TNBNT so here's another travel tale.
I was very fortunate as far as my business life went, because I advanced very quickly almost everywhere I worked. In fact, I reached a level where I wrote a book about how to sell successfully in my industry. The text was published by the American Management Association.
I gave the preamble because today's entry is to share why I think I succeeded so often and so fast. Because, text books or not, I only know one way to prevail. And it's simple -work harder than everyone else.
Hard work provides lot's of benefits in the end, because it allows lot's of room for error, and mistakes are by far the best way to learn. Because, no matter who does the telling or no matter how hard they try, most instructional input goes in one ear and out the other before you can blink. But when you make a mistake and have to pay the price yourself, you never forget the lesson.
Consequently, in my business life I put in humongous time on the job, and before and after hours too, and that left a wide, wide margin for errors. So, even though I'm quite sure I made many more mistakes than most others, I had so much good stuff going on I could afford them. Because, when mistakes are made by losers, the loser's gone in a heartbeat. Winners get another turn at bat.
And that brings me to a lesson about humble and arrogance I fortunately learned early on. My first regional managerial position covered the seaboard states from Massachusetts to Florida. At the time, I was a hotshot top producer in New York, and it was my fast growing production that caused the promotion.
Quite soon, a salesperson from Florida called informing me of a meeting he'd arranged with a prospect in Georgia concerning a whole plant full of equipment to be financed, and my sales guy asked me to meet him in Atlanta. I flew down on the appointed day and he drove to the prospect's office.
The drive took some time and after a pretty long while we were down to two lane roads and then much farther along, we reached a dirt lane, just about wide enough to accommodate a tractor-trailer. The lane was long and shouldered by thick towering pines. At the end of that lane there was this break in the forest, and before us stood one of the largest single story, state-of-the-art factories I'd ever seen. It was as if the river in Deliverance suddenly opened up into the Hudson River around Mid-town Manhattan. This place was functionally magnificent and huge.
In no time we were ushered into the president's office and seated on the visitor side of his ping-pong table sized desk. He greeted us cordially, told us his name was Billy Ray Bob Deacon Jones, asked if we wanted a refreshment of some kind and sat back, waiting to hear whatever we had to say.
Well, one look at the surroundings in this man's office, after the shock of encountering this magnificent structure when we'd arrived, my trigger-haired, street-trained instincts told me we were in the presence of an extremely successful and very, very busy man indeed, no time to waste here.
I flipped open a proposal we'd prepared for the meeting, spread it before him and began, I'm Mike from Leasco.... In, as they, less than a New York minute, I streamed out who my employer was, a brief history of the organization, the types of transactions we offered, who some of our major customers were, why I'd prepared the proposal I'd put on his desk and it's benefits to his organization, and assured him that although I believed what I'd already proposed in writing was best suited to his needs, we were flexible and open to other alternatives if need be.
If I must say so myself, looking back -my verbal presentation to him was complete, precise and functionally perfect.
When I finished, I sat back myself, smiled and asked Billy Ray Bob Deacon Jones if he had any questions. He smiled again himself, and said, "You're Mike who? And what was that thing you said about that Lee-Ass-Co stuff. What's that all about? And this paper thing here you gave me? Am I supposed to read this now or what? And, are we gonna' talk about the money I need, or what?"
Now, I know to this day that that sly fox heard, digested, thought through and could likely repeat from memory every word I'd said. But, this was his way of showing me that no fast-talking Yankee, especially one from the big apple was going to come in and slick talk him into any kind of a deal. And the way he did it had much more impact on me than if he'd just told me to slow down or shut up.
So, as I said in the beginning, That was one of those business life lessons that helped me every day for the rest of my career. It taught me to never judge books by their covers, never assume anything about others at all, and always let others lead the way until you're certain you're on sure ground. And always remember, as Casey Stengal, the Old Perfesser said, "As long as you're doin' the talkin', you sure ain't learnin' nothin."
That's it for today folks.
Adios
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