would give you or fill in after you have completed the description of the contents of his home. Insurance company booklets contain a space for this information.

I am not too certain of the value of this idea; insurance companies do inventory, and I believe at no extra charge, for large estates insuring with them. But they do not make a check list of the average house furnishings insured for from one to five thousand dollars. Whether or not you could sell your local insurance companies on offering this service I do not know.

Also, if you like making inventories, do contact all real estate offices and tell them you will list, for a price, all the household furnishings of any house they rent or sublet furnished.

A doctors' exchange offers twenty-four-hour-a-day telephone service. This around-the-clock duty is wearing, and since many a call would come in at 4 A.M., the service could hardly be undertaken by those who find it difficult to return to sleep once they are awakened.

Each doctor using the exchange notifies it where he will be, if he is going to leave his home or office for an unusually long length of time, and in this way eliminates leaving someone to answer his phone. The fact that a doctor has an office and trained assistants does not mean he has no need for the exchange, and regardless of the number on the doctor's staff, he should be contacted and offered your telephone service.

Ten to fifteen dollars a month would be the minimum charge per doctor. For any doctor who is hard to sell on the service, you might offer to set your first charges at so much per call received.

Your advertising expenses will be small, but you will need two telephones, one for incoming and the other for outgoing calls.

It is very possible that you will be able to sell this service to other professional men, such as undertakers, lawyers, insurance agents, and real estate firms. These, including the doctors, would have a listing in the phone book reading:

Dr. George McGregor 123
If no answer, call 223

Some firms might wish to have extensions of their own phones in your house. In that case, the firm would pay for the installation of this instrument, which would ring at your office if it was not answered at their office. This allows the "one-man office" greater freedom. Of course, you would charge additionally for any outgoing calls you made. At all times you would take any messages, and contact your client in emergencies.

I think that if I were interested in offering such a telephone service, I would first canvass undertakers, lawyers, and businessmen. If I could make a goodly sum with these, I would not try to add doctors. You would have many a sleepless night if you were paid to answer their phones. A cripple found her doctor's exchange extremely remunerative. She had ten doctors at fifteen dollars a month apiece; but she gave it up and made doll clothes instead, when she found that it was impossible to get a good night's sleep.

This year in our town the grade school is giving the dancing lessons. A boy in his twenties is the teacher, and each child (sixty-five of them are taking the lessons) pays him a quarter a lesson. Many grade schools would welcome a man or woman with a good reputation who could teach dancing. There would be no charge for the hall, as most schools have an auditorium and the school record player could be utilized. I can see someone working up a "circuit" with these lessons each winter.

Don't forget adults like "brush-up" dancing lessons. Men and women in their thirties, enough to make it profitable, would be glad to join a class especially in square dancing. Send out announcements telling the time, place, and your fee.

Those who have had hours of dancing and who can see the possibilities in this service, even though they are themselves rusty, might do well to go into a large city to one of the commercial adult dancing schools and take a few lessons to brush up on modern techniques.

A smart teen-ager could run a grade-school class after high school, if it would not conflict with her own school hours.

Even an invalid with resources and some kind of conveyance, such as a jeep, small truck, or motor bike, could handle a package delivery service, and one is needed in every town of over ten thousand. The initial cost would be for fliers and small newspaper advertisements outlining the service. The invalid, who would handle the telephone and business end of the service, would have to hire one reliable worker to deliver the packages.

Personal letters would be written to stores, dentists, and doctors announcing the service, and price rates should be quoted in detail. There would be a minimum charge established for delivering a package within perhaps a mile area, and a larger fee for deliveries outside the city.

Orders for pickups and deliveries would come in over the phone to the person owning the delivery service, and one downtown outlet in a store might be maintained as an additional aid to those customers who wish to leave bundles to be delivered.

Actually, this is a taxi service for packages. Smaller department and specialty shops with no delivery service of their own should welcome such a service. For them a flat weekly rate might be worked out.

Before investing any money in a conveyance, many calls should be made to stores and offices asking if such a service appeals to them. These calls could be made by telephone by the handicapped person, but if possible, they should be made in person.

