PART I: THE WILD WEST
ACT I
The Big Idea
Every business begins with an idea.
Only time will tell if it proves to be a good one.
Colonel William F. Cody began organizing his first Wild West in 1882.
We might wonder how he managed this with no Internet, Google, email, text, and OMG no cell phone. But every businessperson has to work with the tools available at the time.
By 1882, Cody had the idea, desire, motivation, gumption (and presumably, the wherewithal) to strike out for the territory of starting his own enterprise. Many of us have felt this entrepreneurial pull and responded to it. Perhaps the surprising thing is that Cody’s first Wild West opened a mere year later in 1883. Like most early entrepreneurial efforts, Cody wore many hats. For starters, he was the show’s manager, and star.
Audiences ate up his three-hour extravaganza of the American West, or at least his mythological representation of it. He had a product and buyers. “The West” was a larger than life subject filled with larger than life people, places and events. West and Wild were synonyms to those who had never traveled past the Mississippi River, and certainly to those who lived across the Atlantic.
“Is it true?” people pondered. “Can the West really be like the letters we get from those who have been or like we read in dime novels?” Inquisitive minds wanted to know. The land, the Indians, the animals, the Great Plains and the Gold Rush— was there ever such a magical lure? Heroes and villains, horses and bison, sunsets till tomorrow and danger around every corner. Each audience member came predisposed to believe it all was true, amazing, and part of an oddly exotic lifestyle they could not imagine living, but perhaps felt deprived not to be.
Oh, yeah, Buffalo Bill had certainly embarked upon the imagination of the masses. Could they get enough? Could he keep it up?
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Cue the horses, the gunfights, the whoops of Indians. The stage was set, the curtain up, the drama abounded, and there were no less than REAL western heroes such as Wild Bill Hickok, Texas Jack, and first and foremost, Buffalo Bill himself!
Sell the tickets, turn the stiles, make the magic happen, strike the tent and move on.
“Oh, my goodness,” Bill must have thought, “What in the world have I set in motion?!”
After all, any businessperson knows that the only thing scarier than failure is instant, rip-roaring success!
As we shall see....
LESSONS
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When you have an idea for a new business venture, you can talk yourself into it, or out of it.
Perhaps Bill had been stewing over a traveling performance for a long time, or it suddenly culminated in his mind that the time was right for Wild West. Either way, ready or not, he decided to take the plunge.
Did he ponder what could go wrong? In something as volatile as a show that had to be set up, performed, torn down, moved and done all over again, it was surely a guarantee that much could go wrong. But that did not deter Bill.
He did not worry, wonder or waffle. (Well, maybe he did in the middle of the night, but mostly he moved on.) He did not hesitate to do what needed to be done to get his show on the road ahead of his competition. He knew his audience and his goal. And he certainly did have a remarkably bold idea that would soon entrance thousands.
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There were a million details and a lot of hats to wear and problems to solve. That’s the nature of entrepreneurship and a new venture. If you are a “Bill” you’ll find all this fraught with excitement. Bill certainly did. He was born to be Bill!
Who were you born to be?
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CAROLE’S COMMENTS
The most exciting thing to an entrepreneur is that “Eureka!” moment when you just know you have a Great Idea. If you have had this moment, good for you. Some people never have a great idea. Others brim over with great ideas, so which one to choose and when and which to hold or discard? That’s a good problem, but it can lead to a conundrum. Think carefully about what you are doing.
On the one hand, I only had one great idea: it was (at the wise instigation of a New York publisher who could see the new trend of self-publication) to write, publish, sell and market my first book, a simple children’s chapter book mystery. As he advised me, “You will have control over your intellectual property all your life, and you can put your author royalties in one pocket and your publishing profits in the other.”
He was right, although he failed to tell me just how hard and expensive all this would be!
On the other side of the entrepreneurial coin was my other Great Conundrum. I had the opposite of writer’s block— Actually, a constant flow of great ideas for series, books and formats. I decided to do them all! At this point, that is close to 20,000 copyrights. (A lot of those were in editions for all fifty states, plus in a range of formats from hardcover and paper to e-books when they came along and other digital versions, plus teacher’s editions and more.)
There is no right or wrong. That’s a big help. You gotta take the jump sometime. As Bill learned with his bodacious Big Idea, timing matters.
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He had to hustle to beat the competition. Every Big Idea comes with a challenge and a commitment. Mine was a combination of a passion (I live to write!) and necessity (I was a divorced young mother with two small children and the need to make money and build a career.) Many people told me it was impossible; it was, but I did it anyway. Bill did the same. You can too!
Never let anyone talk you out of your idea. Part of being an entrepreneur is being ahead of your time, having vision, so trust your gut. Bill was like most of us—he had a big idea, a passion for it, determination and knew timing was everything. And so, like many budding business owners, Bill charged full steam ahead, gathering what he needed as he went (such as investors), and solving problems as they came up.
