As a boy, I learned that no matter what I was going to do in life I had to have knowledge, and I needed to know what to do with that knowledge. If knowledge becomes a part of us, then we will apply it without even thinking about it. It will become second nature to us, and we will learn to use it in our daily habits.

YOUR TOOL CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE, IF YOU KNOW HOW TO USE IT!

As a boy, I learned that no matter what I was going to do in life I had to have knowledge, and I needed to know what to do with that knowledge. If knowledge becomes a part of us, then we will apply it without even thinking about it. It will become second nature to us, and we will learn to use it in our daily habits.

YOUR TOOL CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE, IF YOU KNOW HOW TO USE IT!
One of my grandfathers was a carpenter, and he always guarded his toolbox as if his life depended on its existence—and perhaps it did. His most precious personal possession was that beat-up large toolbox that fit on the back of his pickup truck. Many times I saw him bring home old, used lumber from his jobs. This lumber had old, rusty, bent nails in them, and most people would have burnt these boards. My grandfather would put the 2 by 4’s in a vise, and then he would open his toolbox and search for the right tool so he could remove the old nails.

Sometimes he would even straighten the nails and use them over; he had raised five children during the depression and found a use for almost everything. To remove the nails, he often used a claw hammer, but there were several different ways he had to use the hammer to remove the nail. He would use this same hammer to take a single blow and hammer a nail completely through the board. I tried all my life to duplicate what he could do with one single blow to the end of the nail with his hammer, but it has always taken me three efforts to accomplish the same thing.

Then he would plane the lumber, saw it or drill it so he could use that piece of wood in his project. He figured the wood would be burnt, and no one would have any use for it, and if he and his toolbox could rework it, then everyone would benefit from his labor. He would haul the lumber about an hour and a half from Indianapolis to Greensburg, Indiana, where he and my grandmother had a lake cottage. He rebuilt the entire cottage with that old, used lumber. And once the wood was covered up, it didn’t make much difference, but unless he had had that toolbox and the experience to use each tool to its full potential, he wouldn’t have benefited from his efforts.

The way in which my grandfather used his tools made me think that no matter what I was going to do in life I had to have knowledge, and then I needed to know what to do with that knowledge. The tools might be a typewriter or even a computer, but it wasn’t the tool, but how you used it to the full advantage of its capabilities. The people I had used as mentors—parents, teachers, my grandmother, motivational speakers, my best friend, my wife Nora—all of these people told me to acquire knowledge and then how to apply that knowledge to the issue at hand. But the premise that we must apply the knowledge isn’t always true, because if we have the knowledge and it becomes a part of us, then we will apply it without even thinking about it. It will become second nature to us, and we will learn to use it in our daily habits.

THE FIRST BIG MACHINE PURCHASE
After I had been in business for a few years, I thought one day what I was going to need in order to accomplish my goals. So I started making a list of everything I thought I would need in order to become more competitive in the awards business. This was like a wish list, both immediate and long range. I didn’t have any equipment, not even an engraving machine, and yet I was in the trophy business. I took my engraving to a jeweler who charged me 5 cents per letter, and I charged 8 cents—not a real profit center.

Then my dad took me to Chicago for the NSGA show, and one of the vendors was offering GTX New Hermes machines for $666 and 90 days the same as cash. I could make three payments of $222 each, then it would be mine. Wow! I could increase my profits and give better service. And I wouldn’t have to get someone to run me down to the jewelers. But the really good thing was that the entire 8 cents would all be profit.

Then about two weeks after I received the machine, I got a call from a fireman’s convention being held in Indianapolis; they needed 1,200 figures on base, and every one of them had to be personally engraved. But they needed the trophies in about a week; the good news was that one order for engraving would pay for the entire machine. A few late nights and the machine was all mine—this business was for me!

Just think: I might be able to make a living in this business, because I now knew how to use the engraving machine, and if I could do this good with one machine, think what I might do if I had several other machines. Made sense if I knew how to engrave; that was all I needed to know—right? I could learn everything there is to know about any machine, why not? This first machine seemed easy and very profitable.

EQUIPMENT IS ALWAYS NEEDED TO BE COMPETITIVE
My plan was that I needed other equipment, like a metal cutter, a metal bender (the trophy industry was changing, and we were starting to bend metal in the form of columns). Then I would perhaps need a metal roller to add additional dimensions to our offering of columns. Until this time the trophy business was controlled by only a few manufacturers who sold completed trophies. They weren’t selling components or parts but completed trophies. You ordered them and they came in less the figure, and you just screwed the figures on the top.

There were companies like Dodge, Inc. from Chicago and later in Crystal Lake, Illinois, where you would present them with a check at the NSGA show for $7,500, get your samples and then draw on the deposited $7,500. But who had the $7,500? Not me, and besides Ray Dodge wouldn’t sell to me; I was only a kid. I still have the letter he wrote me telling me he didn’t need any more dealers in Indianapolis, and if he did he would let me know.

He had three dealers in Indianapolis. Later, I bought two of those three, and I bought some of the equipment of the other one at a bankrupty auction. I later attended Ray Dodge’s funeral in Florida; there were 51 people there and only three from the trophy business. Mr. Dodge had a different way of doing business, but many of us owe him a lot because I thought of Mr. Dodge as one of the founders of the awards business of today—he was a great innovator! Thank you, Mr. Dodge.

Next month, I want to continue telling about how some in the awards industry became creative in their approach to solving a labor problem. The business was growing, and labor and delivery was becoming a problem—learn how they solved the problem and created a problem at the same time. Sometimes we need to think about our solutions and what might occur if we invent or create something. The real visionaries learn to look past the answer and focus on the end result.