Since the service would start with only a few deliveries a day, it might begin with one part-time worker, perhaps a reliable high schooler, who would deliver from 2 P.M. on school days and on Saturdays.

Try to sell at least one or two stores on a flat-rate service before starting, as this will give you some sure income while the service becomes better known. Some post offices hire extra help to deliver special-delivery letters and special-delivery packages, but the fee you would receive here is small.

Check with your local Board of Trade to find out if you will need a license.

Movie houses might use the distribution service. It costs them a cent to mail out each post-card program, and two cents if an unsealed envelope is used. A handbill distribution service might well be able to handle this at a profit and at less expense—that is, if you got another concern or two, such as a grocer, to allow you to distribute their weekly fliers at the same time. If you can find five concerns that advertise weekly, you can charge each firm a cent a flier and realize about four cents on each house or apartment reached. One advantage of hand distribution over mailing is that every house is reached, not only those whose addresses are found in the phone book.

A typewriter, persistence, and a nose for accuracy are all that is needed by the neophyte going into the mailing business.

More and more hand-addressed envelopes are on the way out; however, a few business houses do still demand them.

All printing and engraving houses should be contacted by any mailing service; if you boast of good penmanship there will be wedding invitations for you to address (but not often).

If you have a flair for advertising copy, you may find yourself writing the letters, and helping to write and design the advertising. You can take over not only the mimeographing, which, with practice, you could do yourself, but also the printing end as well. You will have printing rates at the end of your tongue; naturally you make a profit on these, and the price to your client will be the same as the printer would give him. In other words, you are a jobber for a printer, or buying printing at wholesale and selling it at retail; your profit would be the difference between the two prices. There is many a woman working in a city direct-mail-order service who could have her own lucrative service in her home town.

Typical of this kind of mail service is the Mail Order Decorator who, with her specialized knowledge, carries on a thriving creative trade via the mails. This woman, living in a New York apartment, brings her proficiency in interior decorating even to the most isolated prairie ranch house. She gets prospective customers in answer to her advertisements in the farm and home journals. She sends them charts that make it simple for them to show her the size of their rooms, their color preferences, the shades of the rugs and draperies they own, the period of their furniture, the styles of their houses, the ages of the members of the family, the nature of the life they lead, their pattern for entertaining, what they wish their homes to express, and other details that help her in visualizing her mail-order family. Analyzing these details, she starts to rejuvenate the home, always keeping her customer's tastes and preferences in mind as of paramount importance. She does try to guide her customers into ways of good taste, but it is even more important, she believes, to have them enjoy their homes. If they prefer it to be in bad taste (by her standards) she believes that the field of interior decorating is not regressing if she allows her customers to have their hearts' desires.

Her fee is a flat fifty dollars, and to date no one has asked to have his money returned, although she does guarantee satisfaction. (Any reputable mail-order business today offers this guarantee.)

This sixty-year-old woman, who found her job working in a decorating shop too tiring and the hours too long, has an "in" with wholesale houses handling draperies, rugs, and furniture. Instead of taking her discount for herself, she passes this on to her customers. Not only does this please them, but often it makes up a large part of the fifty-dollar fee that she has charged them. When it is cheaper not to ship a large piece of furniture to a far distant state, she makes a drawing of the sofa or lounge chair to show the style best suited to the room. Then her client buys it nearer home.

Customers receive swatches of bedspread and drapery materials, wallpaper samples, and all color arrangements are well fixed both in her mind and her customer's before anything is settled upon.

She plans in detail such diverse rooms as Mexican kitchens, circus rumpus rooms, and recreational Spanish barrooms. Although not an artist, she can make sketches—rough in detail, but specific enough to point out exactly what she has in mind.

Since this decorator can often obtain an especially good price on a bolt of curtain material, she must have a few hundred dollars of working capital with which to purchase such buys. So far, she says, she hasn't lost a penny doing this, since she often duplicates color schemes.

