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suggestions for new businesses, it offers clear, straightforward lessons on good salesmanship, advertising, merchandising, customer relations, and much more. It is filled with stories of people who turned a good idea into a good business, sometimes with stunning success.

      Some of the names are familiar today.

      There is the stirring story of James C. Penney, whose first job paid him a measly $2.27 a month. Penney combined his small grubstake with two other partners and opened the first J.C. Penney on April 14, 1902. That first year, store sales amounted to $28,891. James' share of the profits was a tad over $1,000.

      With daydreams mounting, Warren read on.

      When he came to page 153, Warren must have broken out with a huge grin. Chapter 6 is all about starting a roadside business—something the young entrepreneur had already been doing for more than five years. Chapter 10 is filled with scores of ideas for service businesses, one of which involved placing coin‐operated pool tables in local stores and taverns. From our present‐day perspective, we can see a straight line from that story to Warren's pinball business six years later.

      In that same Chapter 10, “Selling Your Services,” we find another story, one that had an even greater influence on Warren's thinking. Here's what happened.

      In 1933, a man named Harry Larson was shopping in his local drugstore when someone (we don't know who exactly) asked him how much he weighed. Harry turned around and spied a coin‐operated scale; he put in his penny and got his answer and then moved over to the cigar counter. During the few minutes he waited in line, seven other customers decided to try the penny scale. That caught Harry's attention, and he set out to learn more. The store owner explained that the machines were leased and that his 25 percent share of the profits was about $20 a month (approximately $384 in today's dollars)—leaving 75 percent for the company that owned the scale.

      And so we come back full circle to Minaker's book and its profound influence on Warren Buffett. One Thousand Ways to Make $1000 lives up to the spirit, if not the letter, of its title: I count 476 new‐business suggestions. Many would qualify as buggy‐whip ideas in our high‐tech world, but many others are remarkably prescient. But for us today, the real value of the book lies in the fundamental principles it offers. Minaker, in her no‐nonsense, listen‐to‐your‐teacher style, lays down important basic concepts about money. In particular, she wants readers to understand the mindset, the essential temperament they would need in order to reach their dollar goals. Taken together, those passages about the essence of making money are some of the key building blocks that helped form Warren's Money Mind.

      To give her readers a boost with their research, Minaker includes a 35‐page appendix that lists books, magazines, periodicals, pamphlets, and government publications related to how to start and operate a business. In all, there are 859 different citations on how to succeed at your chosen business.

      The lesson was not lost on Warren. At Berkshire Hathaway's headquarters in Omaha, the largest room on the executive floor is not Warren's office but the reference library down the hall. It is lined with row upon row of filing cabinets, all filled with the stories of businesses. These cabinets contain every annual report, past and present, of all the major publicly traded companies. Warren has read them all. From these he has learned not only what worked and was profitable but, more important, what business strategies failed and lost money.

      Those who have studied Warren Buffett easily recognize Minaker's counsel. Yes, Warren discusses big ideas with his long‐time business partner, Charlie Munger. But it is also true that if Warren believes Berkshire is in line to make a good purchase he won't spend all day talking on the phone. He never pauses to make a final decision because the stock market is up or down, or the economy is growing or contracting,

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