Business: The Greeting Card King

JOYCE CLYDE HALL

ALMOST every U.S. businessman gives away some samples of his product, but few can match Joyce Clyde Hall, 68, founder and president of Hallmark greeting cards. Some time in the next few days. Hall will choose a Christmas card from this year's Hallmark line and send it to no fewer than 6,000 friends and acquaintances. He can afford it. Over the past 50 years, Hallmark has grown into the goliath of the greeting card business, producing 4,000,000 copies of 11,000 different cards each day for sale through 22,000 retailers in four countries. Hallmark's gross is estimated at more than $90 million annually, twice as big as its two nearest competitors combined, and profits are estimated close to $5.4 million annually.

What makes Hallmark's size all the more impressive is that it comes in a field that, for all the bunnies and babies and Santas smiling up from its cheery face, is as ruggedly competitive as any business in the U.S. With some 290 firms turning out 5 billion cards each year, for every event from the cradle to the grave, a special kind of genius is needed to grab off about 30% of a $288 million market. Hallmark's boss abundantly has that genius.

AT an age when most men are put out to pasture, Hall still operates like a one-man gang, working seven days a week, making the decisions, supervising every aspect of his business. "I used to think." says the lean, balding Midwesterner, "that when I got old, I would not work such long hours, but here I am." He approves every idea, each sugary line on each card in his huge assortment. He keeps constant tab on the profit sharing, health insurance, hours and pay of his some 5.000 employees, even inspects the food served in the company cafeteria. When he rejects something, he is liable to do it without giving reasons, says only that his decisions come from "the vapor of experience." Out of this fog has come an almost uninterrupted string of correct answers on what cards the fickle U.S. public will buy. "I have a hard time explaining why." says Hall. "But I know—there's something in the past years that's telling me."

Born in David City, Neb., Hallmark's Hall started work at the age of nine selling lemon-extract perfume to help support his mother, worked on through high school selling postcards and helping in a bookstore. By 1912, he was in Kansas City, determined to make a go of greeting cards. The venture almost died as soon as it started; Hall was $17,000 in debt when a flash fire wiped out his printing plant. Luckily, he was able to sweet-talk a local bank into an unsecured $25,000 loan, and he has not taken a step back since. By the late 19303, Hallmark was one of the top three cards.