This lady, at sixty, still usefully fulfilling her creative instincts, finds that the time involved in tracking down the right furniture and colors and in keeping up with the correspondence rarely exceeds fourteen hours for each client. Since much of this does not involve any leg work, it is less tiring than her former job. Of more importance is the fact that she derives greater satisfaction in dealing with the varied types of homes than she did in her former place of employment, which was a high-class decorating house catering only to the carriage trade.

For a single fee of ten dollars, he answers questions and gives unlimited help to his clients. He has ideas for those planning new businesses, as well as help for going concerns who have doubts about their methods and results.

Others of his clients have been those who have suddenly found themselves, either by choice or chance, in positions of leadership; such as club presidents, Masonic leaders, and the like. These he helps with his "know-how" of such duties.

The LeRoy Service aims not only to add business knowledge, but also tries to help men and women coordinate their entire resources toward a definite goal. With this in mind, Mr. LeRoy told me, "My advice to anyone starting a business today, whether large or small, for the home or otherwise, is that he first decide upon an activity that he enjoys, for it is hard to believe that anyone can be successful in business unless he thoroughly likes that business."

No form letters are used by this service. Questions, which may be as numerous as desired for the fee of ten dollars, are individually answered and anyone who is not satisfied with the service may have, his money returned to him upon request. Clients come to him by way of judicious newspaper advertising in The Christian Science Monitor, and other papers.

Mr. LeRoy's service is not a study course. There are no printed texts, no general treatises on the many complicated phases of economics. Rather, it is one man's way of profitably using his experience in solving his clients' problems.

In the small college town where I live, one woman has done stenciling for years and her trays, chests, chairs, and salad bowls sold readily. Last winter she wondered if anyone would be interested in learning to stencil. Within two weeks, after the news spread, she had signed up fifty women at a dollar a lesson for ten lessons, and now many a home in this town shows the influence of her instructions. Primitive was our work in comparison with hers, but we were all pleased with our handiwork.

Pupils for all the crafts are there, but where are the teachers? Many a woman or man is a potential teacher of "show-how" to neophytes hungry to learn a simple trade or craft. Many spend hours on a hobby without realizing they could have a monetary return from a simple set of lessons. The woman who taught stenciling thought she would give lessons to four or five; she never dreamed she would have fifty pupils in one winter.

Some of the more general topics that could be worked up into a set of lessons are typing; bridge; skiing; tennis; leather work; ceramics, since there are the new, quick-drying clays; boat modeling; appreciation of music; tap dancing; square dancing; and woodworking.

Women have so many more hours of leisure than they ever had before, due to the many labor-saving devices, that they are more receptive to "learning" than at any other period in history.

Not only are housewives hungry to use their hands and minds creatively; but many Y.W.C.A.'s and Y.M.C.A.'s are just as eager to hire you to teach evening courses. Such courses, which usually run once a week for ten weeks, have taught shell craft, flower arrangement, jewelry making, puppets, sewing, weaving, knitting, oil and water color painting, and glass painting. The instructors often do not have an art-school degree but have developed a hobby or interest to such a degree that they are well enough versed to pass the knowledge on to others.

You do not have to work through an organization, but may arrange your own classes. The first year you would probably work in your own home town, possibly in your own home; but as you gain experience, plan the next year to branch out to the towns around you. Here it might be feasible to offer the lessons free to persons allowing you to use their homes; or, as the classes grow, a small meeting place with some working space might be hired. Anyone who is alert and skilled in giving knowledge should be able to find one specialty to "sell" by way of the informal lecturer's platform.

Remember that everyone does not have the ability to formulate his material. Watch out for this. It is not important that you present it brightly or wittily; but that you make it concrete and definite is a must. Compile all material and then sort it. Grade it, and give your first talk on the fundamentals involved in the skill. Each lesson should show a growth in the skill. And in your last lesson you should summarize all that you have taught in the preceding lessons. Don't think you ever know enough about your subject; be like the iceberg and know more than shows. Keep up to date on all books and materials that have anything to do with your subject. Your pupils will forgive you for not knowing all the fine points, but they will not forgive your being unable to tell them where they can find them.