Beware: Look at what Bill’s little great idea wreaked—thirty years of hard work to achieve his goal while also seeing to his family and other business duties. If you are up for little sleep, constant worries, failures, change, but also fun and hopefully success—go for it. A new business start-up is not for wimps. I believe Bill was a natural entrepreneur. I know I would have been voted “Least Likely to Build a Multi-Million Dollar Educational Empire” in high school or any other time. I was barely a writer. I was young, ignorant about many things, and broke when I started my business. That can be an asset. I had little to lose and everything to gain. Like Bill, I took my rotary telephone (he wished!) and kitchen table desk and just, as Bill might have said, “Struck out for the territory.” I had grit, gumption, and faith. So did Bill. Ignore naysayers, protect your idea, but keep moving on—momentum is everything!
Look at all the “competitors” that started up about the same time Bill did. Do you know their names? (I didn’t think so!) Over the years I have kept up with companies that started around the time I opened Gallopade Publishing Group. One was UPS; they did pretty darn good. Another was the Savannah College of Art and Design. I love founder Paula Wallace. We both got a lot of “thanks, but no thanks” from banks and such. We both were young, women, had children, and were pretty much boot-strapping our operations. Bill made it thirty years; Gallopade and SCAD are pushing toward fifty.
Was it luck, hard work, right time/right place for me, Bill, UPS, SCAD? I love the story of the ship captain who kept a tiny sticky note in his safe on the bridge. 20
He faithfully pulled it out each week, read it, and put it back in the safe. Finally, his men could not stand it. “What does the note say?!” they insisted. He showed them: Port is left. Starboard right.
Stay true to your idea...know what it is and what it means...and keep heading to the point on the horizon that represents success to you.
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TRICK QUESTION:
Who can be an entrepreneur?
ANSWER:
Anyone!
What follows are examples of some of Bill’s business strategies...
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A is for Advertising
It’s not surprising that Bill was a whiz at marketing.
After all, in the wild West, you’d better lead, follow, or get the hell outta the way! Again, no email campaigns, no social media, no television commercials.
EVERYTHING GENUINE! screamed much of the advertising.
If Bill said it, people thought, it must be so!
Newspapers reeled off endless column inches of interviews with cast members. Magazines featured many a mile of tales, tall and otherwise, of authentic plains people that were anything but plain. What lives! What stories! Who did not want to see Wild West in person? Go Bill!
On the ground (and on the train), it was the advance men who saw to the plethora of marketing for Wild West. The primary way the show was advertised was posters. Around 6000-8000 would be posted in a single day to promote a forthcoming show. Most show posters were small fliers, but for a large or special show, a giant poster was created, usually 9 feet high by either 91 or 143 feet wide. Buffalo Bill was picky about the quality of the posters; they needed to be top drawer. Some of his printers assigned an artist just to do the intricate detail on the horses that appeared on almost every poster.
While the cost might seem quite economical: $4 to print a 28-sheet billboard; $13.50 a month to rent space for large posters, for example, it still took all the planning, design, printing, train car to hold the posters, and a lot of advance men to run around and post them. But it was pretty much a given: no swarm of posters, no swarm of customers.
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LESSONS
What can we learn from Bill regarding advertising, publicity and marketing?
•How to build a powerful brand and sustain it for thirty years. Bill had a memorable backstory, a really cool name, a great look; he was the real deal and took major advantage of that.
•Authenticity: People wanted to believe in Bill and the story of the West he portrayed. It was a credit to Cody that he hired real Native Americans for the show. In full regalia, they were wildly popular. Especially overseas, audiences were intensely curious about their lives on the plains. Indeed, the Indians were an enormous part of the drama in advertising and publicity that made people flock to the show. That they were the “real thing” made all the difference in the world, attesting that Cody’s insistence on authenticity was the way to go and paid off handsomely.
•Bill and his team were acutely aware of the icon he was becoming, that he had worldwide recognition, and was moving toward absolute rock star status.
•Visuals sold the show. Powerful images built anticipation. Evocative and emotional copy promised everything anyone could hope to see and hear about the West...and then the show delivered. There was sex appeal and the exotic. The past and the present. No stone was left unturned to offer no circus, but creative and dramatic scenarios by a variety of actors in fascinating formats. It was Cirque du Soleil and Super Bowl all rolled up into one—with Bill the icing on the cake!
•Top quality: From the smallest postcard to fliers, posters, programs, a giant wrap around the first floor of a building, all the copy, illustrations, photographs, and details were executed by the best writers and artists. Quality printing was crucial and Bill was involved in every detail.
•Audience/Goal: Bill knew his audience and his goal was to fill arenas to overflowing and enthused attendees to be so gobsmacked that they left to spread the word about the blockbuster they had just witnessed.
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•Bill knew his value in the limelight. He excelled at celebrity and showmanship. He had respect for his performers and his audience, dignity, and intrigue—even the Queen of England was gaga for Bill!
•Nothing left to chance: The show promotion was a well-oiled machine that could not afford to miss any deadline. Vast audiences were achieved by this massive posting of posters ahead of the next stop.
•Never static: Over the 30 years of Wild West, Cody adapted the show, added new talent, upgraded costumes, scenery, added photography when that became available, and anything else that would more effectively promote the show to an ever-changing audience.
Cody was truly a cultural icon of his times. He was certainly the most famous American, by far.
