Tip #4 for Getting Money

Don't Get above Your Business
Part 4 of a 5-part series on the Golden Rules for Making Money, as set forth in P.T. Barnum's 1880 guidebook Art of Getting Money

You can strive to be excellent. Or you can strive to make money.

You cannot do both.

"The great ambition should be to excel all others engaged in the same occupation," says P.T. Barnum.

Focusing on a fat bottom line is getting above your business. It guarantees you'll occupy a place below competitors.

Focusing on excellence is sticking to your business. It guarantees you'll attract a lot of customers.

"Americans are too superficial," Barnum writes. "They are striving to get rich quickly, and do not generally do their business as substantially and thoroughly as they should. But whoever excels all others in his own line, if his habits are good and his integrity undoubted, cannot fail to secure abundant patronage, and the wealth that naturally follows. Let your motto then always be 'Excelsior,' for by living up to it there is no such word as fail."

Tip #3 for Getting Money

Read the Newspapers
Part 3 of a 5-part series on the Golden Rules for Making Money, as set forth in P.T. Barnum's 1880 guidebook Art of Getting Money

"Always take a trustworthy newspaper, and thus keep thoroughly posted in regard to the transactions of the world," says P.T. Barnum in Art of Money Getting.

The businessperson who doesn't read every day "is cut off from his species."

"In these days of telegraphs and steam," Barnum writes, "many important inventions and improvements in every branch of trade are being made, and he who don't consult the newspapers will soon find himself and his business left out in the cold."

Tip #2 for Getting Money

Be Polite and Kind to Your Customers
Part 2 of a 5-part series on the Golden Rules for Making Money, as set forth in P.T. Barnum's 1880 guidebook Art of Getting Money

"Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in a business," writes P.T. Barnum in Art of Money Getting. "Large stores, gilt signs, flaming advertisements will all prove unavailing if you or your employees treat your patrons abruptly."

Politeness begins with fair pricing, Barnum says.

"Men who drive sharp bargains with their customers, acting as if they never expected to see them again, will not be mistaken. They will never see them again as customers. People don't like to pay and get kicked also."

Civility shows in how a business treats not just friendly customers, but the customers from hell.

Barnum tells of an employee who wanted to punch a rude customer.

"He is the man who pays, while we receive," Barnum told the employee. "You must, therefore, put up with his bad manners."

The employee agreed—and asked for a raise.

A Few Good Men

Recently, I received an email from a conference promoter. I'll quote it in part:

"From the creators of The Event Marketing Summit and The Event Design Summit comes the Second Annual EventTech Conference and Expo. Join hundreds of event designers for two days of education and training. Crowdsourcing, gamification, digital influencers and social media streaming—these are just some of the 'wired' strategies you’ll get a perspective on. Plus, new technologies and the best ways to 'plug' your live events into the future. Receive a total tech tune up for 2013."

Despite its length, the email provides only half the information a prospect needs to consider the offer.

The email states Who, What and Why. 

But it neglects to mention Where, When and How. 

Pretty important stuff.

I guess the promoter has never read Rudyard Kipling's poem about writing:

I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

Tip #1 for Getting Money

Advertise Your Business
Part 1 of a 5-part series on the Golden Rules for Making Money

Showman P.T. Barnum published a little book in 1880 titled Art of Money Getting.

In it, he shared his "Golden Rules for Making Money," including this one, "Advertise Your Business."

If you want to get rich, "Be careful to advertise," Barnum says.

"If a man has got goods for sale and he don't advertise them in some way, the chances are that some day the sheriff will do it for him," Barnum warns.

But advertising alone isn't enough.

You have to advertise a lot, Barnum insists. Like knowledge, a little advertising is "a dangerous thing."

"Your object in advertising is to make the public understand what you have got to sell, and if you have not the pluck to keep advertising until you have imparted that information, all the money you have spent is lost."