You won't get rich teaching a hobby or craft, but if you enjoy it you will be doing a service and making your pin money besides.

You may represent a dairy and although in some states it is illegal to give away samples of cream or milk, you, although not carrying a sample, would tell them about the dairy and try to get them as a customer.

Even though you do not represent the bus or railroads, do include both train and bus schedules in your basket.

This kind of service can be performed better in a small community than in a large one, but even in large cities where many new homes are being built or there is a changing population, it could be done on a neighborhood basis.

Eventually, if you live in an up-and-coming city, you may be able to hire yourself out to the city as their official greeter. But even if the local budget does not allow the town this expense, they may give you the title, which would be valuable in obtaining the cooperation of the merchants. Also, the local officials might be willing to print up a little circular, to be distributed by you, outlining the interesting facts about the town—libraries, clubs, schools, police and fire protection, tax rates, population, map of the town, churches, day nurseries, and so on. If they do not do this, you could have this information mimeographed and put into each basket.

You will need a car, and your only investment would be your baskets—two or three would be plenty in as much as they would be emptied at each call. Your call should be a social one. Some newcomer's services have been carried further and the greeter expected to do an interview job—getting information on incomes, and the like, to pass on back to the merchants so that they could judge the newcomer's credit rating (potential customer's value). I'd refuse to gather any such information. In the long run it will hurt your service, and newcomers will be warned against you. The exception here would be that, if you felt that the newcomer was a very poor credit risk, your sponsors should be told.

Keep your call on a friendly basis. Simply be gracious and interested in helping the newcomer to become adjusted to the town. Know the answers to her questions, and in pointing out the virtues of the locality you can give the good selling points of the products of the merchants that you represent.

In every community there is a changing population and newcomers are always arriving. There are possibilities here, if you like to meet people and are genuinely interested in helping them adjust themselves to your town.

Bill your merchants once a month, and list the newcomers you have welcomed in their names. These names will be found by watching real estate transfer notices, from trucking concerns, and from the merchants themselves.

Welcome Wagon, an efficient national organization with a home office in New York City, appoints official greeters in towns and cities. And although part of the profits on each call is returned to the national organization, it does give a very helpful training to carefully selected "hostesses."

Buffalo, New York, has a "Baby Butler Service" where, under one roof, there is everything for sale for the baby except clothing. This the only one I have heard of, but if a mother could pick up the phone and order, delivered from one shop, all the vitamins, diapers, food, bottles, nipples, crib supplies, salves, and the many other things necessary to the babies' care, it would be a great help to her. This isn't a luxury idea, as you would buy wholesale and your prices would be the same as those paid if the mother had to go out to shop.

One room would suffice for your supplies, and even if you didn't start right in with a delivery service, it would certainly be a help if mothers could make just the one stop and pick up everything needed for the baby. You would need, however, a city with plenty of babies coming right along.

WANT WILLING WORKERS?

The very tasks that you abhor
Are just the things that we adore,
Wash your windows, put up screens,
Mind your two-year-olds or 'teens.
All this and more—we'll scrub your floor
Or do the shoppin' at the store,
Clean your attics or your cellars—
We're really quite the handy fellers
And all the tasks Pop just won't do
They're the ones we'd really like to.
So, if your housework is a bore
Call RIdgewood six—three-five-eight-four.

P.S. We'll cut your grass, too—
what rhymes with "lawns"?

If she read that a law firm was handling an especially large case, she would contact it immediately and this call usually meant remunerative hours of typing legal documents at home.

Three dentists employed her to write reminders that it was checkup time for their patients.

Once a year the local coal companies and fuel oil distributors paid her to send out bulletins asking that fuel supplies be ordered early. From one of these she received a commission based on sales; from the others, so much per letter.

Most of this work she did in her spare time of five hours a day, and the first year showed a clear profit of eight hundred dollars for the five-day week she put in at her typewriter while also keeping safe watch over her young daughter.