It is even possible that what we call “The West” would never have become the iconic place it was if had not been for Buffalo Bill and his Wild West. I have never read a direct connection between Bill and all that the legend and lore of the West spawned, and not sure about you, but I grew up reading Zane Gray and other western authors, watched the Lone Ranger and all those western movies... adored John Wayne...Dances With Wolves...and all that came after. It was all the west all the time for me, and I was a kid in Georgia!
It just goes to show how powerful Bill AND the West were as exotic, iconic, and irresistible brands. It should give a potential entrepreneur or businessperson reason to pause and think.
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CAROLE’S COMMENTS
I’m awed by what Bill did for Wild West. All this was behind the scenes, constant, expensive, and absolutely required to keep what was basically an entertainment spectacle alive and well, always improving, staying true to its mission, but adapting for new audiences and times and places. (And in between, Bill had to hop on that horse and do some sharpshooting, you know!)
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At some point, most people recognized Buffalo Bill by his image alone. Today we would say he had a “media machine” and was a mass-market guru. He was a pioneer in more ways than buckskin! He was himself and invented himself. He went from local to national to global. From the rocky dust of the West to rock star status that continues until today. (For example, Disney Paris had a version of Wild West up until the Covid pandemic.)
As a writer with a 40 year “brand” in the children’s fiction/non-fiction market, I know how hard it is to juggle all this “do your day job” while also appearing on television, radio, and other publicity chores. (I did 40 years of school visits around the country; sometimes I wonder how I found time to write books at all.)
The important thing for a start-up to consider is WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOU SELLING?
You only get one chance to start out on the right foot, so it’s worth serious consideration. Don’t just think about being new and small, but also will your brand and story hold up well as you grow? Bill got off to a fabulous start, whether that was instinct, advice, or experience.
I stress to my own company that when it comes to advertising and promotion, time is of the essence; you can’t afford to miss any season, deadline, etc. It’s a whole new world, so get used to whatever the latest TikTok might be and be prepared to change. Of course, there’s nothing like an audience that loves you, trusts you, has received great service from you, is not abused by you (with too many emails, for example), and spreads the word for you.
Even without today’s digital doodahs, Bill managed to keep interest and loyalty high, enjoy great word of mouth, and repeat customers. You can too!
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TRICK QUESTION:
How much did it cost Buffalo Bill to promote himself to a superstar?
ANSWER:
There’s no free lunch, but there are savvy smarts. Using yourself as the key brand means you own you, so that saves a lot of legal, copyright and trademark issues. If I could go back, I would have taken an old-timer friend’s advice and named my company CAROLE MARSH BOOKS instead of Gallopade. Wild West sounds good, but Buffalo Bill’s Wild West was the winner. Think about it!
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Strike While the Iron is Hot!
Wild West was an appealing algorithm of CIRCUS+RODEO+WESTERN SKILLS+AN OVER THE TOP PAGEANT of lights, camera, action and adventure. Irresistible. Invigorating. Gasp-worthy. Death-defying. Comic relief. Excitement. Surprise. Suspense. AND, Buffalo Bill!
It helped to be “first” in what would become a forest of more than 80 such extravaganzas celebrating the West. Wild West would turn out to be the most famous, longest-running, widest performed, and successfully financial of them all. Beat that with your first idea, your first foray into the entertainment business! Bill was off and running and gone with the wind!
There is debate over who had the idea of a wild west show first. Probably many a potential impresario was aware of the interest in exhibitions of western animals, buffalo hunts, Indian powwows, cowboy rodeos, border dramas, shooting events and felt the light bulb of a bigger and better idea snap on.
The three men with the strongest claim to “first” were Colonel William F. Cody, Doc W.F. Carver, and Nate Salsbury. As might be expected, legal wrangling ensued—it was business after all. However, while others talked, Bill Cody planned and executed with the first original Wild West show as part of a July 4, 1882 celebration which morphed into a full-fledged tour within a year.
Like many new business ventures, you had to move fast, find good partners, perhaps thwart the competition by buying them out or hiring them, and Bill did all of these. Prepared by the living of his own western life, possibly reading the haystack of dime novel westerns available, and touring on the east coast, Cody had a wealth of material to draw upon.
...
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LESSONS
Over time you will learn that nothing is more valuable than ideas. If you have an idea for a business, new product, new market, etc. only you can assess if it is worthy to pursue and how and when.
He or she who hesitates often loses out. That’s no reason to jump into a new business venture at an inopportune time. It has been said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” A good way to prepare to be able to jump at a great opportunity is to prepare. Look at Bill:
•He knew who he was. •He knew what he wanted.
•He knew he was ready, willing, and able to tackle a new venture, even if all the pieces were not yet in place.
•He trusted his instincts and judgment. •He did not hesitate.
•When he “pulled the trigger” on Wild West he knew where he wanted that bullet to go!
It takes just as much courage to pass on an opportunity when it’s just not for you or the timing is poor. But most great business ideas are, by nature, ahead of their time. If you wait to see what others do, they will do your idea and you will be left in their dust.
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CAROLE’S COMMENTS
I have found one of the hardest things in business is believing in yourself when others do not.
They cannot have your vision; they cannot see into your future. Only you can have that sixth sense that this is the right time and this is the right thing to chase.
