Free All The Bells on Earth by James P. Blaylock Page B

up, but I don’t think I’ll get around to shifting stock till after the Christmas rush.” There was nothing in Henry’s attitude to suggest that he found any of this stuff laughable, as if to him it was merchandise to be bought and sold, and might as well have been shoes or automobile parts. Well, that was all right. Walt was content to let the customers do the laughing. The world needed more laughing.
    “To tell you the truth,” Henry said, “I came out here tonight because I’ve got a small proposition for you. I’ve been thinking along a different line altogether—a way to make this business of yours fly without leaving home. No trucks. No warehouse. You hire all that out to someone else and take a profit right off the top.”
    “Well, I hadn’t thought …”
    “That’s the future, you know—electronics, the information highway. Everything out of your house with the push of a button. Are you willing to listen?” He squinted his eyes a little bit, as if Walt was going to have to make an effort here, but that it would be worth it.
    This was exactly what Walt had feared—that Henry was going to try to rope him in on some kind of business deal. Last winter it had been asphalt and roof paint, sold door-to-door, but somehow it had never quite got going because the company had gone broke at the last moment, and Henry’s sample kits and sales-pitch brochures were suddenly worthless. To Henry it made no difference; you win some and you lose some. Walt couldn’t afford to lose any. He hadn’t ever leveled with Henry about it, though. Walt and Henry got along on a level of gentlemanly good humor and mutual support, and there wasn’t much room for truth in it, not any kind of practical truth, anyway.
    “Has it occurred to you that the real money might be in design?” Henry asked. “Right now you’re on the distribution end, the narrow end of the funnel. Have you read any of Dr. Hefernin’s books? Aaron Hefernin?”
    Walt shook his head. He could hear the rain coming down. Out toward the street, the motor home was nearly invisible through the downpour. He switched on the space heater, listening doubtfully as Henry talked and wondering what the sales pitch would finally amount to.
    “The man’s a genius,” Henry said. “He developed what he calls the ‘Funnel Analogy’ to explain business from the inside out. Look here.”
    Henry picked up a manila envelope that lay on the bench and carefully shook out four or five stapled pamphlets. There was an illustration on the first one of a funnel, upside down, like the Tin Man’s hat. Arrows went in one way and came out another, along with words and sentences and phrases. Below it was a paragraph that began, “Welcome to the world of money,
real
money.”
    “Eh?” Henry said, slapping the pamphlet. “What do you think?”
    Walt nodded.
    “It’s fascinating. Rock solid. I read this introductory pamphlet and subscribed to the entire series—nearly ten volumes so far. Each one clarifies another aspect of what Dr. Hefernin calls ‘the business of business.’ Remember that phrase, because it’s the key to this entire method. You see, most people fail for a simple reason: they don’t understand the business of business. They understand food, let’s say, so they open a restaurant. In six weeks it’s kaput. Why?”
    “Because they don’t understand the business of business?” Walt said.
    “Bingo! That’s it! There’s a dynamic that they don’t see. They don’t see the
big picture.
”
    “Aah,” Walt said, nodding as if he were only now seeing the big picture himself. He picked up the pamphlet and looked at it closely, making out the words “profit margin” alongside the arrow that moved up the funnel toward the top of the page. The word “overhead” was contained within the loops of a spiral that looked almost like a snail crawling toward the margin. The caption at the bottom of the page read, “When opportunity knocks, answer the door