Sometimes she was not the "second pair of hands" but the only pair. This was true in the case of the young architect without any office help, who sometimes dictated letters to her over the phone and had her make neat copies of the specifications for his houses. Salesmen on the road all week arrived at her home Saturday mornings and had her write letters to customers and home offices; since these letters had to go out immediately, she took them down on the typewriter as dictated.

Much of this woman's business comes in from a small advertisement she tacked on her post-office bulletin board. Some towns allow this practice, but it is frowned upon by the postal inspectors.

Some customers prefer to pay this secretary a flat monthly rate; others pay fifteen cents per letter, or an hourly rate. This year she expects to double last year's income.

If you can type and want to turn the skill into income, remember that your minister has sermons to be typed; restaurants have menus changed daily; movie houses send out programs; many clubs want announcements mimeographed; and churches often use mimeographed Sunday morning bulletins. Mimeographing requires little more skill than typing, and is easily learned. Machines cost around thirty dollars and once you own one, you can offer quick duplication.

Get to know your local printers; they will know what firms advertise by mail or need envelopes typed. Students have themes, theses, and reports to be typed. About fifteen cents a page with one carbon is standard for this work, with a nickel for each additional carbon. A dollar an hour might be your fee for other typing. Have your home business offer just as good service as the larger addressing and letter services, at slightly cheaper rates. These large direct-mail-order addressing firms often have their complete staffs in one office; others give out work to be done outside, especially at rush times.

Writers, lawyers, accountants, title searchers, dentists often need typing done.

There is a multitude of uses for your trusty typewriter. You might well specialize in writing applications for jobs. Model letters to help you get the feel of a concise, interesting letter of application are to be found in any library. A higher rate would be charged for this service.

You can start any service of this kind with small advertisements in the paper, stating your rates and any arrangements you may have for picking up or delivering the material. You might write short, beautifully typed letters to business firms announcing your service.

The largest insurance business in my town was started by Ray MacDonald who, having spent his life on crutches, mastered a typewriter. His dependability as a public stenographer in his own apartment led to several insurance companies asking him to represent them. Now you have to call Ray in advance at his home for an appointment, when you want your income tax compiled, your car insured, or your house covered with fire insurance. The last time I talked with Ray he was bemoaning the fact that he was unable to find anyone to do the extra typing that his own secretary couldn't handle. Without doubt there are plenty of women in this town who could do this typing, but unless they let it be known that they are available, there is no business for them.

Now to your phone book to make a list of the business firms, professional men, stores, ministers, authors, and offices that may wish for "another pair of hands."

The following rules are of prime importance:

1. Do not rent equipment without option to buy.
2. Do not use poor equipment or materials.

Preliminaries to starting a business:

1. Inquire about a good, legal size mimeograph machine and a good typewriter. It is better to buy this equipment new. Used equipment is not as a rule satisfactory. For instance, on a typewriter, the type must be clear and sharp, or it will not cut a good stencil. If you find that most of your business will be in the business field, pica type is preferable. If your business lies chiefly in the social field, you will find that elite type is preferred. If possible, you should have both. A good portable typewriter can be used (but is not recommended) if it is built for stencil cutting. Look for the white dot in the middle on the ribbon shift. A legal size mimeograph machine is to be preferred over a smaller size because it is possible to mimeograph any size sheet up to legal size.

2. Go into a good wholesale paper house and introduce yourself to one of the salesmen. Tell him what you are going to do, and let him recommend the various types and weights of paper to you. It is preferable to use twenty-pound mimeograph paper on most jobs, but that rule has so many exceptions that his advice is the best guide. Don't look for "bargains" in mimeograph paper, unless you are dealing with a reputable house. Generally a bargain in mimeo paper will cost you too much in time and spoilage, and you will find that you have spent more than you would have if you had bought, good paper in the first place. Your paper salesman will be one of your best friends if you treat him right. And remember, he's generally on commission.

3. It is wise to experiment with stencils a little before you start. Often the very cheapest will not do a good job, but some of the middle-priced ones are fine. You can buy one or two of each different kind at a stationer's before you buy a quire. That will give you the opportunity to try the different kinds and see which works best for you. The same goes for mimeo ink—but do not mix two different kinds of ink together. They may change color.