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As a hopeful entrepreneur, or young one, it does not help when the naysayer is your mother, spouse, or best friend. If I had a dollar for every time some well- meaning person warned me, “Writers starve!” I would have been rich from not being a writer. While you need to make informed and wise decisions, being an entrepreneur requires a lot of confidence, risk, and the ability to see past all the negative flak to pursue your dream.
A great encourager is reading business books about start-ups that appeared lame and hopeless, but...well, you know some of those stories. The nerdy dudes who started budding businesses in their garages—even dropped out of college to tackle their dreams THEN, not later. I write short biographies for kids and always tell them of the humble beginnings and failures almost ever famous and successful person had. My favorite is Milton Hershey, who could not for the life of him make candy in his early jobs. But one day he looked at a cow and thought about how nasty chocolate tasted at that time and had a eureka moment—milk chocolate. Thank goodness, he pursued this idea!
Another good thing to do is stick to your knitting, stay humble, and keep your intentions close to your vest. People do steal ideas. Wild enthusiasm is fine, but quietly pressing on one step in front of the other lets you gain some traction before you let the cat out of the bag. Overnight successes never are! Look at Bill —all he invested in the wild west before he created Wild West.
It’s a process, not an event.
When I have a good idea for a book, I jump right on it! But I don’t tell anyone. I just go to my research and find that I have already put in a lot of work in what interests me, so I am prepared, I am pumped, and I am often first with the new trend title.
If Bill had any trepidation about moving on with Wild West, it was trumped by all those other eager beavers chomping at the bit to do something similar. Bill was prepared, he did not hesitate, and (as those who survived the Donner Party debacle warned others back east) he “hurried right along” and didn’t “take no shortcuts.” He got ’er done...and ahead of the pack!
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TRICK QUESTION:
Who are Steve, Bill and Jeff?
ANSWER:
Steve Jobs who started Apple, Bill Gates of Microsoft fame, and Jeff Bezos who started that little company called Amazon.
PS: And all this applies to women, people of color, youth, and anyone else. In the media you see amazing stories of incredible businesses started by such people in the past, present. With the aid of the internet, oogle, artificial intelligence and other such things, even more entrepreneurs discover success younger and faster. And don’t think you need money. I started my business on a kitchen table with a typewriter, rotary telephone, and no money. That was in 1979. I’ve done the same thing since just with newer digital devices, self-funded, and would-you-believe it, back on the kitchen table again as so many entrepreneurs “work from home!” No rules.
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Who is Your Audience? What is Your Objective?
“...the Buffalo Bill Show is something more than realism—it is reality.”—London Evening News and Post, 1892
One of the first thing an entrepreneur must figure out is: Who is my audience? Who will you sell to? Promote to? Hopefully turn into loyal repeat customers? Who will give you great “word of mouth?”
If “timing is everything,” Cody could not have intentionally or luckily stumbled into a better time to produce Wild West. If you were gritting it out on the plains, you might have thought more about the daily grind of dirt and dust, bad grub, hard times, even danger. The glitz, glamor, and gold usually were not coming your way.
But people “back home” in the East often viewed the West as wild and exotic. In addition to reading the endless stream of popular dime novels based on the wild West, they read letters from those who had headed out to the new territory and its promises of land and a better life. While early homesteaders might write about misery and hardships, speculators and others chose to mail missives of success, not the failure or struggles they might be enduring or have suffered but were still sticking-it-out in hopes of riches and rewards.
Over time, travel guides and brochures were produced, the glowing words and lustrous illustrations beckoning others to “Go west!” Some fell for the elaborate accounts of wealth and success. Many, or most, just dreamed of the life they wanted to imagine they might have had or that others were living. The more adventurous and dramatic tales appealed to them the most. The image of the wild West was irresistible, especially from a comfy armchair by the fire. But what they really wanted was to “see” it for themselves, uh, in a theater or outdoor tent, with restrooms and concessions, and the knowledge that none of the arrows or gunfire were headed their way.
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Cody soon realized that what people wanted then (as we do now) was high action and drama and what they considered the “real” wild west, whether it was or not. So he gave them what they wanted: Real Indians, cowboys, buffalo, horses, gunfights, and most of all, himself—Buffalo Bill. It was a surefire combo for success. If they couldn’t come to the West, Cody would bring the West to them!
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LESSONS
Bill knew his audience. He had a clear objective: to show them the Wild West in as dynamic and authentic a way as possible. He knew the west intimately. His checklist of what to share was spot on. All that life experience was key to his success. His confidence and business acumen did not fail him. And most of all he had gobs of gumption to not just talk about it but get on with it. To build Wild West in a year was audacious, perhaps impossible. But one thing great entrepreneurs are good at is the impossible!
The timing was perfect. Bill was on the front end of an amusement entertainment trend that would continue for decades.
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TRICK QUESTION:
What did the F. for Buffalo Bill’s middle name stand for?
ANSWER:
Frederick (“Fred” woulda never made it!)
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Wild West v.1.0
Whatever the product—a play, a playground, Playdoh, Playtex bras—you have to start with a test product. Cody did that with “The Old Glory Blowout” (hyperbole always helps!) in North Platte, Nebraska. The event was part of the town’s 1882 Fourth of July celebration.
