Making Rain

Politeness, courtesy, niceness, manners. These are qualities I find increasingly missing in sales and most other aspects of business. People increasingly just don’t see the need to bother with this stuff.

I was reminded of this as I read Peggy Noonan’s fine, zeitgeist attuned article in the WSJ last Saturday titled, “We Pay Them To Be Rude To Us“. Ms. Noonan states,  “American culture is, one way or another, business culture and our business is service. Once we were a great industrial nation. Now we are a service economy.” She says the social implications of this are making us confused and crazy. “We wear away the superego and get straight to the id, and what we see isn’t pretty.” She describes a revolution in manners. “We tore [manners] down as too fancy, or sexist, or ageist, or revealing of class biases. Just when we needed more than ever the formality and agreed-upon rules of manners to act as guard rails, we threw them aside. And now no one knows how to act anymore.”

When I was a young actor (mostly unemployed) many years ago, before I became an accidental entrepreneur, I often supported myself as a catering waiter for high-society in New York. I worked mostly for a company called Glorious Food, the most elegant caterer then around.

Glorious Food parties were run by a very traditional and exacting maître d’ named Serge. Serge was an old school martinet who was about doing everything with precise properness. Training to become a waiter for Glorious Food involved a long seminar where you were trained how to set a traditional table, fold napkins, correctly serve, etc. Basically, I thought this was a bunch of hooey.

But one day I found myself sitting next to the daunting Serge and got to talking to him about why we did all this minutia so precisely. He quite cogently explained to me that, as silly or unnecessary as it might seem to an American (slight disdain with a French accent), there were very good and practically efficacious reasons for why the dessert spoon is placed over the desert fork, or why the white and red wine and water glasses were in a specific configuration. Basically it made things easier for the server and the servee. It was not arbitrary or phony. It was well thought out and imminently practical.

There is a reason for manners and courtesy and it is not just to be nice. The purpose of manners is to give us a practical structure to deal with each other. It is not bullshit. It is the glue of civilization and the utilitarian road map for dealing in everyday business. Manners and polite address are not superficial. They are essential. The importance of plain good manners is increasingly not taught or explained with any depth. Too bad. It is an important tool increasingly missing in the modern salesman’s repertoire.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said in his essay “Behavior” from The Conduct of Life (1860), “Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into usage.” Thanks, Ralph.

I loathe PowerPoint presentations. There’s just about nothing in business I more dread.

In this I seem to be in a minority. PowerPoint is acknowledged to be the most popular tool for creating slide show presentations and an essential sales tool for many of my entrepreneurial colleagues. From what I read in Microsoft documents on the Internet there are well over 300 million PowerPoint users in the world, including over 30 million per day and over a million going on right now. My guess is the majority of these are boring their listeners to death.

I don’t use PowerPoint (or any of its alternative cousins). Here’s why: I want people to listen to me, the wonderful me. Now, admittedly, my outsourced sales company, Corporate Rain International, lends itself to a more simple presentation than, say, a complex, rococo technology sale. My company is primarily about a bespoke service and quality of strategic sales execution into the C-suite. But, even when selling computer hardware, software or other technological wonderment, buyers hire who they know and like. Anything that clouds or vitiates the urgency of that personal selling relationship is counterproductive.

The simple truth is the more efficaciously naked you can be emotionally, the more compelling you become as a salesman. PowerPoint puts a layer between the salesman and the client that I prefer not to have. This makes selling a more personal and courageous, as well as compelling, act.

Of course, I don’t mean to be absurdly reductionist in my intuitive salesman’s dislike of PowerPoint. Obviously there are necessary moments for the graphic and visual. But, even when necessary, it should be kept simple, as should almost everything in sales.

In an article in Wired from 2003 (subtitled “Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.“), Edward Tufte comments about PowerPoint:

“Imagine a widely used and expensive prescription drug that promised to make us beautiful but didn’t. Instead the drug had frequent, serious side effects: It induced stupidity, turned everyone into bores, wasted time and degraded the quality and credibility of communication.”

That rather neatly sums up my sales instincts on the use of PowerPoint.

Last week (July 27 blog) I noted that there is growing scientific evidence that people who excessively multitask and watch busy multimedia presentations retain much less than those who take in information in a more sedate and focused manner. In my opinion, PowerPoint is another exemplar of this phenomenon.

Painter Hans Hofman in Search for the Real (1967) states, “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” Thanks, Hans.

I love P.T. Barnum. Yes, he was a bit of a scoundrel and a con man. But very wise and seminal and modern in his practical thinking about business.