4. Before you do anything, check up with prospective customers to find out approximately what volume of business there is that can be obtained. Try places like schools, churches, grocers, neighborhood stores, business offices, garages, and the like.

5. Find out what other similar businesses are charging, and price your work at an average of those fees. Do not cut prices. The only thing cut by cutting prices is your own throat. Rather, depend on superior quality and service, and you will find that your customers appreciate it. Business people are suspicious of anything "cheap." They've all been taken too often.

6. Stand behind your work. Proofread and check carefully everything you do. It is always better for the customer to make a mistake than it is for you to make one. However, when you do make mistakes, and you will make them, be ready either to do the job over again, at your own expense, or to give the customer a substantial rebate if he is willing to accept the job as is.

7. If work is obtainable through printers or stationers, give them the standard 20 per cent discount from your regular prices. These are two very valuable sources of work. Don't overlook them.

8. It will not do any harm to do a few small jobs for charity organizations without cost to them. These people generally have many contacts, and the best advertising you can get is word of mouth.

9. It is not advisable, wherever it can be avoided, to do business on credit. Always require payment for postage and stock in advance. This, of course does not hold where the layout of money is under five dollars. If possible, require payment on delivery. Check credit in so far as possible. If you know of places where the customer has credit, you can tell the manager there what you want to know and why, and he will generally give you the information you need. This, of course, applies only when you do not know the person involved.

10. You should have a pickup and delivery service.

11. A partnership, where one can stay in and do the work and the other go out and do the pickup and delivery, and the selling, is the best arrangement in the city. A small town can be handled as easily alone.

12. Use newspaper and mail advertising. Your mail advertising will show the customer the sort of job you do. Make it good.

13. Knowledge of layout, art work, and copywriting is a must in this business. Study your newspapers and magazines to keep up with the trends.

A silverware laundry is needed in any community of over ten thousand; there isn't a household that would not relish having the silver cleaned at least once a month, and many a woman is able and willing to pay for this.

The first step would be experimentation with different cleaners until you find the one best suited to you. Make arrangements to buy this cleaner either direct from the manufacturer or from a local jobber.

Check your time carefully, for your price rates will depend upon the labor involved. Try to work the time out at the rate of two dollars an hour; the average family silver would not take this long when done in quantity.

Compile all expenses before a single order is accepted. Count in the cost of the cleaner, the fuel, equipment, cloths, and so forth. A flat rate per cleaning might be charged under the heading of "family silver rate." Silver serving dishes, platters, punch bowls, and the like, would be quoted at so much per piece.

Lists for the silver to be checked by the housewife much as she checks her laundry list would go out in each package and would be carefully checked by the silver cleaning concern, which would carry insurance against loss.

The ideal setup would be in a town where there is a package delivery service. Arrangements would be made with this concern to pick up the silver and return it on the same day; the drivers should be bonded.

The business could be started with small newspaper advertising or by calling so many names a day from the local telephone book. It might be that jewelry stores would like to offer this service to their customers, who could use the store as a depot for leaving the silver.

Restaurants, clubs, and hotels offer possibilities. The large hotels have their own cleaning machines, but many smaller ones do not.

Not only would you clean rugs and furniture, but you would treat the fabrics with protectives against moths, carpet beetles, and mildew, at an additional charge, in this furniture rejuvenating service.

Only a friendly person who genuinely likes to be of service to others would have the necessary qualifications. She must also be patient and not easily discouraged. It is her clients' lack of patience with details that brings them to her in the first place.

You would need a few cots—the kind that fold up into an infinitesimal space and can easily be stored away each night—for afternoon naps.

You could be open for business only four afternoons a week; this would not spoil your trade, because mothers would plan their dates to fit in with your schedule.

Ten children at the low price of thirty cents an hour (make it a dollar an afternoon) four afternoons a week would mean forty dollars a week. This would be practically clear profit, except for your time, once you have paid for the toys and furniture.

