The Wealth Formula
To find success in manufacturing, make what people need

Russell Conwell was a well-known lecturer, preacher and author who lived at the turn of the last century. He became famous for his lecture, Acres of Diamonds, which he delivered hundred of times all over the country. The thesis of his lecture was about those who had become millionaires by just finding that “something” that people needed and then acting to make it available.

A. T. Stewart
A. T. Stewart had only $1.50 to begin his life He lost 87 1/2 cents of what he had on his first business venture. He had purchased a few needles, threads, and buttons to sell – that people did not want.
A. T. then went from door to door asking people what they did want, investing his remaining 62 1/2 cents to supply his known demand.

Conwell says, “You must first know what people need, and then invest yourself where you are most needed.” A. T. Stewart used this principle in creating his $40-million business, finally owning the very store in which Mr. Wanamaker carried on his great work in New York. (Conwell, 1960)

John Jacob Astor
John Jacob Astor came to this country in debt for his fare. Yet, he made millions for the Astor family, a well-known family in New York. He had a mortgage once on a millinery store in New York. But he could not sell enough bonnets to pay even the interest on his loan. He had to do what thousands have had to do: foreclose the mortgage and go into business with his creditor, the same store with the same capital.

After Astor had made his deal he went out of the store and found a park bench in the shade.
If a lady wearing a bonnet passed by with shoulders back, head up and looking straight to the front, he knew she liked what she wore.

“After his day’s work on the park bench he would go to his millinery store and say: “Now put into the show window just such a bonnet as I describe to you, because I have already seen a lady who likes such a bonnet. He did not have a hat or a bonnet in that show window but what some lady liked before it was made up.” (Conwell, 1960)

The tide of custom began to turn for Astor; his store became one of the greatest achievements in the history of New York merchandizing.

Hingham Toys
An out-of-work carpenter who could not find a job anywhere whittled a soaked shingle into a wooden chain. The next day he whittled another. As he was whittling the second one, a neighbor came by and asked, “Why don’t you whittle toys and sell them?” The man thought a moment and said, “Oh, I would not know what to make.” The neighbor said, “Why don’t you ask your own children?”

“So, after consulting his own children, he took the firewood, for he had no money to buy lumber, and whittled those strong, unpainted Hingham toys that were for so may years known all over the world.” (Conwell, 1960)

That poor carpenter became one of the richest men in Massachusetts.

You can become a millionaire if you will first find out what people need. Then you must act to fill that need. Until you act, it will forever remain a need and nothing more. Stewart, Astor, and Hingham Toys earned millions by serving people’s needs.

Dr. Arlie Hall is an adjunct professor for the Center for Robotics and Manufacturing at the University of Kentucky's College of Engineering.
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