the toothpaste millionaire chapter 8. in which I become a stockholder there's a song that goes I will get by with a Little Help from My Friends Rufus couldn't have filled all the orders that poured in after the Joe Smiley Show without some help from his friends luckily after the show a lot of kids began coming around every night after school to see how Rufus was doing Rufus said they could hang around but they'd have to help us pack toothpaste we were working in our laundry room now when rufus's mother decided she couldn't have her kitchen turned into a full-time toothpaste Factory I asked my mother if we could use the workshop at the end of our laundry room my brother James had been using the workshop for his model cars and my mother was glad for an excuse to make James move his Workshop into the Attic James was not very neat my father helped us build two long tables for the laundry room and once Rufus and I got all the jars and supplies set up the place really did look like a factory some afternoons we had six or eight kids on the production line some of the kids were from school and some lived on my block like Josie and Clem the two girls from next door Josie and Clem were at my house almost every night now I guess they decided that if I was a friend of Rufus I was okay I was glad they were coming over so often as Rufus and I were getting a little tired of watching so many jars I never was crazy about washing dishes hey Rufus Josie said one night when she and I had washed about 200 jars what would you do if you had to pay us to wash all these jars for you how about that Rufus Clem said you couldn't sell the toothpaste for three cents if you had to pay us what we're worth Rufus thought about that well I sure don't have enough profits to pay anybody yet he said and I've got to use my first profits to buy more stuff to make more toothpaste but I'll tell you what I'll do I'll give you all some stock in my company at the end of the year every stockholder will get a share of the year's profits Clem thought Rufus was kidding but he was serious Rufus had this game called stock market it's something like Monopoly with every stock market game you get those stock certificates that you can trade with other players in rufus's game there were 1 000 shares of stock worth 100 a share the certificates came in 1 10 50 and 100 shares Rufus brought the stock certificates over to my house the next day to show us here's how it'll work he said anybody that puts in 100 hours helping me make toothpaste gets a share of stock worth one hundred dollars which will entitle him to a share of the company's profits how much profit depends on how many shares of stock he owns Rufus had made up a chart with the names of all his friends who had helped so far he put down the number of hours they had already worked Kate's already worked over 200 hours Rufus said so she gets to be the first stockholder Rufus wrote my name on Two 100 stock certificates with those two shares of stock Kate should get five thousand dollars if the company profits work out the way I plan five thousand dollars I said are you sure that's right Rufus Rufus laughed we'll let Mr Conti check it out tomorrow and we did Kate mckinstry would you please bring that note to me well it's not exactly a note Mr Conte Etc you get the picture Mr Conti's class figured out that if Rufus was right about the 2.5 million profit he figured he could make every owner of one share of stock would make twenty five hundred dollars an owner of 10 shares would make 25 000 and so on it sounded so good that everybody in our math class wanted to sign up to work for shares even Mr County told Rufus he could give us a hand if we needed extra help on Saturdays when the money starts rolling in Rufus said we may need some help in adding it up Mr Conte gave Rufus some advice he told Rufus that he shouldn't give out more than 499 shares of stock you have to keep 501 shares to yourself to keep control of how you want your company run Mr Conti said otherwise the other stockholders could outvote you what did Mr Conti mean I'll vote you I asked Rufus later maybe vote to sell toothpaste for 79 cents Rufus said which would be against my principles naturally I promised Rufus I would never vote to do that chapter 9 With a Little Help From My Brother James it was my brother James of all people who helped me solve the problem of what to get Rufus for his birthday he saw the ad about aluminum tubes in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and called it to my attention it's one of the few helpful things James has ever done for me I was looking for a birthday present for Rufus I decided what Rufus really needed at this point in his business career was some toothpaste tubes Rufus and I had been having some arguments about baby food jars a lot of customers seemed surprised at the idea of toothpaste in a jar it seemed a little strange it's like peanut butter coming in a tube I told Rufus rufus's reaction was why don't they put peanut butter in tubes you wouldn't need a knife to spread it Josie and Clem agreed with me about the jars Clem pointed out to Rufus the jars were heavier than tubes if you're going to be mailing three dozen jars all the way to Venice California you ought to think about the postage cost she said and another thing Josie said if everybody in a family is dipping his toothbrush into the same jar it isn't too sanitary everybody can have his own jar Rufus said it would be good for business if we could sell five or six jars to every family the jars would get mixed up I said people could write their names on them Rufus said they could I said but with a big family there isn't room for all those jars on the bathroom shelf and even if there were my brother James would always reach for the first jar your brother James is a special problem Rufus said at least we agreed on that I don't think we convinced Rufus about the jars but I decided I would take a chance on getting him some toothpaste tubes just to see if they would improve sales did you ever try to buy a few toothpaste tubes you can I tried hardware stores drugstores department stores I couldn't find any place that sold empty tubes and by the time anybody is finished with an old toothpaste tube you can't really use it again as you can a baby food jar a man in a hardware store finally explained to me that an empty tube is not a retail item he said I would have to go to a tube manufacturer I found some tube manufacturers listed in the Yellow Pages and I wrote one of them The Tuxedo tube and Container Corporation in Paramus New Jersey to ask how much a small box of medium-sized tubes would cost the district manager of tuxedo wrote me a nice letter back explaining that their minimum orders were for ten thousand tubes if I wanted that many the price would be about five cents a tube also they would be glad to quote me special prices on orders of fifty or a hundred thousand ten thousand toothpaste tubes seem like a lot to start with even though I got into the habit of thinking in thousands and millions since I started working with Rufus I multiplied ten thousand by five cents and found rufus's present was going to cost me five hundred dollars I decided he'd have to wait until his next birthday after I collected all those profits on my stock certificates my father asked me why didn't I just get Rufus some sheets of thin lead or aluminum and let him make his own tubes since he was so handy at making things but it turned out aluminum sheets weren't retail items either rufus's birthday was only about a week away and James saw the auction ad James favorite reading is newspaper ads for bankruptcy sales once James read about an auction of the entire contents of a model car factory unfortunately the ad was in a paper a month old and the auction was over by the time James read about it or maybe fortunately my father says as James would probably have gone and bought the entire contents and our house could be mistaken for a model car factory as it is anyway ever since that ad James checks the paper every morning hoping for another model car factory to go bankrupt the only option I'd ever been to were the kind my mother goes to where you can buy old chairs and China cups and antique clocks but the Cleveland Plain Dealer advertises auctions of the most surprising things printing presses or 15 trailer trucks or Ferris wheel swings or 10 000 boxes of corn flakes James reads off lists like this every morning at breakfast I don't generally listen to James auction ads thinking about ten thousand boxes of corn flakes at breakfast can take the edge off your appetite complete Furnishings of Funeral Parlor James started off one morning half a dozen slightly shop worn coffins my father said that's just what I need miscellaneous pharmaceutical supplies James went on and I wasn't paying any attention until suddenly I heard the word tubes tubes did you say I said almost choking on my toast yeah tubes James said 50 gross high quality aluminum tubes suitable for Cosmetics shaving creams Foods adhesives household cements lubricants leather softeners polishes shampoos oil paints insecticides dinosaurses Jennifer says I said that's toothpaste I know James said I keep telling you they have good things at these auctions him for once James was right and I think we'll pause here and we'll go on with chapter 10 in the next video thanks so much for listening I love you guys as Tigger says tata for now