Life History of Serge J. Lauper
After twenty-five years of working for the Charles R. Hadley Company, I went into business for myself. It was a rather traumatic experience. I loved the company; the Charles R. Hadley Company had trained me and treated me well. I was proud of the company. I had established myself as a salesman in San Francisco.
Then drastic changes took place in the company within a fourteen month period. The chairman of the board Frank D. Barnhill had been persuaded to take his first vacation at the age of seventy-three. He died during the course of a trip to Europe. The general sales manager, Johnny Jones, died a very short time later. The secretary-treasurer of the company, Robert Gordon, who had the same name as one of my wife's cousins, resigned and retired. All this led to a real shuffle for position.
The Charles R. Hadley Company was family-owned. But there was a scramble for management leadership, and two of the sharpest and best salesmen became officers of the company. One became general manager and the other general sales manager. They were good men, but in order to strengthen their own positions, they began to make changes with some of the old, established salesmen in various territories. I understood what they were doing. They wanted to make sure of their own jobs by dislodging some of the older men. I was offered several different territories. They offered me the Salt Lake territory because of my Church association. I was offered a territory in Arizona.
I had just the year before had an especially good record. I was head of the sales force for one year and another time was third out of some 120 men. They claimed that these new locations would be improvements on my San Francisco arrangement, but I just couldn't see that the proposal added up.
They also made a very serious change in company policy to allow stationery stores to take over a substantial number of the products. The salesmen would no longer be able to sell these profitable items. So I made my mind up that I would quit. I couldn't quite bring myself to do it, but I was more unhappy than I had ever been. My wife knew that I was unhappy, but I did not confide in her as much as I should have. I did not want to worry her. She knew that I wasn't pleased about things. Every time I faced myself in the morning while shaving, I was increasingly dissatisfied.
One day the new general sales manager was in San Francisco. I had already had some serious differences with this man and had told him my opinions. Jack Stewart, the new sales manager of the company, called me in and referred to a talk he had had with Jack Barry. Barry was the local manager in San Francisco, a very good friend of mine. Stewart said, "Mr. Barry tells me that you're going to quit." He brought the subject up in that offensive way. I had talked to Barry about my problems, and he had soothed me and encouraged me to think that things would work out. Stewart went on to say, "Now, Serge, you can't quit. You're too old for that." I just jumped out of my chair, hit the desk, and told him I'd show him. He was just dumfounded. He asked Jack Barry, what in the world he had said or done to provoke that reaction.
He was right, too. He was absolutely right. I was fifty-three years old in 1954, and I did not have any capital to go into business for myself. But I didn't have anything to stay for either. The Charles R. Hadley Company, good as they were, never invested in retirement money or pensions. Mr. Barnhill believed that the company should pay good salaries and good commissions and let the men save for themselves. So I didn't have anything to worry about leaving them as there was no pension there.
I walked out in the middle of the afternoon and came home. I told my wife I had quit my job. I can still see how she changed color, went kind of ashen grey-white. She didn't say much. It was a pretty heavy shock to her, I know. She wanted to know what I was going to do. I told her I was going to go out and do the same thing I had been doing, I didn't know how. And she still didn't say much. Then we had both Paulie and Claudia in college. It was not a bright prospect at the moment.
I went right upstairs to see my friend Harold Jensen who had an insurance office there. He had been telling me over the years that I should go into business for myself. I had never given it a thought before. But I went in and told him, "Harold, I quit. I'm on my own." And he asked what I was going to do. I told him that I was going to try to build up a business of office supplies. He said, "We'll put a desk in here, and I won't charge you anything for rent, and all you'll have to do is to put in your own phone." So that was the way I started out. I just went out and called on my same customers. I knew I couldn't handle some of the orders because Charles R. Hadley was exclusive on certain things. But I found out that I could tell a very convincing story. I was the underdog. And I got some orders. My old customers said, "Well, Lauper, if you can handle the business, we'll help you." I told them right off which things I could no longer do. Later Jack Barry used to tell the folks, "You know there's Serge out there, and I had newer men who were trying to work the territory, and the two of them would brace up against each other and Serge takes the order away. And my new men would say, who is that son of a B, that guy that's always getting the business?"
I had the problem of finding supplies. Much of my work was custom, specially manufactured. I sold payroll systems to the customers that I knew, and I needed a supplier so I could sell payroll systems and account receivable systems which were good repeat items. Payroll and accounts payable checks are used every week and month.
After about three months, Harold wanted to move his son-in-law in with him. He said now I seemed to be reestablished, he would need my desk.
