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Alcoholics Anonymous has used that principle as a starting point to reclaim thousands and thousands of lives. Thousands more are never reclaimed because it’s so hard to change.

Sheer stubbornness has destroyed a lot more bottom lines than new technologies. There were just as many mean spirited jibes at Coca-Cola for abandoning its original formula as there were at Ford when it unveiled the Edsel. The difference was that Ford decided it was going to prove the marketplace was wrong and stuck with its mistake far too long. Coca-Cola realized early that while humiliation was inescapable, horrendous losses need not be. It cut its losses, and its mistake cost it a lot less money than stubborn pride cost Ford.

Campbell’s spent years developing a new offering in what’s called the “functional food�� category. Named Joshi describes it as “a frozen food line that would help older Americans�� needing to modify their diets. It had “great endorsements from the medical fraternity; many trials�� and yet it bombed due to poor taste.�� Campbell’s acted quickly and regrouped.

Product withdrawals these days don’t have to be just timely. Sometimes they are real time. Bill Gates was demonstrating the introduction of an improved Windows 98 program in front of a slew of journalists and live TV cameras. As the demonstrator touted the program’s virtues, Windows crashed in front of God�� and Gates! On the monitor appeared the infamous “blue screen of death�� and its white-typed error message. The ever quick-witted Bill intervened in a nanosecond with: “That must be why we’re not shipping Windows 98 yet.��

One thing professional stock and commodity traders learn early is that they don’t give away medals for courage in the marketplace. There is only one reward the marketplace has to offer: money.

If you’re not making any, bail out. Quickly.

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Quickie #12

Overcoming Rejection: Tried & True Tips

Take the criticism, but don’t take it to heart.
Realize 10 setbacks are the admission price for any major win.
Analyze every failure, but never wallow in it.
Don’t break stride and let this loss cost you your focus on the next race.
Recognize no one person can please everybody.
Don’t rationalize the hurt by saying you didn’t want to succeed that much anyway.
Tally up what you’ve learned and how you will use it not to make the same mistake again.
Let the setback motivate you to try that fresh new approach you have had stuffed in your back pocket for months.
Don’t assume you are branded with failure and walk around as if you’re wearing a scarlet letter.
Don’t worry when you lose. Worry when you stop being a contender.

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When I was a kid, my dad, who was the AP correspondent in St. Paul, Minnesota, would take me down to his office. It was a wonderful place.

What made the biggest impression on me were the walls. They were covered with the memorabilia of a lifetime of front-row seats. They were his favorites from among the countless stories and columns he had written. There were the autographed photos and menus, fight posters, baseball tickets, convention schedules, political flyers, funeral programs, wedding invitations, all linked one to another by a series of his pet aphorisms. He had made up some of this fortune cookie wisdom himself. Some was straight from the cookie, printed on those tiny slips of paper and occasionally stained with tea.

As a result, I’ve been an aphorism junkie all my life.

I hang them on my own walls, carry them in my wallet, put them in my books, and stick them in my speeches.

Here are my favorites. Like my dad’s, some are my own, others are of more uncertain ancestry.

You can take any amount of pain as long as you know it’s going to end.
I know that you don’t know�� but you don’t know that you don’t know.
It’s not what you eat�� it’s what’s eating you.
While on the ladder of success, don’t step back to admire your work.
They don’t pay off on effort�� they pay off on results.
Most people emphasize What should I buy? What should I sell? Wrong question. More appropriate is When should I buy? When should I sell?
Those who have free seats hiss first.
People begin to become successful the minute they decide to be.
Good habits are as addictive as bad habits and a lot more rewarding.
People always remember two things: who kicked you when you were down, and who helped you up.
Putting your sales force on salary is like playing ball without keeping score: when nobody wins or loses, nobody cares.
It never hurts to let the other person feel they’re smarter than you.
If you win say little. If you lose say less.
If you want to triple your success ration, you have to triple your failure rate.
Your day usually goes the way the corners of your mouth turn.
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.
A person wrapped up in himself makes a pretty small package.
If you think education is expensive�� try ignorance.
He or she who rides a tiger can’t dismount.
When a person strikes in anger, he usually misses the mark.
On the day of victory no one is tired.
Compromise is always wrong when it means sacrificing principle.
Cooperation can be spelled with two letters—WE.
An old broom knows the dirty corners best.
You will never get ahead of anyone as long as you are trying to get even with them.

Mackay’s Moral:

Weren’t those enough?