One of Barnum’s maxims I recently came across appeared in his essay “The Art of Money Getting or Golden Rules for Money Making” (1880). Barnum says: “When a man’s undivided attention is centered on one object, his mind will constantly be suggesting improvements of value, which would escape him if his brain was occupied by a dozen different subjects at once.” Barnum’s advice is most applicable to my present inundation-of-new-media conundrum.

One of the reasons I write this business blog is simply to clear some contemplative time for myself each week. It helps me coalesce my anomic ideas into something coherent. In a sense, I don’t know what I think till I write it down.

On July 6th I posted about the value of lifestyle and life balance accommodations for my employees. As a boss and a creative entrepreneur, clearing open-ended, spacious time for quiet contemplation without agenda is crucial for my emotional health and life balance.

Which brings me to Nicholas Carr‘s new book, “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brain.” Mr. Carr’s book sounds the alarm about the discomfiting implications of our manic connectivity, our addictive cyber hyperactivity. Carr points to significant neuroscientific evidence suggesting that the Net, with it’s constant distractions and velocity, is turning us into “scattered and superficial thinkers.” Carr states in The Wall Street Journal: “Over the last few years, I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory.” He cites extensive science in support of his thesis.

People who read text studded with links, the studies show, comprehend less than those who read traditional linear text. People who watch busy multimedia presentations remember less than those who take in information in a more sedate and focused manner. People who are continually distracted by emails, alerts and other messages understand less than those who are able to concentrate. And people who juggle many tasks are less creative and less productive than those who do one thing at a time….Only when we pay deep attention to a new piece of information are we able to associate it “meaningfully and systematically with knowledge already well established in memory” writes the Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel.

I will admit to being instinctively a bit of a Luddite. I’m not a techie, though my company, Corporate Rain International, is a cutting-edge technology-driven company. I hire technologists. I hope my instinctive caveats about our accelerating cyber-phantasmagoria are unwarranted. I try not to let the fear of the unknown interfere with a practical business reality. However, for myself it is important not to compulsively try to connect with every magic of the Internet (tweeting, texting, friending, linking, etc.)

The Roman philosopher Seneca said succinctly, “To be everywhere is to be nowhere.” I must agree. Thank you, Seneca.

Words are wonderful.

They are much more useful in business than they get credit for–particularly in executive sales. But words are not much emphasized or particularly valued in current articles and discussions I see about sales. These sales articles are crammed full of an overwhelming amount of information about psychology, motivation, technology, social media, ROI, SEO, etc., yet seemingly never mention that simple cornerstone of human communication–words. Vocabulary. It’s as if words are unimportant or irrelevant to a modern salesman. Words are for poets and philosophers, academics and lawyers, journalists and judges. Words are old-fashioned. Words are of the past, supplanted by a world of Twitter abbreviation (OMG, NRN, LOL, TMI, L8R, etc).

This is utterly wrong. And it is particularly not true about high-end, quality business development, which is the specialty of my executive sales outsourcing firm Corporate Rain International. Word usage and proficiency is important in branding a tonality of equal business stature when selling to real strategic corporate decision makers. CEO’s are especially well-educated, thoughtful people trained in the best schools in the world. Or, if they don’t have that specific educational pedigree, are fierce autodidacts. Either way, they are usually people of probing intellect and subtle ability to express and communicate nuance.

Corporate decision makers like to do business with their peers. They want to deal with people of equal business stature. A comfort level with precise and sophisticated word usage is one way of immediately establishing that tonality.

This does not mean to pepper your sales conversations with artificially grandiose phrases, fustian excess or arbitrary verbal whimsy. Precise vocabulary can be used simply. But words bring shadings of specificity and descriptive depth, even a sensual enlivening, to the most prosaic of sales conversations.

Last week one of my employees asked me to please write a posting not requiring use of a dictionary. Nah. It would remove too much color and delight.

As many of you know, I was an actor and singer for many years. Not a common background for a businessman. But I learned a lot that applies to my life as an accidental entrepreneur. (I’d better, since I have no formal training in business at all.)

Business friends and clients sometimes send their sons and daughters to me for advice if their progeny want to go into show business. These kids almost always ask what’s the most important thing about making it as a performer. My answer? LUCK. There are a multitude of truly talented young artists and, honestly, I find luck the key differentiator in their success. However, the secret is to be ready for luck to happen, when and if it does happen.

The same is utterly true of entrepreneurship. Successful entrepreneurs are driven and courageous. They are a passionate, hard-working breed. I truly love entrepreneurs. They are infinitely not boring people. But, despite their admirable, if disparate, natures and work habits, I still believe the key element in their success is luck.