To begin my business, I had done only one thing. I had borrowed $600 on my insurance policy to pay for some immediate expenses. That was the total sum of my investment in my new business, so far as capital goes. I maneuvered and managed to make it workable. When I sold a company something, I would say that I was a small operator and that I needed my money right away. I called on the customers that I could count on to pay. I paid for my supplies with the returns from my invoices, and I kept the business up with the investment of $600.
I had a major piece of luck. My wife Jean said later on that the heavens smiled on me. The Army Exchange had established a buying office in San Francisco. The Exchange was a good customer when I was with the Charles R. Hadley Company. I went to them and told them my story, and they bought it. I was fortunate in having a friend there who was willing to listen to me. The representative said that I could have the business if I could supply them with the things they wanted, but that they could not buy from me directly. I was an individual, and they had regulations about buying from an established company. They certainly could not buy from an individual just starting out as I was. So I had to work that out.
The Army Exchange was the buying division of the United States government that supplied the USO and their offices and headquarters all over the Pacific and the Western states. The Exchange bought things by the ton. Some of the items they wanted were exclusive to Charles R. Hadley Company. So I went out to a company named Courtings, a stationer which was selling Hadley merchandise, and I made arrangements for them to buy from Hadley and deliver the goods to my customers. I would make only half of the commission on the deals. But the volume for the Army Exchange made up for it. That was one thing that I worked out.
The Timemaster Organization was producing products similar to the Charles R. Hadley merchandise, but Timemaster did not have the customers that Charles R. Hadley did. The company was located in Sacramento and had already hired two or three of the salesmen who had left the Hadley Company. (Many others in the Company had felt the same way as I did about the drastic changes, and they had also left.) Timemaster went along with the special arrangement I required, and I used invoices with their firm name and my address. In effect, I was a branch office.
When the social security act was passed in President Roosevelt's time, the payroll tax act made it mandatory for every firm to keep an individual earnings record for each employee and deductions to support FICA and SUI deductions to pay old age benefits. Record keeping was drastically complicated by this act. I had a customer at a firm where they had thirteen different rates of pay. We had to provide for these on the checks. Rates changed by department, time of day, overtime, and many other variables. The company needed records and also a journal summary for the group. I sold as many of those systems as possible.
A few firms said that keeping these records was an impossible requirement. Many firms hired temporary people who were soon gone. I can remember that one canning firm in eastern Oakland had about 200 people working for them during the canning season. The company refused to keep records thinking that these requirements would soon pass over. They didn't think that Roosevelt could make the social security thing stick. I lived long enough to see the government close them down because of their non-compliance with the law. Many people fought the idea of record-keeping, but it was a money-maker for my industry.
I was concerned at first about being able to meet the competition, I found out early on that my worries were not grounded. I found out that Charles R. Hadley was a firm that was on its toes, checking out the problems and coming up with the answers. Most of all it was my experience to find out that even though I had no college degree or good educational background, that I had solid answers to the problems of a lot of practical people. When I could solve problems, then I was their boy. I made a good many friends in the business. Some of these were willing to swing along with me when I was no longer with the company.
I was very concerned when I began to call on company presidents and CPA's. I figured that I was calling on the cream of the crop so far as my sales work was concerned. I met people with the finest brains in the business. I valued that. I did not have to work with shop people. Then I found out something else. Some people in the accounting profession, as in any other business, did not belong there. I can recall silly customers, and I was able to evaluate very quickly just how much they knew. A simple answer would be something like this. Some joker would come in and say, "Well, I don't know all about this, but I know this, and this, and this. All I know is the difference between a debit and a credit." Many people did not really know, and I could realize that and act accordingly. I had fairly good returns. The business paid my way.
When people asked me who I worked for, I would pull out a picture of my family and say this is who I work for. Sometimes I had to pitch my shots, but I had the ability to analyze prospects. I did not spend a lot of time with unproductive prospects. Either I was not able or competent enough to take care of their problems, or they were not the right people to talk to. There's an old saying in the selling field that "Selling is like shaving. You've got to do it everyday or you're a bum." When some of Napoleon's generals were bragging about the battles they had won, he said, "Well, what did you do the next day?" That's the bottom line on the selling front: It's not what you have done but what you are doing now and what your prospects are. You've got to keep on, and if you don't, there's somebody coming who'll go past you.