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Rejection is a part of life. You can’t avoid it, whether you’re a salesperson with a tough quota or a shy nerd hoping for a date with a supermodel. You can’t let the fear of rejection paralyze you from the start, or you’ll never get any sales—or any dates.

Like many of us, Jonathan Robinson, now a professional speaker and author, was shy as a young man—painfully so, especially when it came to women. One day in college he decided to do something drastic about it. He handed a friend $50 and told him, “Don’t give this back to me unless I get rejected by 10 different women by the end of today.��

The idea was to push through his fear of rejection, with money as a motivator. Robinson headed through the campus, looking for women to ask out. The first time, he barely stammered through his question. The woman he approached thought he was babbling and blew him off. After a while he grew calmer and the prospects warmer.

Then something unexpected happened: His seventh target agreed to go out with him. Robinson was so shocked he was tongue-tied, but he managed to get the woman’s phone number. Number eight also said yes to him.

In all, he collected six more phone numbers, and had to resort to consciously chilling his charm to reach his quota of 10 rejections in order to get his $50 back. Not only did he get his money and plenty of dates, he vanquished his fear of rejection. I’m not recommending the Robinson gambit to beat rejection, but it pays to know your worst fears are usually trumped-up traumas.

Early in my career, when I was struggling to start my company, I made a list of all the accounts I wanted to sell. Some were immediately attainable, while others were far out of my reach. That list was the impetus for my eventual success. It made me really listen to my potential customers and find out what I needed to do to change “No, thanks�� to “Where do I sign?

You can’t escape rejection, I learned. But you can let it go. That requires programming your mind-set. Here are some exercises that paid big dividends for me:

Dissect thoughts under the microscope. When faced with a challenge, what do you tell yourself? “I’m no good…�� “This is too hard…�� “I’ll never make it…�� Don’t let negative self-talk sabotage your attitude. Size up the evidence objectively. Chances are you’ll realize your worries aren’t accurate or realistic. Drain the power out of irrational fears.
Identify realistic fears. Whom do you fear? What might go wrong? Knowledge is power so clarify the facts: Who has the power to reject you? Why would that person say no? The answers will help you prepare your best offer and facing them will help you keep your composure.
Focus on the moment. Keep your perspective. Rejection lasts only a moment, and once it’s over you’ll be able to move on to the next opportunity. Overcoming your fears can be an exhilarating experience, so savor your triumph. Great athletes and ace competitors of all sorts are master of deftly moving through both ups and downs�� and not wallowing in either.
Be more assertive. Most fears of rejection rest on the desire for approval from other people. Don’t base your self-esteem on other’s opinions. Learn to express your own needs—appropriately—and say no to requests when you genuinely can’t help. People respect peers who stand up for themselves.

Mackay’s Moral:

Don’t regard rejection as failure—think of it as the dress rehearsal for your next glowing success.

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Someone once asked a great philosopher which he would rather have—a gift of money or a gift of friendship. “Friendship,�� replied the philosopher, “because money is spent but friendship can last forever.��

“I shall think of that advice forever,�� the questioner responded, “as a mark of your friendship.��

“Sorry,�� the philosopher apologized, “my friendship is free, but my advice isn’t. Pay up.��

As you will see in this chapter, money is but one of the ways to lose friends.

1. Go into business with��

George has been your personal friend forever. You do everything together. So you and George become business partners. A few months into this grand alliance, a few chinks appear. It turns out that George’s work habits are a bit different from yours.

You’re an early riser. George thinks early is anything that happens before noon. You’ve put in four hours before George puts in an appearance. You’re a detail person. George can’t be bothered with the fine print; he’s a charmer. That can be just dandy, if your Mr. Inside/Mr. Outside arrangement is viable. But even though George is handling sales to take advantage of his people skills, you’re in a business where your customers still carry slide rules and want everything done by the numbers. George no can do. What can you do?

2. Buy something from��

You’re finally going to add that three-season porch your spouse has been wanting for the last 23 seasons. Good Old Ollie’s just getting started in the remodeling business. Why not let him do it? Though G.O.O.’s bid is 25 percent higher than anyone else’s, he assures you that “you get what you pay for.�� He must have meant leaks and broken tiles. You can’t very well turn him into the Better Business Bureau, so you just bite the bullet while someone else fixes Ollie’s follies.

3. Sell something to�� (reverse of 2.)

Your dad goes into a nursing home. He has a three-year-old car with very low mileage. You were going to advertise it, but your friend Sid pesters you to sell it to him. You do, and take a $500 haircut. Then after three months the transmission goes out. Sid seems to think that’s something you should pay for. Funny, you and Sid don’t get together as much anymore.

