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How to Make
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Small Business
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You Can Own
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(1) Be a free lance secretary. It is the custom among women of wealth to have a social secretary. In the larger cities this is a very lucrative position because of the large number of social activities that the wealthy society matron engages in. In smaller towns a social secretary is a rarity. An enterprising young woman with a knowledge of stenography and correct English could easily qualify as the town social secretary to three or four wealthy women, and devote a few hours each day with one of her clients taking care of social correspondence, accounts, etc. A letter addressed to the wealthy women of your community, pointing out the advantages to be derived from employing a social secretary, will produce satisfactory results.

(2) Approach such small business firms, whether they be located in small towns or in city office buildings, who cannot afford a full time stenographer or secretary. If you have a portable typewriter with you it will help you to find employment by the hour or day. You will soon build up a permanent list of part-time employers.

(3) Ministers, dentists, and other professional men, as a rule, do not have sufficient work to keep a stenographer busy all day. They would welcome a part-time assistant to mail out bills, monthly statements, appointment notices, and do all other necessary typing.

(4) Call on secretaries of all organizations in your community, religious, fraternal, or social. They may employ you to write up minutes of meetings, and address notices and other communications to members.

(5) Call on all companies doing a mail order business and offer your services to address envelopes at home or at their respective offices. Also contact all multigraphing shops.

(6) Call on the large business organizations, like the gas and electric company or the banks who may employ extra typists at the end of the month for the mailing of statements and bills.

(7) Run a small classified ad in magazines that are read by authors offering to type manuscripts that meet editorial requirements. Editors prefer standard size paper, 8½ x 11, typed on one side only, double spaced, plenty of margin, with pages numbered. The following is a list of author's magazines:

American Author, Upland, Indiana.
Author & Journalist, Denver, Colo.
Author & Composer, Hollywood, Calif.
Editor, Highland Falls, N.Y.
Writer's Digest, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Writer's Monthly, Springfield, Mass.

(8) Advertise in magazines that are read by inventors that you will type the specifications of their patents to be filed in Washington. The following magazines are good media for such ads:

Popular Science Monthly, 381 Fourth Ave., New York City; Popular Mechanics, Chicago, Ill.

(9) Approach some restaurants that do not supply printed menus and arrange to type daily menu cards for use at the restaurant and for distribution to business offices as a means of attracting customers.

(10) Register with employment bureaus. They get frequent calls for part-time typing.

(11) Teach stenography to adults who would like to learn typing, and to college students who find a knowledge of shorthand a decided advantage in taking down their lecture and reading notes.

(12) If you live in a college community offer to type theses, essays and notes for students and professors who are usually engaged in a good deal of writing.

A CONFIDENTIAL SERVICE—A man or a woman with a good education and a good mind can make an excellent income preparing club papers and speeches for women and men. The charges for such a service should depend entirely on the difficulty of the subject and the length of time and amount of research required in preparing the paper or speech.

It is important to have access to a good library and to know how to locate the most helpful information available.

At the end of this suggestion is listed a number of indexes usually on file at any public library which will help you find references and up to the minute information on any available subject imaginable.

The Encyclopedia Britannica or any of the other encyclopedia at your library are excellent, additional sources of information.

After collecting all the available data on an assignment, whether it be speech to be delivered at a convention, Rotary club dinner, chamber of commerce dinner, the local literary club, etc., write it up carefully, type it, and deliver it several days in advance of the time that it will be wanted, so that he individual for whom the speech, debate, or other paper has been written, will have time to familiarize himself with the material.

The best way to obtain business for this type of work is to prepare an effective circular letter, mail it out to all of the officers of the various clubs. Watch the local newspapers for coming club events. If the paper announces that Mr. Smith of the Rotary Club is to address the meeting on a subject, say, "On Naval Armaments," approach him, and offer to assist him in a confidential way by locating adequate data. Often a literary society will announce the complete schedule of lectures for the year to be given by the members. Approach those members and offer to assist them.

It will not be long before every individual of importance will call on you from time to time for assistance.

1. Poole's Index to Periodical Literature lists material published in both England and American magazines from 1892-1907.
2. The Reader's Guide. This covers the period from 1900 to the present time and deals with general magazines.
3. The Engineering Index Annual began in 1907 and covers American and foreign journals and publications of engineering societies.
4. Also the Dramatic Index, begun in 1909. The Industrial Arts Index, begun in 1913. The Agricultural Index.
5. The Book Review Digest, begun in 1905.
6. The New York Times Index, begun in 1913—deals with newspaper articles.

DICTAPHONE MONEY—Here is an idea which has no competition whatsoever. If there is no such service in your town, go after it at once. All that is necessary is that you have a fairly good knowledge of typing, and are ready to invest a small amount of money in a dictaphone machine, which can be purchased on weekly small payments. The dictaphone company, selling you the apparatus, will instruct you how to take dictation from phonograph records.

After obtaining the dictaphone machine and its accompanying accessories, records, etc., rent desk space in a large or medium-sized office building where there are many small size businesses who cannot afford the full-time services of a secretary or stenographer.

Call on the various offices and explain to them that you will bring them your dictaphone machine at certain times of the day or evening when they can do all their dictating undisturbed. Then have the machine and records collected and transcribe them onto the letterheads which will be supplied to you.

It will be necessary, of course, to have the dictaphone machine mounted on wheels to facilitate bringing it to your clients.

The cost to the individual client, under these conditions would be small, the convenience great. The profits to the operator exceedingly liberal, even after deducting all expenses.

MULTIGRAPH OPERATOR—There is hardly a business, profession, club, or institution in every small town that does not have occasion to use some multigraphing work to great advantage in the course of the year. An operator, acquainted with multigraphing methods (extremely easy to learn) and possessing a multigraphing machine, could find enough work to keep busy a number of hours each day. Here is an excellent opportunity for you. Investigate its possibilities in your town.

PART-TIME ACCOUNTING—If in addition to a knowledge of typing, you can also do bookkeeping, you will find opportunities doubly certain. The same people who will employ you for part-time stenographic work will want you to keep their books and accounts accurately. Because of the very complicated state and federal tax laws, it is becoming more and more necessary that accurate records be kept. Moreover, the prompt mailing of bills and statements, and a follow-up method of collections is of great importance to the merchant and the professional man. If you know bookkeeping, you should be able to find a number of part-time clients.

CLEANING TYPEWRITERS—Several million typewriters are constantly in use in this country, and judging by the typed correspondence that is received from business organizations it is safe to estimate that one out of every two typewriters could stand a thorough cleaning.

This suggests some part time work for a man or a boy. All the equipment necessary to clean a typewriter are clean rags, a typewriter brush, a small can of oil, and a small container of gasolene. Call at each office in a number of office buildings once a week and offer to clean typewriters thoroughly at 25 cents per machine. This also applies to multigraphing and other duplicating machines. Fifty customers should not be difficult to get at such a reasonable rate. This means $12.50 a week for a few hours work per day.

ADDRESSING ENVELOPES—In every city there are hundreds of companies, such as multigraphing and letter shops that take care of mailings for business houses. It is rare to find a business house these days that doesn't mail out some form of direct mail literature. It is these multigraphing shops that do most of the addressing and mailing.

If you can type or if you have a good legible handwriting call on these shops (you will find them listed by the hundreds in the classified section of your telephone book) and offer your services to address envelopes either at home or at the shop.

As a rule, you will be able to get some part-time work in this way.

Occasionally, employment agencies receive calls for this kind of worker, so it were best that you register with all of the employment agencies in your city.