Anyone who works with children or teen-agers should send to the Superintendent of Documents, United States Government Printing Office, Washington 25, D.C., for a copy of "Handbook for Recreation Leaders." It contains hundreds of games and ways to entertain young people, and is worth many times the price. You need never be at a loss for ways to keep children busy once you own this handbook.

Hundreds of firms send out these films. Except for the return postage and insurance, all the films listed are free. There may be a few exceptions in that some companies ask you to pay postage both ways. There are opportunities not to be overlooked with these films. With library staffs overworked, it is not impossible that you might get your library to pay you to put on one free movie each week. You will never run out of subjects, and you could plan your programs months ahead by ordering your films well in advance of the time when you will need them.

In the first season Riggins's output was 1,900 tins. By the end of the second season his kitchen was too small for the business, and a small building was purchased. That was soon outgrown and a larger structure was rented. Since 1937, production has reached 250,000 tins in the period June 1 to November 1.

A season's supply of tins, which Riggins buys in carload lots, costs about $6,000. His investment in equipment, including a boiler that provides steam for cooking in cans, is now approximately $8,000. During the rush season Mrs. Riggins works in the office, and the two Riggins children work as general assistants. The enterprise gives employment to twelve other persons.

The charge is from seven to nine cents a can—tomato juice, seven cents; tomatoes or beans, eight cents; corn, nine cents; and so on. Gross income per season is about $18,000. Most of the canning is done for small home gardeners, but farmers and several institutions are also customers.

This kind of business might be started as a home project with a hundred-dollar investment. During the off season, the business might be rounded out by making jellies, preserves, and marmalades of fruits purchased in season and canned in bulk for later processing. Such an enterprise might be combined with a freezer unit, so that home gardeners could bring their fresh ripe fruits and vegetables from their gardens in summer and have them frozen and stored for winter use.

Some state agricultural colleges provide extension courses in canning. A helpful bulletin, 1762, "Home Canning of Fruits, Vegetables and Meats," may be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington 25, D.C.

No charge is made for listing "wants" or "offers," but he charges a flat fee when a sale is completed or a service rendered. He handles most of the business by telephone, making two to three hundred calls daily within a radius of nearly one hundred miles. McDonald is on call twenty-four hours a day. Persons whom he has helped often help in the search for desired articles; they are compensated for this aid.

A public listing bureau might be operated in a home, starting as a part-time business by a man and his wife, with a typewriter, a telephone, newspaper advertising, and a car for emergency errands. Earnings from forty to one hundred dollars per week are possible with a one-man operation, depending on the community and the man's ingenuity, aggressiveness, and business ability. A constant search for salable merchandise and services, by a continuous canvassing of merchants, apartment house managers, home owners, farmers, small industries, and others, would be required to keep the listings alive and interesting.

Such a business must conform to local and state laws and regulations.

Many a town or city could use a teen-age employment bureau where high schoolers could apply as babysitters and odd jobbers. Only a telephone and some advertising is needed to start such a project. Instead of charging a fee of a week's pay, as is customary in the larger employment offices, there would be a flat percentage charge on each job, paid to you by the teen-age employee.

The furniture is stored in the faculty wife's basement. It would fill three basements if it ever were all in at one time. This convenient renting service is also patronized by, student wives and faculty parents who don't wish to make the large investment in furniture necessary for a new baby.

The owner of this service, over a period of twelve years, has picked up in second-hand shops all articles necessary for babies, and rents them at a nominal monthly or weekly charge. All articles are kept in good condition and the borrower must return the assorted nursery items that she rents in as good condition, except for natural wear, as when she rented them.

This business might well be combined with other allied services requiring research, such as tracing family coats of arms and genealogies, or locating the owners of inactive savings bank accounts that are posted in newspapers.

Customers might be rather limited for this service. If I were exceptionally proficient in washing sweaters, I think I'd try to get my business through a large dry-cleaning house. Then I'd have more free time, and customers wouldn't be running in at odd hours. The dry-cleaning house, which might be happy to offer such skilled cleaning, would take a commission, but the increased orders would more than compensate for this decrease in profit.