4. Hire��

Friend Ralph worked for a Fortune 500 company and says he was downsized out of a job. He’s an accountant, and you have a serious bean-counting deficiency. A marriage made in heaven? Not quite. You discover that the corporation that canned Ralph may have been onto something more than just a routine restructuring. It seems that learning new ways to do things is not to be found on Ralph’s balance sheet. You never bothered to check him out, of course, because this is a guy you’d known for 20 years. Too bad, because after six months Ralph “��DZ����’t work here anymore.��

5. Go to work for�� (reverse of 4.)

You took early retirement and decided to go to work for your old fraternity brother Alex, a self-made zillionaire who was two years ahead of you in college. Boy, Alex was a real wild man in those days. Unfortunately, he still is. He screams. He curses. He harasses. Alex thinks it’s still Hell Week and he has the paddle. You depledge.

6. Go on an extended trip with��

Greg and Lisa are great company, so this long vacation with them would be a guaranteed blast. Well, it was a “blast�� as in “explosion�� or “bomb.�� You’ve always been a generous tipper. Not Greg. He’d stiff any waiter or waitress if he had the chance. It used to seem kind of cute, but not anymore, not when it got repeated over and over, every day, every meal. No amount of nudging or teasing seemed to work. Toward the end of the trip, you’d have to sneak back to the table and throw down a couple extra bucks to make up for Greg’s cheapness. And no bill was ever split 50/50. Greg always found a way to shave a few pennies off his end. Punctuality wasn’t one of Greg’s virtues either. Every day you’d wait for them in the lobby before you could get going. Little things? Oh yeah. But they sure can get big in a hurry.

7. Lend to or borrow money from��

All of the above problems are minor compared to this one. More friendships have been trashed because of money than all the other reasons combined. Do your banking with a banker.

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Mackay’s Moral: Friends are made by many acts�� and lost by only one.

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1.������������ We don’t have any competition.

This is the attitude that practically sank IBM, General Motors, Schwinn bikes, and every other company that thought they could disregard and/or abuse their customers endlessly because their products were unique and indispensable. Surprise! They weren’t. Every business, every individual, has competition. The more you act like you don’t, the sooner you are to get it, and the tougher it’s likely to be.

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�� 2.������������ Downsizing is going to get rid of a lot of dead wood and enhance the profitability of the companies that engage in it.

The standard drill for a company that is downsizing is to comb the ranks for volunteers before ordering involuntary departures. Who is most likely to jump overboard in return for augmented severance benefits? It’s not the seat warmers. It’s the people who are the best equipped to land on their feet somewhere else—with your competition, for instance—because they’re the most capable, talented members of your work force. Who’s going to hang on for dear life? Obviously, it’s the marginal types and those who would have trouble finding a job somewhere else. The law of adverse selection is at work here. As in insurance, those who most want protection are those who need it the most.

Also, sawing off limbs may be effective therapy, but it is not a sign of good health. Recklessly trimming employees means trimming revenues and market share. Companies grow by increasing revenues and market share. Don’t confuse a short-term survival tactic with a long-term growth strategy.

In fact, there’s a new buzzword that’s popped up called “dumbsizing.�� There’s a reason. A study was made of 100 companies who had downsized thousands of their employees. One year later, these same companies were revisited and guess what? Same dumb companies! 35 percent of the companies�� bottom lines were the same as before the downsizing occurred, still drowning in red ink.

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3.������������ Always be nice.

Always be nice as long as you can, and when you can’t be nice anymore, do what you have to do. Hard looks, screaming, and jumping up and down may not win you any Boss of the Year awards, but they can be most effective as wake-up calls for the objects of the exercise. We all know that most of the big cigars didn’t get where they got on charm alone.

Still, there are certain rules of conduct, even tough conduct, that should be followed. Never chew out a subordinate in front of anyone else unless it’s an official termination and you want to make a record for legal purposes. In that case, you’re not going to go ballistic anyway, unless you like lawsuits. We’re talking about the ordinary, garden-variety flogging. When a third party is present when you lose your temper you have made it impossible for the floggee to save face and to correct their mistakes. Do it in private. You know what was said. They know what was said. That’s enough. (But keep notes. It’s a litigious age we live in).

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�� 4.������������ The customer is always right.