As my business evolved, I got into products that were not always in accounting. I could see that there was more money in items that got used up faster, such as payroll checks. I sold thousands and thousands of them. When companies change their names or their banks, they need new checks. Accounts receivable statements and ledger sheets were also used everyday. Later I began selling to doctors and professional men. They used to keep different records for the government and for themselves. They could keep separate records of client's fees. Charles R. Hadley provided one of the good systems which recorded payments as receipts were written.
You might wonder whether I wanted to be an accountant, one of those people I was selling to. And the answer is no. My natural abilities were not in sitting down and reading all the technical materials that an accountant has to. I was lucky enough to be on the selling end which I was better fitted to do. I did not have to get into so many of the fine details. I used to say that I was able to tell them how to keep their books, but I was not interested in actually keeping them. When I was selling standard forms, they said I was "package-lot Lauper." Instead of selling 50 sheets, I would sell them all 250, the standard package. A customer had a laugh on me one time when she called up and asked if she could buy binders less than six at a time. I'd multiply amounts whenever I could.
When we had the change in the Charles R. Hadley Company, about eight of us who represented about 300 years of selling experience, went out on our own. I had about twenty-five years, others had thirty years. We were all doing similar things, selling forms. The country was right at the peak of the payroll boom. We were all in competition with the big firms. We had to pioneer, in the sense that we had to locate sources of supply. I was the only ex-Hadley man in San Francisco. One was in San Rafael, two in Sacramento, one in Atlanta, two in Los Angeles.
My associates were aware that I was a member of the Latter-day Saint Church. I was a returned missionary and a bishop. Some of them knew a little about the church, but most of them didn't. Early on, there were the traditional company parties where there was usually sherry drinking, and there was definitely tobacco all the time. In those days they were not fighting cigarettes the way they are now. I walked into an office and there was a cloud.
At the beginning, I just said no, thank you, and I was an oddball, no question about it. Later on, it was definitely understood and accepted, and when they had parties, they'd either bring out some orange juice or some milk. Sometimes there were Seventh Day Adventists and Christian Scientists working in the stockroom, and they were supporters of my position.
But every once in a while the subject would come up, and people would ask what I did in my church. "They tell me you're a bishop, well, what does a bishop do?" And later on they would know that I was a stake president. "Stake? What's a stake?" Some of these questions would come up. Later on when I crossed trails with some of the people, I was a patriarch. "Oh, my, my. What in the H is a patriarch?" I really had no trouble; people understood that I was different and left me alone. I have to admit that I was not invited to private company parties. I didn't get invited out on Sunday afternoons to poker games at their houses. My wife Jean felt a little sad that we couldn't be included. I never did work with any other LDS in my own office. There were some others in the company, maybe three or four, and I got acquainted with one in Tacoma, Washington.
I was sometimes invited to write articles for the company paper, and I started right out "In the Good Book. . ." So everyone knew I was a believer. I'm going to quote that piece which was published in the Charles R. Hadley Company "Loose Leaves," April 1952, Volume 32, Edition 10. My picture was published with it, right on the front page.
And With All Thy Getting Get Understanding, Proverbs 4:7It may be a surprise to some that in the "Good Book" a wise man recorded centuries ago a selling sentence that has freshness and power when used by those of us who sell today.
A salesman in modern language finds prospects, makes friends, gets orders, creates new business."With all thy getting get understanding" of yourself. Analyze your emotions. What do you really want? Be honest about your mistakes. Take advantage of your best qualities. Learn from the successful merchant who places his choice goods in the show window. Keep in subjection and out of sight those personal traits of which you are not proud. Crowd these handicaps back in the corner where they may smother and die.
"With all thy getting get understanding" of people. Why do they do what they do? What do they want to find at the foot of the rainbow? Who are the V.I.P.'s in their lives? What are their problems?
"With all thy getting get understanding" of your products. What is your line of merchandise? What are the specialities of your house? In which department do you qualify as an expert? What are the actual needs that your products and services are designed to answer?
"With all thy getting get understanding" of the world around you. Know something about everything. What are the highlights in current events on the front page, in the sports section, in the million dollar wordage of the financial news? Be aware of the events that are making history.
"With all thy getting get understanding" of the plans and policies of your company--what goals have been set for the future, for this year, in five, in ten.
"With all thy getting get understanding" of how best to put to profitable use the knowledge we gain; for knowledge without application is dead, as useless as the labor of one who continually plows in the field, but never sows.
During World War II we had serious limits on the merchandise we could sell. Products changed, not everything was available. This and that was restricted. We couldn't get enough of some things. Our payroll writing board was made out of wood instead of metal. The paper, which used to be pure white made out of linen clippings, began to be flecked. Instead of leather on the binders, we had corduroy.