How does luck happen? In my opinion it comes to those who are most comfortable in their own skins. It comes most easily to those who live and breathe their unique selfness.  There is an achieved existential integrity to people who have luck. They are themselves. Becoming a real “self” is, of course, a life-long process, but it is just as important as marketing, business plans, spread sheets, technological know-how and everything else they teach you in B-School.

There is wisdom in the phrase, “It’s better to be lucky than smart.” Luck defies encapsulation and control. It is an ineffable and recondite goddess. But it seems to me it comes to those who are soulfully open to acceptance of fate’s surprises. I believe it happens to people who’ve somehow developed an innate subconscious integrity that allows them to pivot adroitly and automatically in response to any happenstance.

I was lucky last week. On the train. I bumped into a neighbor, a man I’ve known passingly for a good while. We got to chatting about neighbor things and, quite incidentally, I mentioned that my firm, Corporate Rain, sets up elite sales initiation pipelines for corporate clients. Well. It turns out my neighbor represents a major foreign country and is responsible for helping his country’s firms penetrate the US market. Who’d ‘ave thunk it?  The next day he had me in front of nine CEO’s at his consulate’s boardroom. Within five days, three of these companies were clients. God bless Metro North.

Napoleon Bonaparte talked about luck. In his Maxims he said, “When a man is a favorite of fortune she never takes him unawares and, however astonishing her favors may be, she finds him ready.”

Thank you, Napoleon.

There is a famous German novella I read in college called Kleider Machen Leute by Gottfried Keller. (It is usually translated as “Clothes Make the Man”.)  It’s about a poor tailor who takes a coach journey and, through an odd set of circumstances, he is dressed in a fur trimmed cloak much above his real ability to afford and his station in life. He is mistaken for a rich man and the results of this misidentity and various people’s reactions guide the tale.

This novella is highly applicable to entrepreneurs. I believe many of us entrepreneurs don’t think enough about clothes in business. And we should. Here’s why.

Most of us spend large amounts on branding, marketing, and advertising creating the apt image for our firms. Yet it constantly amazes me how little thought owners give to how they present themselves sartorially.  It is relatively inexpensive personal branding we’re talking about here.

This most certainly does not mean an entrepreneur needs to be a fashion plate. Any styling from the funerial to the flamboyant can be appropriate, but it should be consistent with your chosen messaging and branding. Making strong, identifying statements through your attire can create a defined presence before you say a word. It can telegraph a context and corporate definition.

I’ve had clients who accomplish this bespoke branding very well in t-shirts. Some of my creative clients will choose bold colors. If you sell beer you might want to look like a guy who is comfortable in a bar. I am sure Anna Wintour spends extensive time each day ensuring her personal clothes visually affirm her authoritative fashion leadership as editor of Vogue Magazine. Personally, I try to look like a banker. My company Corporate Ran International is mostly known for creating high-quality meetings with real financial corporate decision-makers. My clients often entrust me with their most proprietary information and secrets. So, even though my personal history and proclivities are quite bohemian, I want to create assurance of stability and discretion. I do this partially by investing in expensive, highly tailored suits and by insisting that my associates always dress high when meeting with Corporate Rain clients.

You don’t need a personal makeover to brand yourself through your apparel. You do need to know what you have to offer and who you are. Then sartorial branding becomes simple common sense.

As the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus states, “Know first who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly.”

Thank you, Epictetus.

Mary McCarthy famously said of Lillian Hellman, “Every word she writes is a lie–and that includes ‘and’ and ‘the’.” In terms of his conclusions, that pretty much describes the depth of my disagreement with Paul Krugman, columnist for the New York Times.

I disagree with just about every opinion Paul Krugman voices. I am a believer in the free market, he seems to be a committed socialist. I am  a fiscal conservative with a fierce belief in balanced budgets, he an unapologetic Keynesian. I feel the current health care reform bill will be catastrophic for small business and employment, he feels it is salvific. (Note his most recent op-ed in the December 4 New York Times.)

Nevertheless, I view Paul Krugman as by far the most useful popular economic writer out there. He has a real didactic gift for simply explaining his process, analyses, and conclusions. I would love to have him as a professor (which he is at Princeton University). He’s a damn good (and unpretentious) writer.  He’s just a terrific explainer. He illuminates the most byzantine financial matters with a clarifying ease that is most helpful to me as an entrepreneur seeking to understand the world macro-economic picture.

I bring this up because I increasingly notice people of both liberal and conservative persuasions are losing a fair-minded and objective openness to quality argumentation.

It is a practical value for an entrepreneur to constantly be open to new thoughts, to consider the discomforting. For me, one way to enforce this discipline is to actively read and engage with those I disagree with. I really try to keep my firm, Corporate Rain, a forum for open discussion with colleagues and employees. Healthy dialogue and disagreement in a corporate community is creative and energizing. It fosters a frisson of aliveness and passion.