The most revered aphorism of them all. How can I disagree? Well, the customer is usually right, but the one area where you have to be especially careful is in marketing. The reason something like 12 out of 13 new products flop isn’t because marketers haven’t tried hard to listen to their customers. It’s because customers often don’t have the interest to really focus on your marvelous new gizmo or improvement. Simply put, customers favor the familiar. As a result, they tend to give high marks to the knock-off that is familiar and easy to understand and shy away from the real breakthroughs. Can you imagine the reaction of the first focus group that was handed a pizza? I mean, who needs this gooey, oily thing when we already have toasted Velveeta-and-tomato sandwiches on Wonder bread? Or the fax machine? Who needs it? We have letters. We have phones. We have messengers. There comes a time when you have to go with your gut. You’re paid for being right, not just for asking someone else whether you are or not.

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Mackay’s Moral:

Popular wisdom is a contradiction in terms. If it’s popular, it’s popular, but it isn’t wisdom. Wisdom involves seeing beyond what is popular.

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�� All successful sales organizations offer a constant round of morale-boosting meetings, incentives, awards, and recognition. No matter how often salespeople are told “It isn’t personal�� when they’re turned down, professional sales managers realize how psychologically draining those rejections are. It’s a never-ending struggle to keep their people up and motivated. What applies to salespeople also applies to the rest of the workforce. Everyone needs to feel appreciated. Most businesses aren’t very glamorous. Envelopes may turn me on, but to most people in the endlessly exciting envelope game, it’s just a job. If you want to goose up the morale a little bit among your idle managers, give them some unexpected recognition. For most people, bragging rights are just as important as money. Send a few key people to a convention or a seminar or two. Give it the full treatment. Call them in unexpectedly, tell them the company hasn’t had that great a year but you want to recognize their superior performance by sending them to such-and-such a school/seminar/convention. If you’re ready to give the person even more of a boost, throw in a ticket for the wife or husband. They’re to report back on what they’ve learned, of course, but make it clear you really selected them because they are just the sort of person you want representing the company, and you want to reward them for it. Then send out a memo announcing exactly what you just told them, or put it in the house organ. You’ve accomplished several things: You’ve told your people you notice and appreciate good work, and you’ve created a performance incentive without locking yourself into a costly and ever-escalating program. That, of course, is all in addition to your existing recognition and awards program. �� * Excerpted from ��

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Bill Gove was a legend as a salesman at 3M. He used to tell this story in his motivational talks to the troops.

“I was just starting out in sales when my boss called me in and said, ‘Bill, I want you to go to New Orleans and see our fieldman, Harry. You’ve never met anyone like him. He’s about 60 pounds overweight, his clothes look like a bulletin board of whatever he ate for lunch, he garbles his words, and he writes his orders on the back of a napkin.��

“So I said, ‘Sure, I’ll go down there. What do you want me to do? Buy him a copy of Dress for Success? Put him on a diet? Fire him?��

�� ‘Hell, no. Find out what this guy is eating and make sure he gets all he wants. He’s our biggest producer. And while you’re down there, you’d better get some for yourself.�� ��

That story always worked. Maybe because it was so close to the Abe Lincoln version: “But Mr. President, Grant drinks!�� “Find out what his brand is and send him a case. I need him. He fights.��

Could a curmudgeon like Harry or a boozer like Grant be successful today? Of course. You see it all the time in sports. The basketball player who averages 20 points a game is on a longer leash than the backup guard. It isn’t fair, it isn’t right, but it’s the way of the world in a world where results often matter more than how you get them.

Bill Gove and I used to tell young salespeople, “If you can sell, don’t worry about the paperwork. We’ll get someone to take care of it.�� All kinds of people can fill out forms�� few can really sell.

These days, with everything so techie, there’s less tolerance for the klutz, even a mad demon of a salesperson klutz, because a screwup on-line can cost the company zillions. Harry’s mustard-stained napkins might not pass muster, no matter how big the order.

Earl is the opposite of Harry. The word that fits him is “bearing.�� He walks around like he’s on his way to chair a board meeting. Earl’s paperwork is perfect, his desk is neat. He’s on time for every sales meeting, and without having to be begged, he automatically takes a seat in the front row. Earl would be the perfect salesperson except for one thing: He couldn’t give away envelopes to Publishers Clearing House. Customers just don’t warm up to him.

Most salespeople fit somewhere in between Harry and Earl, not daring to be as nonconformist as Harry, but able to avoid setting people’s teeth on edge, a la Earl.

Smart companies have come to realize that salespeople need to be rid of duties that have nothing to do with sales. They know that the most productive time salespeople have is the time they spend with their customers, not with their fellow employees. They—and their salespeople—are externally focused. Totally.

Dumb companies remain enmeshed in structure, processes, and politics. They tend to be internally focused on the company culture, the company rule book, the company dress code, and the company haircut. They have meetings to see if they should have meetings.