No one is certain exactly how this came about, but whether by design, luck, or the town just needing a famous frontiersman to step up to the plate, Cody jumped at the chance to unofficially experiment with his ideas. He had planned for the event to feature a demonstration of a buffalo hunt and a cowboy contest. Buffalo Bill, himself, was to chase a small herd of buffalo around the town’s racetrack.
Cody talked the town fathers into offering prizes for some of the events. When that news spread, it prompted 1,000 cowboys to enter the competition! Cody also hired Native Americans and friends to show off their shooting or riding skills.
The Old Glory Blowout was an enormous success, drawing people from all around to see this unique event which was also considered to be one of the first organized rodeos. But most of all, it was a trial balloon, economical due to prizes versus paychecks for most of the participants, and the generous goodwill of Cody’s long-time supporters and friends.
Bill’s prototype was probably not perfect, but as Shark Tank’s Mr. Wonderful might say, it was certainly “proof of concept.” Whether Cody felt in his gut that he had a worldwide winner is uncertain. But his horse was out of the gate and he was not about to rein it in now!
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LESSONS
You don’t have to get it all right at the start to get started. Bill charged full steam ahead with creative ideas to test and try, tweak or trash. When opportunity knocked, he answered the door. When a fork came in the road, he took it. A natural-born salesman, Cody was able to talk things up and talk people into doing things. You never know until you try, and a public performance is a pretty good way to gauge how audiences respond to your product.
You always learn from failure, but success is a great teacher too. Bill was constantly testing the waters of creative new ideas or practical solutions to problems that arose. You can wait and see or you can, as they say, put up the flag and see if they salute. Bill was building the future Wild West in real time, changing fast, and proving that his big idea had long legs.
There’s really no other way to do it.
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CAROLE’S COMMENTS
One of the most difficult (and most fun!) things about being a new entrepreneur is doing something no one has ever done before, or at least not like you have in mind. Before we had terms like version 1.0 or Plan B, new business owners just had grit and gumption and went on and tried something. If it crashed and burned, they tweaked and tried again.
My first book was a harebrained idea by a young mom who noticed that Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys seemed awfully old-fashioned. In my neighborhood, boys and girls of all ages played together. The oldest kid might be the klutz, the youngest the problem-solver. All I knew is that my kids loved to read and to watch television. I wondered if I combined a traditional clue-based mystery with black and white photographs of characters engaged in the story, reluctant readers might be lured from staring at the screen to laying in the hammock.
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Like Bill, I had my “tricks.” I set the book in a real location—a small, colonial port town in Bath, North Carolina where Blackbeard and his crew once roamed. I chose my own son and daughter and a local boy and girl to be the “real” characters in the books. I made chapters short with cliff-hanging endings. Photographs of the real kids in the real place were used instead of line art illustrations. I added a lot of flabbergasting historical facts to make parents and teachers happy. And I created endmatter not generally used in fiction, such as a glossary, maps, scavenger hunt, and more. It was a formula for fun. I had no idea what I was doing, but I did it anyway, mostly at night while my kids were asleep.
My goal was to prove to myself that I could write one original book that my kids and their friends would read and love and watch less television. Would it work? Like Bill, I had to give it a try and wait and see.
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TRICK QUESTION:
What NFL football team was named for Cody?
ANSWER:
The “Buffalo Bills”
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Finagling Financing
In business, there is no free lunch. Even a comp bison burger must have come with a hitch?
As Cody organized his first tour, there were many decisions to be made. It did not take long for him to realize that he could not fund Wild West on his own, although he had put a good bit of his own money into the enterprise, generally always essential and a good way to start. If you don’t “believe” and invest, why should others?
Nothing was easy or straight-forward:
•Nate Salsbury claimed that Cody said he would wait until 1884 to put a European show together.
•Cody, eager to get going, had convinced Doc Carver to help finance the operations in 1883.
•Salsbury did not want to be partners with Carver and refused to support the first season.
•With an investment of $27,000 Carver became Cody’s sole partner.
•Arguments ensued about what to name the sow; the conclusion was an unwieldy Hon. W.F. Cody and Dr. W.F. Carver’s Rocky Mountain and Prairie Exposition.
[I could find no mention of lawyers or legal documents. For better or worse, it’s better to put the cart before the horse than to get into such early wrangling that can soon make things completely fall apart.]
Nonetheless, on May 19, 1883, the HWFCandDWFC RMandPE opened in Omaha, Nebraska!
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Cody and Carver barely survived the first show as partners. They disagreed over everything (uh, the definition of partners?) One claimed the other was drunk and shirked duties; the other claimed it was the other way around. Carter wanted to continue the first tour to the end of the season; Cody did not.
As usual in such circumstances, it was: Winners 0
Losers 2
It is still best to cut your loss or partner early, and this was done, paving the way for Cody to press on with assets of the Deadwood Stage, most of the performers, most of the staff he wished to retain, and a chance to take all he had learned thus far and start over with the original partner he desired, Nate Salsbury, along with new partner Captain Bogardus, who brought some additional funding. Best of all, the 1884 show was named “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” (and, unable to resist, Cody added “America’s National Entertainment.”)
BBWWANE was off and running on a string of one-day performances in the Midwest and East.
