Then we would come up with a profit and loss sheet, a p&l for each store, and get it out to that store manager as quickly as we could—something we still do today. If there was a problem, I would get with that manager immediately. But most of them owned a piece of their stores, so they were likely to be as concerned as I was. I had a big ledger sheet pasted together to make room for everything I wanted on it, probably fifteen different columns, for every store. It had columns for sales, expenses, net profit, markdowns—everything—utilities, postage, insurance, taxes. I entered the numbers myself
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