Company committees? Internal planning projects? There’s Earl in the front row again, his hand raised, volunteering for the job. Earl knows his future isn’t in sales; it’s in getting into the bureaucracy. When the Earls of the world get promoted as their reward for doing the grunt work that successful sales people hate, guess what happens? The regimen of regular sales meetings, new forms to fill out, and mandatory attendance take a big leap skyward.

Will Harry’s production go up when Earl gets through with him? Of course not, but Harry might make less noise when he eats.

Many of you reading this may work for Earls. Don’t toss in the towel. Just keep your own priorities straight. Try not to let Earl waste too much of your time, and just keep shaking and baking.

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Mackay’s Moral:

If you’re going to be different, you’d better produce. Most managers hate mavericks, but all managers love results.

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��Lesson 25

“Calling Mr. Otis��

You say you’ll not likely be called on to negotiate a treaty to restrict Weapons of Mass Destruction, or handle the company’s real-estate or labor contracts? No matter. You’re still going to find yourself in the midst of a negotiation where your ability to get up and walk away is the key to winning.

There’s an ancient scam in the car business known as “Calling Mr. Otis.�� The prospect comes in and to his great surprise is given a fabulous offer for his old beater trade-in and an even better deal on his new car purchase. He shops around, finds the deal is unbeatable, and comes back to the dealer with the terrific proposition.

The salesperson writes up the deal. He has the prospect initial it. Then he asks the prospect casually what the other dealers offered him. At this point, the prospect, flushed with victory, tosses away the most valuable asset he has in the negotiation: information—to wit, the other dealers�� prices.

“Just one last step,�� says the salesperson. “The sales manager has to okay the deal. I’ll call him right now.�� The salesperson punches the intercom device on his phone and says “Calling Mr. Otis�� calling Mr. Otis.�� Of course, there is no Mr. Otis. There’s a sales manager, all right, but his name is really Smith or Jones or whatever.

Otis is the name of the company that makes elevators—and this elevator is going up. The sales manager shows up. He pulls the salesperson out of the room to let the prospect stew for a while, the salesperson comes back, says Otis won’t go for the deal, and then proceeds to retrade it up to exactly the same level the other dealers had offered the prospect. Why, you might ask, ��DZ����’t the prospect simply walk at this point?

Because he has too much invested emotionally in cutting the deal right there; he’s already picked out his new car. It’s blue with red upholstery and it’s sitting right there on the showroom floor, waiting for him to drive it off. While he’s in the closing room with the salesperson, his wife is sitting behind the wheel and his kids are jumping up and down on the seats. He’s told everybody at work what a shrewd negotiator he is.

If he ��DZ����’t sign his name, he has to pick up and start all over again�� the kids will start crying�� again; and they’ll snicker at him down at work�� again.

So what’s $1,740.50 more on a $30,000 purchase? Just a few more monthly payments. This is America, pal; thanks a lot, have a nice day, and here’s your payment book. He signs because he can’t walk away from that table without a deal. But you can. And when you do, you’ll end up buying your cars for less money than you would if you fell for this classic scam.

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Google yourself on the Web. Put your name in quote marks. If you have a common name, you may have to add a few other cues, such as company name, city of residence or alma matter.

If the only hit that pops up is a Facebook photo of you in a toga guzzling a yard of beer or toking off a bong, you’re in trouble. If the only hits are a listing in the church choir’s roster for an Eastern service three years ago and a mention in the news that you witnessed an auto wreck last spring�� well, you’re like most of America.

But you can change all that. People want to do business with others who are Web-certified entities:

Create a clear, positive posting for LinkedIn. You can be invited to join LinkedIn or create your own account. To participate in Groups, find one you’re interested in and click the moderator to ask if you can join the dialogue.
Contribute an article to a publication. It ��DZ����’t have to be a business piece. Maybe it’s a community project, or a remembrance of an unforgettable coach on a memorial site. Write something meaningful that demonstrates you have good taste and judgment.
Give a talk and publicize it. Many community organizations need speakers, and you may have the opportunity to post your talk on their website. The early-20s youngster of one parent I know joined a disaster relief group in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. Despite initial misgivings about the young person’s safety, the experience proved positive for all involved. The parent went online to describe her hesitations and the evidence. Not an easy choice, but the comments showed a mother who was forthright and thoughtful.
Tweet intelligent tips. The best way to create Twitter traction, I think, is to recommend sites and gems on the Web that you find useful yourself. Don’t pretend you’re a star. Tweet others a fresh edge on camping in Nova Scotia or organizing their garage.

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