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LESSONS
If you wait until you have all the money you need to start a venture, you may never start one. Most entrepreneurs bring ideas, hard work, creativity, and more to the table, but not always much money. It’s easy to hit up Mom, Dad, and other family for funds. Sometimes a bank will lend you some money, but probably not for an unproven idea. Venture capital is nice, if you want to give away a big chunk of ownership—most entrepreneurs do not. Partnerships are possible, but often problematic. Nonetheless, you may find you have to do what you gotta do to get underway and sort it out later.
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OPM: Other People’s Money
Bankers are interesting characters. I found them to be full of “No’s” but helpful with ideas. One said he would give me $1,000 if I put $1,000 in his bank. Being financially ignorant, I said, “If I had a thousand dollars, I would not need to borrow a thousand dollars.” He gently explained that if I put $1,000 in savings, it would show good faith. He would then lend me $1,000 using my own $1,000 as collateral. If I paid the money back in 30 days, it would show that I could and would do such a thing. I was not impressed.
“However,” he continued, “since that gives you a bit of positive credit history with the bank, I will then lend you $2,000 with no need for collateral. I will lend it to you for 90 days and you can pay it back.” I was pretty excited.
“Oh, I will pay it back in 30 days, you’ll see!” “No!” he warned. “Pay it back on time but not until the agreed upon terms of 90 days. That way you can build a history of getting more funds from us, as well as extended payment terms.” I followed his advice and soon was using
“other people’s money” to fund the printing of my book, which I then paid back with some of the revenue made from sales of the book. It was so simple! It was like magic!
CAROLE’S COMMENTS
If you’re an ornery cuss, don’t get a partner. I am an ornery cuss, so I never had a partner.
The problem is not getting into partnership with a friend, family, or the person with the idea or the money—it’s parting ways when there are irreconcilable differences. (Yep, just like a divorce.) A good plan is to have a pre-nup kind of plan of how things will be handled if one partner is so dissatisfied that they want out. Since it’s not uncommon for such a thing to occur, it’s better to be proactive and have an attorney draw up such a contract. If you can’t agree on that, you may not want to saddle yourself with that partner?
It is best to be honorable. If you borrow bucks from Mom and Dad and never pay them back, they may not be surprised. Uncle Joe, maybe not so happy. The SBA (Small Business Administration) is an option, but whomever they round up to invest in you will want a percentage of the venture. (I got offers but could not give up part of my newborn company.)
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I did borrow to pay the first printing of my first book. Of course, all this only worked if revenue exceeded what I owed the bank and was received in time to pay off the loan. It did work out, but it made me nervous. I chose another strategy. In the future, I paid my own way. It was not easy, but I did not want a partner, nor had relatives or friends with money. Instead, I downsized my lifestyle, wore all the essential hats (no employees), and managed to finance future printings and new books. It was a real struggle, but it was doable. And with practice at self-funding, I became The Bank of Carole, my own venture capitalist. That avoided a lot of time, interest costs, and made me a much savvier risk-taker.
Bill had lots of options; so did I. We made different choices, and over time so will you. It’s more like a Bucks Café, where you have to decide if you want to pay interest, be beholden, or suck-it-up-buttercup and do it on your own. Making wise choices in financing is important. I married the only partner I ever had, and he had no money, but I was his side gig, and when he lost his job due to downsizing he joined my company in full. It was us against the world and we were pretty darn good at that. Our kids helped too; never fail to use any resource that comes your way!
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TRICK QUESTION:
How did Cody and Salsbury split up the show?
ANSWER:
The two feuding entrepreneurs concluded their partnership by flipping a coin over every piece of equipment and stock. (Hey, who needs a lawyer when you’ve got a quarter?) Apparently, Carver won every coin toss and Cody only got a carload of horses, which Carver promptly bought back from him!
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Staffing Up I
Perhaps no theatrical production to-date included such a curious array of actors and other talent; among them:
W.F. Cody
Doc Carver
Captain A.H. Bogardus and his four sons Major Frank North and Pawnee Indians Buck Taylor, King of the Cowboys Johnny Baker, the Cowboy Kid
An interpreter
A stagecoach driver
Uno, a black bear and his trainer
Surely there was more staff needed to set up, tear down, man the first-aid kit, and such?
Or perhaps, like most start-ups, everyone wore a lot of hats to get the job done, maybe even including Uno.
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LESSONS
Cody did a smart thing. He didn’t get too big for his entrepreneurial britches too soon. He didn’t build a big, fancy office, or hire a lot of assistants. He didn’t buy his own train. He was lucky that he could be the star of the show. I imagine he did not take any, or much salary at the start. Start small and grow is a good plan. Operating in the red is not a permanent solution. Cody sold his show big time and priced for profit so he could expand and grow.
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CAROLE’S COMMENTS
I wrote The Mystery of Blackbeard the Pirate and thought I was done. It had never occurred to me that kids would read the book and want more. But they did. My husband had a brilliant idea: “Write more mysteries!” Easy for him to say. It was so logical, it had eluded me. So he took over the accounting, sales and shipping so I’d have more time to write. Before long I learned that you had to give your customers what they wanted, when they wanted it. Kids read fast; some would read a new book the day they got it then call me and sort of demand, “When is the next one coming out?!?!”
