People often reveal their innermost selves in the most innocent of situations. How they deal with a waiter or airline attendant can provide a fascinating glimpse beneath the surface. How impatient they are in a particular situation, or how upset they get over a minor error can prove invaluable knowledge later on.
Formal business situations, highly structured meetings, negotiating sessions or other forms of business interaction are likely to be the least revealing because they are the times when people are most likely to have their “game faces” on.
Maybe golf cuts more directly to the pysche than other games and situations. Or maybe it’s the venue itself – green grass and rolling hills. It’s astonishing how so simple a game can reveal so much.
…Ray greeted the maitre’d with “Good to see you again”.
The maitre’d perked right up and immediately led us to our table. After he disappeared, I said to Ray, “I thought you told me you had never eaten here before.”
“I haven’t”, he said.
I also keep extensive lists of Christmas cards and Christmas gifts, which I send out every year. …every year it would be easy to convince myself to skip it, that no one really cares and probably won’t even notice. That’s what a lot of people do and precisely why I don’t.
Coco Chanel once said that if a woman is poorly dressed you notice her dress, and if she’s impeccably dressed, you notice the woman.
Once you can’t deliver what you promise, you are perceived as lacking authority, and the ultimate impression you end up creating is one of weakness.
Ray Kroc…had a plaque on his office wall which described his feeling:
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Get Information By Not Asking For It
Silence is a void, and people feel an overwhelming need to fill it.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this happen: a sale is made and the salesman immediately raises suspicion by heaping hyperbolic praise on the buyer’s judgement: “You won’t regret this.” “The best deal you’ve ever made” Even the most trusting person will start to wonder, “What have I just committed myself to?”
Once you’ve made the sale, anything else you say about it can only work against you. So change the subject.
Find out what they want to buy. If you don’t know, ask, and let them tell you. Find out a company’s problems, then show them how “we can work together” to solve the problem. It’s so much easier to sell someone something they want to buy than it is to convince them to buy what you are selling.
There is nothing easier than selling someone his or her “own” idea, which is what it becomes.
Don’t deal with numbers in isolation. Negotiation is more intricate and subtle than that. Numbers are just one piece – no bigger and no smaller than the other pieces – of the negotiating pie.
How badly does the other party want this deal? How does the other party perceive your position? …not letting the other party get a fix on your position.
If you are negotiating out of a position of strength, the more you let your strength be known, the more the other party will go out of his way to disabuse it.
There is also an espirit in small growing companies which is difficult to explain to anyone who has never experienced it.
“Mark, you only have one secret: IMG spends 90% of its time on business, and 10% of organisation.”
The first thing you have to do is examine your motives, and in doing so, determine if you are a dreamer or in the 1%.
If you want to be in your own business because you are “sick and tired of being told what to do”, because you want more “freedom” or because you are unappreciated or undervalued, forget it. These are not reasons for starting a business; these are reasons for running away from your present job.
I am a great believer that the more up-front money a new business requires, the less chance it has of ever getting of the ground.
Double your overhead (estimate)
Double it but don’t triple it. Many people who want to start a new business, but can never seem to get out of the front door, have convinced themselves that it is just a matter of waiting until they have enough money saved up. For these people, $10 million would be just short of what they need.
…”I have done everything I can to get ready for this race and if I win everything will be great, but if I don’t win, my friends will still be my friends, my enemies will still be my enemies, and the world will still be the same.”
No comments:
Post a Comment