because a Spartan captain had entrenched a hundred men in a narrow mountain pass, which controlled the road into Lacedaemon. The man who was first on the ground had the advantage.

Advertising is full of opportunities for men who are first on the ground.

There are hundreds of advertising passes waiting for some one to occupy them. The first man who realizes that his line will be helped by publicity, has a tremendous opportunity. He can gain an advantage over his competitors that they can never possess. Those who follow him must spend more money to equal his returns. They must not only invest as much, to get as much, but they must as well, spend an extra sum to counteract the influence that he has already established in the community.

Whatever men sell, whether it is actual merchandise or brain vibrations, can be more easily sold with the aid of advertising. Not one half of the businesses which should be exploited are appearing in the newspapers. Trade grows as reputation grows and advertising spreads reputation.

If you are engaged in a line which is waiting for an advertising pioneer, realize what a wonderful chance you have of being the first of your kind to appeal directly to the public. You stand a better chance of leadership than those who have handicapped their strength, by permitting you to get on the ground before they could outstrip you. You gain a prestige that those who follow you, must spend more money to counteract.

If your particular line is similar to some other trade or business which has already been introduced to the reading public, it's up to you to start in right now and join your competitors in contesting for the attention of the community. The longer you delay the more you decrease your chances of surviving. Every man who outstrips you is another opponent, who must be met and grappled with, for the right of way.

The Perambulating Showcase

The Perambulating Showcase

The newspaper is a huge shop window, carried about the city and delivered daily into hundreds of thousands of homes, to be examined at the leisure of the reader. This shop window is unlike the actual plate glass showcase only in one respect—it makes display of descriptions instead of articles.

You have often been impressed by the difference between the decorations of two window-trimmers, each of whom employed the same materials for his work. The one drew your attention and held it by the grace and cleverness and art manifested in his display. The other realized so little of the possibilities in the materials placed at his disposal, that unless some one called your attention to his mediocrities you would have gone on unconscious of their existence.

An advertiser must know that he gets his results in accordance with the skill exercised in preparing his verbal displays. He must make people stop and pause. His copy has to stand out.

He must not only make a show of things that are attractive to the eye but are attractive to the people's needs, as well.

The window-trimmer must not make the mistake of thinking that the showiest stocks are the most salable. The advertiser must not make the mistake of thinking that the showiest words are the most clinching.

Windows are too few in number to be used with indiscretion. The good merchant puts those goods back of his plate glass which nine people out of ten will want, once they have seen them.

The good advertiser tells about goods which nine readers out of ten will buy, if they can be convinced.

Newspaper space itself is only the window, just as the showcase is but a frame for merchandise pictures. A window on a crowded street, in the best neighborhood, where prosperous persons pass continually, is more desirable, than one in a cheap, sparsely settled neighborhood. An advertisement in a newspaper with the most readers and the most prosperous ones, possesses a great advantage over the same copy, in a medium circulating among persons who possess less means. It would be foolish for a shop to build its windows in an alley-way—and just as much so to put its advertising into newspapers which are distributed among “alley-dwellers.”

How Alexander Untied the Knot

How Alexander Untied the Knot

Alexander the Great was being shown the Gordian Knot. “It can't be untied,” they told him; “every man who tried to do so, failed.”

But Alexander was not discouraged because the rest had flunked. He simply realized that he would have to go at it in a different way. And instead of wasting time with his fingers, he drew his sword and slashed it apart.

Every day a great business general is shown some knot which has proven too much for his competitors, and he succeeds, because he finds a way to cut it. The fumbler has no show so long as there is a brother merchant who doesn't waste time trying to accomplish the impossible—who takes lessons from the failures about him and avoids the methods which were their downfall.

The knottiest problems in trade are:

• 1—The problem of location.
• 2—The problem of getting the crowds.
• 3—The problem of keeping the crowds.
• 4—The problem of minimizing fixed expenses.
• 5—The problem of creating a valuable good will.

None of these knots is going to be untied by fumbling fingers. They are too complicated. They're all inextricably involved—so twisted and entangled that they can't be solved singly—like the Gordian knot they must be cut through at one stroke. And you can't cut the knot with anything but advertising—because:

• 1—A store that is constantly before the people makes its own neighborhood.
• 2—Crowds can be brought from anywhere by daily advertising.
• 3—Customers can always be held by inducements.
• 4—Fixed expenses can only be reduced by increasing the volume of sales.
• 5—Good will can only be created through publicity.

Advertising is breeding new giants every year and making them more powerful every hour. Publicity is the sustaining food of a powerful store and the only strengthening nourishment for a weak one. The retailer who delays his entry into advertising must pay the penalty of his procrastination by facing more giant competitors as each month of opportunity slips by.

Personal ability as a close purchaser and as a clever seller, doesn't count for a hang, so long as other men are equally well posted and wear the sword of publicity to boot. They are able to tie your business into constantly closer knots, while you cannot retaliate, because there is no knot which their advertising cannot cut for them.

Yesterday you lost a customer—today they took