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TRICK QUESTION:
What was Wild West’s horse Dollie known for?
ANSWER:
She was a laughing horse!
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Trial and Error
No matter how sophisticated the planning, a start-up is all about trial and error. The sort of 2nd (if you count “The Old Glory Blowout”) trial balloon for the “program” of the HWFCandDWFC RMandPE show, included:
•A grand introductory march to get the crowd riled up •A bareback pony race
•A Pony Express skit
•An attack on the Deadwood Mail Coach
•A 100-yard race between an Indian on foot and one on horseback •Captain Bogardus and sons
•A Cody and Carver shooting exhibition
•A cowboy race
•Cowboy fun
•Wild Texas steer ride
•Roping and riding wild bison
•The Giant Hunt, including a battle with the Indians
The newly-formed “Buffalo Bill Wild West, America’s National Entertainment” saw a series of improvements and set-backs during its inaugural tour.
Because Nate Salsbury knew his stuff from his own traveling show, he applied some better business practices to BBWWANE. These included:
•A well-thought-out tour route
•Improved bookkeeping
•Emphatic rules for a sober cast at performance time, including Buffalo Bill
When Salsbury got everything organized, he returned to his Troubadour Company, leaving Cody in charge of day-to-day decisions. Cody hired friend Pony Bob Haslam as his advance man. Perhaps this was not the best choice?
When it came time to move the troupe down the Mississippi River to New Orleans for its winter shows, it became clear Haslam knew a lot more about horses than boats. Apparently, the rickety tub went down in eight feet of water
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and was stranded on a sand bar. At least no humans or animals were hurt. The troupe finally limped into port and the shows went on.
Proving you can’t plan for all eventualities, it rained for 44 days straight in New Orleans and the audience stayed home high and dry while the actors and animals struggled in the mud and muck and misery. The tour ended $60,000 in the red.
But also proving that luck can play a role, this is when and where Cody hired a remarkable young sharpshooter named Annie Oakley. And that changed everything!
Annie Oakley was a five-foot-two, 100 pound spitfire! When she auditioned for Cody she was hired on the spot. (I have seen video of Annie in action and she would qualify for America’s Got Talent Extreme!) She toured with Wild West for 17 years. Her husband served as her stage manager. She was an incredible rock star-like asset in Wild West publicity.
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LESSONS
Running any business is pretty much like a circus on a rollercoaster most of the time. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. I’d say Bill and gang did a pretty good job of anticipating and managing the ups and downs of weather, wild animals, ornery performers, and more. They made constant large and small improvements. There is a balance and it helps to expect problems and resolve them, especially since the show must go on, and to take advantage of all good new ideas and implement them as swiftly as possible.
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CAROLE’S COMMENTS
As a writer, I found writing was the easy part. Something I could do day or night and anywhere.
While I still traipsed to libraries and historical sites to do research, it was a big help to have the Internet and World Wide Web to help me out and Spell Check to catch my typos. I love to write the way Bill loved to ride.
However, as CEO of Gallopade, I do not enjoy the role of oversight, tax planning, financial finagling to ensure we manage money well and timely, personnel and its unique issues, and surprises such as a broken sprinkler in the inventory area —books and water don’t mix— hurricane evacuations, and these days, supply chain issues, pandemic problems and a metaverse of other things to see to. I am fortunate to have my two kids, who grew up in the company, handle most matters without Mom, and I trust them because they are good people and have a lot of integrity. A great team solves many problems.
Nonetheless, trial and error is just part and parcel of the development of new products, trying new markets on for size, and so much more.
Like Bill, I’ve found that where there’s a downside, there’s almost always an upside. When a lot of computers got stolen once, insurance rapidly paid and we got new computers. Demanding customers often lead us into new subject areas and ages to write for. If they have a problem, they expect us to solve it and we love that challenge.
No matter what new business you start, or how many, change will always be rampant and essential. Practicing coping with the ups and downs of entrepreneurship over years IS what helps you jump hurdles to lead you into decades. Practice, don’t panic.
And like Wild West, keep the creativity coming. A perpetual joy in new and better, keeping up with the times, and an eagerness to be first and best at what you do is what keeps a business refreshed and never old. I LOVE when a much bigger book publisher says, “You did WHAT?”
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And they mean either why didn’t they think of that or how did we react so fast. Small, savvy and nimble often wins the day.
At least we didn’t have to wrangle bison!
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TRICK QUESTION:
What were the names of two of Wild West’s clowns?
ANSWER:
Samanthy and Timothy Hayseed
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The Show Must Go On
One struggle of a young business is knowing when to quit, or when to press on. In spite of debt and assets of only “twenty-five Indians in the saddle, seven Mexicans, and eight cowboys,” Cody planned for the 1884-85 season.
New events were added to jazz up the show:
•An Indian war dance and scalping exhibition
•Annie Oakley made her first appearances
•The Duel with Yellow Hand (based on a real event) was added •Sitting Bull became part of the program and its greatest attraction •The Attack on the Settler’s Cabin became the closing act
Audiences were thrilled and growing. The one-day stands toured farther and wider, including into Canada.
The smell of manure and success was in the air!
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LESSONS
The only thing scarier than failure is success! You can’t be complacent. There is no sitting on your saddle laurels. Competition is watching what you do well and copying your ideas when they can.
