Answer: Start by selling chewing gum
IMAGE: Financial Times
We’ll readily acknowledge that AndrewsGumWorld is not Jeopardy, but we’ll pretend, for a moment, that we are.
Question: How did Warren Buffett begin his journey towards becoming the second richest man in America?
Last week, the Financial Times began a series of articles about Warren Buffett (as well as a link to a review of his biography, “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life”), and we were nothing less than pleased to discover that his fabulous success in the world of business began quite simply, and that his first profits were made from selling our favorite brand of gum:
The first few cents Warren Buffett ever earned came from selling packs of chewing gum. And from the day he started selling – at six years of age – he showed an unyielding attitude toward his customers that revealed much about his later style.
“I had this little green tray, which had five different areas in it. I’m pretty sure my aunt Edie gave me that. It had containers for five different brands of gum, Juicy Fruit, Spearmint, Doublemint, and so on. I would buy packs of gum from my grandfather and go around door to door in the neighborhood selling this stuff. I used to do that in the evening, largely.
“I remember a woman named Virginia Macoubrie saying, ‘I’ll take one stick of Juicy Fruit.’ I said, ’We don’t break up packs of gum’ – I mean, I’ve got my principles. I still, to this day, remember Mrs Macoubrie saying she wanted one stick. No, they were sold only in five-stick packs. They were a nickel, and she wanted to spend a penny with me.”
Making a sale was tempting, but not tempting enough to change his mind. If he sold one stick to Virginia Macoubrie, he would have four sticks left to sell to somebody else, not worth the work or the risk. From each whole pack, he made two cents profit. He could hold those pennies, weighty and solid, in his palm.