That said, ultimately there is only one boss, and, in the immortal word of Mel Brooks, “It’s good to be  King.”

I am very wary of celebrity autobiographical tell-alls.  These tawdry tales are often filled with narcissistic self-pity or ironic condescension or self-congratulatory grandiosity clothed in ersatz humility.

Not so the new autobiography of Andre Agassi entitled “Open”.

One of my jobs when I was younger was tennis pro and I’ve continued to follow tennis over the years. Even before this remarkable autobiography, I admired the grace, artistry and passion of Andre Agassi.  I admired his calm, his court savvy, his fierce spirit.  Barbra Streisand called Agassi “the Zen Master”.  While I agree with Barbra Streisand about very little, I do agree with her about this.

Last Sunday (November 8, 2009), I was deeply touched by an excellent interview with Mr. Agassi conducted by Katie Couric on “60 Minutes”.  In addition to being a fine piece of broadcast journalism, it limned Agassi’s spiritual journey with a superb dramatic arc.  For me, it was compelling television.  But more than the skilled professionalism of the piece, what stood out for me was the authenticity of Andre Agassi.

The interview was hyped on the revelation that Agassi admits he used crystal meth for a year during his tennis career and lied about it to the powers that be.  However, this rather minor revelation of a young man’s sin, to me, was not what made the piece extraordinary.  What made the interview powerful was that without real guidance or education (Mr. Agassi never graduated high school), he willed himself to become a deeply and profoundly authentic person – a person he didn’t even know he was when he began his journey.  His pilgrimage from liar, fake and lost soul to authentic human wholeness struck me as particularly heroic in that it was largely internal, solitary and autodidactic.  A profoundly lonely but determined odyssey.  While direct and confessional, Mr. Agassi was clear-eyed and without self-pity.  Admirable.  Even astonishing — and even more astonishing for the fact that he chose his path from a place of unanchored anomie: ungrounded in faith or family.

So you may say “How can you know Andre Agassi is not just a big ol’ self-absorbed phony out hyping his book”?  Well, I guess I can only point to the judge, who, when asked to define pornography simply said “I may not be able to specifically define it, but I know it when I see it”.  Me too.  Which brings me, rather elliptically, to sales.

I’m a salesman and my company, Corporate Rain International, is a sales company that specializes in c-suite sales, mostly of services.  For me, the key to successful salesmanship is simply authenticity.  That soulful core is the pure essence of good salesmanship.  A good salesman is authentic.  He knows who he is.  He tells the unalloyed truth from a centered space and people respond.  I hope I am neither a naïf nor disingenuous when I state with absolute sincerity that authenticity is the key to selling.  But you have to be authentic before you can sell authentically.  Though not a salesman, Andre Agassi is a remarkable case study and example of achieved authenticity.

So thank you Andre Agassi for becoming yourself.  You are, as Barbra Streisand so aptly put it, “the Zen Master”. Bravo, Andre.

I ended my last post saying how uncomfortable change was for me.  For that very reason, I discipline myself to incorporate change on a regular basis.  I experiment with suggestions offered by my associates.  It keeps my 16 year old firm fresh and alive.  For that reason Corporate Rain International changes substantially every year.

I try to keep nothing sacrosanct.  Though it gives me a daily frisson of fear, it also keeps me fiercely alive.  Clients feel that intensity and it helps me as a salesman for my company.

My favorite example of creative change is The Beatles.  The Beatles essentially became a radically different band every year of their existence.  Every year, they abandoned sure repeatable success to push into a high-risk musical unknown.  Their work had integrity.  It was alive.

There is a paradigm for business in the example of The Beatles.  Things constantly change; never more so than now.  Flexibility and an active imagination are particularly useful to a sales entrepreneur in a constantly evolving marketplace. Even arbitrary creative destruction can have its place.  One of my favorite bits of aphoristic wisdom (which I associate with AA and 12-step programs) is “Insanity is defined as continually performing the same action and expecting different results”.  Obviously and utterly true.

Earlier in my life, I spent about 10 years as an actor.  One of my teachers was a man named Paul Austen.  One day in class he recounted a story about doing a Eugene O’Neill play with the actor Rip Torn.  Rehearsals were going well, but, with two weeks of rehearsal remaining, Paul felt he had fully realized his character and was ready to open.  He was in a quandary about what to do with himself for the last two weeks of rehearsal, so he went to Rip Torn and asked his advice.  Paul recounts that Rip Torn thought for a moment, shrugged his shoulders and said “Fuck it up”.

So, even if it ain’t broke, it’s sometimes healthy to “fuck it up”.