Terry: Paper route taught everything about business

Everything I ever needed to know about business I learned at the tender age of 11 on a paper route.

link Karl Terry

These days newspaper carrier is just a job; the risk and the reward has been removed. I’m not sure how young entrepreneurs are cultivated these days. Maybe they do it online somewhere.

For some reason, as soon as we moved to town in the summer of 1970 I was possessed with the idea of getting a paper route and earning my own money.

As soon as I had worn down my folks on the subject I applied for a route. Mr. Toland at the newspaper office informed me the age limit was 12 and I would have to wait but “We’ll keep your application on file.”

Soon after the winter winds set in I got a call. “Was I still interested in a paper route? We might be able to start you before you turn 12 if your folks say it’s OK.” I jumped at the chance.

I soon learned why the route was open. Route 27 was the worst of the worst. You had to pedal your bike all the way out to the west side of the Eastern New Mexico University campus. Normally that was in a biting 40 mph headwind. It took twice as long to run as any of the other routes.

In those days the newspaper office billed you each month for your newspapers, gave you credit for any “yearly” customers paid in the office and added a bond charge each month, which they put in a joint savings account with the newspaper. You were expected to collect from the monthly pay customers, pay your bill from the earnings and keep the rest as profit.

In theory you could make more money by adding customers and new customers also earned you a free movie pass. The most enticing part was definitely the movie passes. We learned sales techniques during “crew working” nights when several carriers got to go out together and solicit new customers on various routes. We got free pizza and usually earned a fistful of show passes.

I learned a lot about people and dealing with them in business in that first year or so on Route 27.

Somehow the right guy to pay you that month at the fraternity house was never there. Lots of students living off campus came and went in the neighborhoods where I threw papers and generally they went while owing me a month’s worth of delivery.

I found out that just because people had a big house and fancy car it didn’t mean they would pay their bill on time. I also learned that a little old widow lady on a pension was often the best tipper around at Christmastime if her paper landed in the same place every day.

The records for the route had to be kept accurately or you lost money. I learned how to make a bank deposit and balance a checkbook.

Thanks to my boss Mr. Stinnett and my banker Mr. Stone, I was forced to learn the importance of saving by way of that newspaper bond. When I cashed it out I bought and paid for my first car without borrowing a dime.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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