PLAN No. 187. ANNUAL SALES IN PARLOR AND HALL
Every year she holds sales in her front room and large hall, and sells pies, cakes, rolls, bread, cookies, doughnuts, plum puddings, fruit cakes, jams, jellies, canned fruits, vegetables, etc., besides her needle-work products, and always clears a handsome sum from these sales. She also takes orders for roast ducks, geese, turkeys, chickens and squabs, and finds a ready sale for all these from all classes of people, at special prices. Many of these are delivered by parcel post, and prove a good source of revenue.
A talented young woman, living in a small western city, wanted to open a beauty parlor, but realizing that she was not familiar with the necessary details of the business, went to a city some distance away and took a course of lessons from a dermatologist in the approved methods of removing wrinkles, moles, birthmarks, freckles, tan, superfluous hair, etc. The course cost her $25.
Before leaving the city, however, she also paid $15 for instructions in manicuring, and $10 for the necessary instruments with which to do this class of work in a satisfactory manner.
Arriving at her home town she sent personal letters to all the prominent women of the place, inviting them to visit the neat and attractively-fitted-up parlors she had opened in her home, and stating her qualifications for doing the work required.
Responses to these letters were numerous, and as the lady did exceptionally good work, her reputation spread rapidly throughout the community, and inside of the first year the net profits she realized from her small-town parlors were greater than those of many similar institutions in the large city. She was both capable and careful in the treatment of her patrons, who became permanent customers and made her plan an unqualified success.
A man who had some experience in a steam laundry in a city moved to a small town of 2,500 inhabitants and established a hand laundry that in a short time became a paying concern.
He had but a few hundred dollars in cash, but found he did not need a great deal. Before leaving the city, he had bought a light collar-and-cuff ironing machine that cost him $50, while $25 more paid for a few little accessories he knew he would need.