The circumstances during the war were a complete reversal of the situation I had known during the depression. During those dark days of '31, '32, and '33, after the stock crash which occurred when I was in The Dalles, Oregon, I would start out around my territory and stop at the banks en route. Next time there would be only half that many. There was complete destruction going on so far as banks were concerned. Deadly fear was in the air. People were jumping out of windows and all that silly business. We had 133 salesmen when I was first on the territory, every month a few men were gone from the company. We always feared we might be next. My company did a startling thing for the sales industry. Many companies had their men on a salary basis before the depression. Immediately after the depression began, they put them on a commission basis because they couldn't sell much. Charles R. Hadley Company did the reverse. They took us off selling on commission and gave us a flat salary. I was very grateful for that. Every month we got our regular money, and that was when the dollar was worth a lot of money. I well remember that every depression year I would get a letter from the company at the end of the year saying that this day we have wiped out your debts, and starting with the new year you are starting with a clean sheet. We actually worked on a commission basis in that the company kept a record of our sales. We would be building up a deficit all year because we never earned as much as we were being paid. That 130 men eventually shrunk down to less than thirty. I was fortunate to be one of them. No explanations were made about who was being let go, the list just got shorter.
When we came into the war years, the situation was reversed. We had a quota of how much we could sell. We could not sell more than a certain limited amount. First of all, we could not take orders for new items. And we could only sell certain things to old regular customers. We could not take on any new customers. I well remember the sorrowful day that I had to turn down the business of the J. A. Folger Company, one of the premier companies of San Francisco. I had worked very hard to sell the company a payroll system. One day the comptroller came in and gave me the order. He had finally decided to buy the system. And I said I couldn't take the order. He got very angry with me. I well remember it. He wasn't used to being turned down on anything like that.
After we had sold our quota for the month, we had nothing else left to do. Our month was over. I built my daughter Claudia a playhouse because I didn't know what else to do with myself. The conditions of selling the merchandise were the really hard thing. I think it was just as hard on me not to be able to sell, as it was not to be able to get orders during the depression. To have to turn people down for something that they wanted and needed was very disagreeable for me. I could go out and in five days I could sell quota for the month. Then I had to figure out other things to do.
I belonged to the Commonwealth Club for twenty-three years. The club was organized just after the turn of the century, and for fifty years, it was a businessmen's organization. The meetings were held at the Palace Hotel, now the Sheraton Palace. My office was in the Monadnock Building, divided from the hotel only by the short Annie Street, so it was easy for me to attend.
The speakers were from everywhere. I heard some of the best including presidents of the United States, corporation officers, and heads of state of foreign countries. On its monthly publication, the club had as its masthead: "Get the Facts."
One day sometime during the war years, I rushed over just a little late. Stuart Ward, the secretary, was at the door. The place was packed. I knew Ward only to say hello, but when he saw me, he stepped over to me and grabbed my arm, saying, "Come with me." The next thing I knew, I was at the speakers' table. I started to ask him what was happening, and he answered in a low voice, "We're short one man at the head table. You look well-fed. Shut up." I then was seated between Clinton Duffy, the head of San Quentin, and Donald Nelson, the head of the United States War Production Board. I do not remember the name of the speaker of the day. It was pretty funny afterwards, because some of my customers were at the meeting.
During the war years, my military assignment was to be an air raid warden. We thought that San Francisco might be attacked by the enemy. The fear was that the Japanese would come in by plane and bomb the city. San Francisco was considered to be a good psychological place for them to attack. My assignment as air warden was to walk from Lincoln Way to Noriega and 24th Avenue to 25th in a circle. Another man walked with me, and we put in five hours every evening.
There was a city ordinance that no light was to show after certain hours. My wife had made some very lovely draperies for the rooms of the house, and we had them at the church and everyplace else. Once in a while there was some problem with an individual who didn't keep the light off or closed in. Some rebellious citizens would say, "Oh, to Hell with you!" We had no authority to do any more than give warnings, but we would turn some of these trouble-makers in and have the police department come out and deal with them. I had my own hard hat which I would wear and also my own extinguisher for fires in case we had any, but we never did. That was my stint during the war.
I, of course, had my church work which kept me pretty busy. I had an extra allowance of gas whereas many others did not. So I never suffered about that. And we had our boys who were leaving us all the time from the ward. We went to training classes for first aid which were held continuously. We had regular canvasses in the ward to gather food stuffs, and we did other things to assist in the war effort and to do our part.