only yesterday

By Dennis Hoffman, Wright County Monitor, Oct 11, 2001

The Keys to Success

Bert Samson burned with desire to succeed. The University of Iowa grad had a "Can Do" attitude and boundless optimism. One of Bert's first business decisions after taking over the Ford garage in 1932 was to ask the phone company for the Number One. When a Ma Bell clerk asked why he wanted that particular number, he said, "I plan to run the number one car dealership in Wright County."

Bert's positive thinking, together with certain principles he followed in managing his business, helped this remarkable man lead his Ford dealership from last to first. His powerful principles still apply today. Hard work, service, and honesty were the keys to Bert's success.

"Work came first," says his daughter, Carolyn Cronin. "This was true for anyone who made a success in spite of the Depression." It was hard to save money in those years, and the Samsons never owned a house until 1941. Carolyn remembers her parents often saying that the family would be "hard up" this month. As the breadwinner for his family, Bert made work his top priority. Missing family events for work was unavoidable. "My father loved us," says Carolyn, "but he could only handle kids in small doses." He wanted his daughter to learn piano, for example, but not to practice when he was home. Carolyn recalls Bert missing some of her band concerts, and Ron remembers his dad missing most of his high school baseball games. Carolyn also remembers Bert had a hard time sitting still for very long. Perhaps Bert was only comfortable when he was working, and that was most of the time. The workaholic, Bert, kept the garage (located at 121 First avenue Northeast) open Monday through Saturday night, and some Sundays.

Bert selected the slogan, "Samson -Strong on Service", because he believed the sale of an automobile should not be the end of a business deal. To give customers quality service, Bert paid for hundreds of hours of training for his mechanics. Bert also believed businessmen should be socially responsible citizens. Plaques and certificates hanging on the wall of his office attested to his own commitment to community service. The Wright County Peace Officers gave Bert a plaque for outstanding service in aiding law enforcement officers, the Wright County Monitor gave him an Outstanding Civic Service Award, and his own workers honored him with the "Boss of the Year Award." Bert sat on boards for the school, the First National Bank, the parks, and the Chamber of Commerce. In addition, Bert performed many acts of kindness for individual Clarion residents. When a Clarion father desperately needed to get serum for his five-year-old son who was suffering from polio, for example, Bert hopped into a 1937 12-cylinder Lincoln Zephyr, raced to Des Moines in a little over an hour, picked up the drug, and zoomed back to Clarion.

Bert hired honest, hard-working folks. He figured he worked hard and tried to do the right thing, and so his workers ought to do the same. Bert realized it only takes one act of dishonesty in a small town, such as misrepresenting the condition of a car, ripping off an elderly buyer, being unfair on a trade, to ruin a business. By the 1950s, Bert had established such a strong statewide reputation for unquestioned integrity that Des Moines folks were buying Fords in Clarion because they trusted Bert to give them a square deal. Bert hated liars and lying. One time a Mason City car dealer who sold Bert a Mercury and gave Bert his word that "the engine is fine." Once Bert's mechanics checked the engine, however, they found a cracked block. Bert chewed the fellow out and never did business with him again.

Bert died in 1967, leaving a legacy of a principled-centered approach that guaranteed success in business. How successful was Bert? A crude indicator of his success is the number of Fords that used to be parked on Main Street. Bert's daughter provides a telling anecdote. "We didn't own personal cars," Carolyn says. "We drove demonstrators or used cars and never had one long enough to get attached to it. Most of the time I never noticed which car I drove and I always left the keys in the ignition." One day in the 1950's when Carolyn was downtown shopping, she came out of a store to get into her car. Near the spot on Main Street where she remembered parking her car, there were five Fords - all with the keys in the ignitions. Which one was hers? To find out, she called Number One, Samson Motor Company.