Beachcombing – 'Work like hell'

Last week my wristwatch died. Not the high-value version from J&L Jewelry that I wear for business and social purposes, but the cheap one – worn mostly at home for tasks that might subject it to damage.

Unable to open the back to replace the battery, I decided that a jewelry store would probably get $20 to do that versus ordering a new watch from Amazon for $11. That’s $8 less than what I paid for the same model two years ago.

Two days later I had the $11 replacement, plus a delivery fee that equates to less than $1. A week earlier the Keurig coffee maker died, and its replacement was here within 24 hours. In a nutshell, that’s why I love Amazon.

Annually I’ll order about 100 products from the online vendor – half are for office supplies because Staples became a rip-off. Often, it’s for items that are not otherwise available at local retail stores, such as the wild bird feed that Lowe’s no longer carries due to their midnight vermin attacks.

Amazon charges me $139 annually for Prime membership that includes free same-day, one-day, or two-day shipping on millions of items. In some areas they have ultra-fast delivery – within hours. Prime includes movies, TV shows, sports, Amazon Originals, Amazon Music, Prime Gaming and Prime Reading.

This takes me back to the spring of 1965 after being discharged from the U.S. Air Force in Minot, N.D. I took a job in the sporting goods section of Sears in advance of coming to Long Beach for enrollment at LBCC and Long Beach State.

Sears had 3,000-plus stores back then, with 350,000 employees and annual sales of $50 billion ($180-190 billion today). Based in Chicago, the management at Sears lacked the vision that Amazon’s Jeff Bezos had. That’s why they are down to five stores nationwide today.

Bezos started Amazon in 1994 – primarily as an online bookstore – and grew it to $426.3 billion in annual sales nationwide last year, with 200-plus fulfillment centers and 1.1 million employees.

It’s a classic example of why businesses cannot afford to become fat, happy and lazy, allowing the competition to surpass them. Remember the story of the tortoise and hare?

I recently found another example of making wise business decisions online, attributed to the richest man in China. He said: “If you put bananas and money in front of monkeys, the monkeys will choose bananas because they don’t know that money can buy a lot of bananas.

“In fact, if you offer people work and business, they will choose work because most people don’t know that a business can make more money than a salary.

“The reason why the poor are poor is because they spend a lot of time in school, and they work for a salary instead of working for themselves, because a salary just gives you an income to live on, but profit can make you a fortune,” he said.

In 1978, at the age of 35, I started my own PR and advertising business that soon grew profitable. The Beachcomber came along in July 2000 but, thankfully, the PR&A side of the business was around to cover the reduced income experienced by many newspapers due to the growing popularity of the internet.

In a 1986 interview on Barbara Walters Specials, Ted Turner was discussing the drive behind his success when Barbara Walters asked him about his philosophy or “secret to success.” Turner replied with the line that became one of his best-known quotes: “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise.”

The phrase was Turner’s adaptation of the old Benjamin Franklin proverb, with Turner adding the aggressive business-minded ending: “and advertise.”

After Turner died last week, I took his words to heart, posting them prominently on our website: www.beachcomber.news. Both Turner and Bezos were visionaries who made billions by starting their own businesses and “working like hell.” It’s that easy!

publisher@beachcomber.news