You need to anticipate hard times and good times; growth and success can actually kill a business if it is not well-managed.
Never give up!
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CAROLE’S COMMENTS
After I had written a dozen Carole Marsh “Real Kids/Real Places” mysteries, I was getting a bit of burn-out. I decided to create an additional series. “Trivia” was trending and a hot term. I wrote North Carolina Silly Trivia, a multiple-choice book on the state’s history, geography and people with some fun and silly choices and clever art thrown in to make the facts go down better.
Another one-off book I thought, until we started getting orders for South Carolina Silly Trivia, Georgia Silly Trivia, Minnesota Silly Trivia; well, you get the picture. These were all from teachers who taught their state social studies in grade four or five. One thing I NEVER do is turn down an order, and certainly none with a check attached to the order form.
I wrote pretty hard and fast and kept up until a school library ordered the book for all 50 states! Now, this was a problem. Your job, business owner, like Bill’s, is to solve the problem. I rented the church hall, hired teachers and teens, and set up research and typewriters (no computers yet!) In one week (not counting Sunday), we divided the 24 books left to do among 6 writers.
I stood in front of the class and went through each page until we all pretty much finished a book to the end at about the same time. These books went on to a fact- checker and editor and proofreader. We went on to write the rest of the books, one after the other, until our eyes were spinning, our fingers sore, but our mission accomplished.
It was a good thing. Not only were orders pouring in for the Silly Trivia books, but also suggestions for Silly Trivia books on other subjects. I ignored that at the time, but I could NOT ignore the next order that came in. We were at a book show. Waldenbooks was the Barnes and Noble of the day back in 1980. The show was in Florida. Waldenbooks buyers did not show up. Almost no one showed up; I think they were all at Disney World?
Dejected, I stood in the exhibit booth wondering how much our loss for this expensive show would be with such puny sales. An exhibitor rep came up and handed me a note. It said: COME TO THE SHOW BOOTH; URGENT. Great, another problem?
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When I got there, there was a long line of publishers standing in a zigzag row before a table. The lady at the table beckoned me to come to the head of the line. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
She pointed to the large dot matrix ink jet printer behind her. It was slowly grinding out about 100 pages of that old-fashioned paper. The stack was at least an inch thick.
I had no idea what was going on, but my fellow publishers were exceedingly ill that Gallopade had such a large document coming in and holding up the line. It turned out that Waldenbooks had chosen what to order from their headquarters and sent the orders through to the show in this manner. Gallopade’s was first. Gallopade’s was biggest. Gallopade’s was an astounding $25,000 order for 12 of every state Silly Trivia book for each of their stores in every state. Note: This was a giant order, when our average order for single, full price book was $4.11. The Waldenbooks order was at a 40% discount off the retail price.
When she handed me the stack of pages, I could hardly hold it. Nonetheless, I tried not to grin like a jackass as I walked by the impatient and flummoxed publishers, each muttering and wondering what was going on.
I went directly to the bar and order a bottle of champagne and two glasses. “And NOT plastic glasses!” I warned. I gave them my booth number and turned to bring the gift of success to my equally-dejected husband sitting in our booth reading a newspaper. “What happened?” he asked. I smiled and handed him the print-out. “You are NOT gonna believe it!” I said.
The champagne came and Bob popped the cork and I poured. Word had gotten around and our pub friends all came to congratulate us.
Then we went home and tried to figure out how we would print 25,000 books in time to ship for Christmas, but that’s another story!
The point is that the show (your business) does not actually have to go on; you can bail at any time. But not me. And not Bill. Success is a mind-set; set your mind to success or you’ll never know what might happen. We had spent our last penny getting to Florida.
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TRICK QUESTION:
Who wrote “A Horse’s Tale” about Buffalo Bill and his horse?
ANSWER:
Mark Twain
Sitting Bull
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ACT II
Lil Billy
Did you show your entrepreneurial colors as a child? Many of us do. If we thought more about that, we might discern our innate skills and passions and put them to use sooner and better.
“I have seen your Wild West two days in succession, and enjoyed it thoroughly.....
Down to its smallest details, the show is genuine...
it is wholly free from sham and insincerity and the effects produced upon me by its spectacles were identical to those wrought upon me a long time ago by the same spectacles on the frontier.”
—Mark Twain, 1884
As a creator of career materials for teens and young adults, I always like to include what other books often leave out—childhood. Early experiences are often the basis for what a person does and becomes–usually something they never quite expected. Bill was born in Kansas in the era of homesteads, free state/slave state violence, Indian wars, and other frontier dynamics. You can imagine the dinner table conversations.
Cody’s father died when young Bill was just eleven years old, leaving his family destitute in the Kansas Territory. His mother shared ethics and moral values with her son. By age 10, Cody was herding cattle long, hard hours on horseback. He was “determined to follow the plains,” he said. He jumped from military scout to hunter and tracker, and bison sharpshooter to would-be entrepreneur.
As a young show-off showman and opportunistic pro he was pretty much inventing his future even as he lived a rather wild and wooly present. The ingredients for success were ingrained as well as the recipe concocted by Bill from an early age to be “the one and only” he turned out to be.
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