I used to think it was because I’m in a classic low-tech industry, but I spend a lot more time sorting out internal problems than I do coming up with ways to incorporate the latest wrinkle in envelope folding. Most managers do not manage change. Change takes them by surprise. What we’re actually managing is the conflict wrought by change. When we hold budget meetings at our company, every department has the same request: We can bury those hotshots across town if you just give us more resources. But before you can beat the guys on the other team, you need to have your own people on board. Good managers have to sort out the conflicts. You can’t just allocate resource and set policy by the numbers. Otherwise you wouldn’t need a manager – an accountant could run the company.

– Harvey Mackay, Beware The Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt, Lesson 25

Just show up – you’re a winner 80 percent of the time. Most accounts are won because nobody else is calling on them.

Show up on time – what could be more annoying than a salesperson who can’t deliver the first thing he’s promised to delivery – his own body.

Show up on time with a plan – don’t expect to get by with vague, offhand answers to objections. By being truthful and accurate in your answers you’ll get orders that others won’t get, because they haven’t been clear cut in their responses.

Show up on time with a plan and a commitment to carry it out – if you don’t believe in what you’re selling, how can you expect anyone else to?

Show up on time with a plan, a commitment to carry it out, and then execute it. Nothing is more deadly to sales relationship than a broken promise. Once you’ve put the other elements together, if you perform you’ll beat the competition 100 percent of the time.

— Harvey Mackay, Beware The Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt, Lesson 22

Marilyn Bend, a schoolteacher in Oregon, totalled her car, and barely escaped alive. She wasn’t about to buy the same model, so she went to another dealer. He didn’t have what she wanted in stock, and he wouldn’t order it without her making “a commitment” in advance to buy it. She finally ended up back at the dealer who sold her the car she’d rolled, where her original salesman not only ordered the car she wanted “on spec,” but helped her get an additional thousand-dollar settlement from here insurance company on the battered heap.

Where does it a say car salesmen are supposed to fill out a prospect’s insurance claims? That’s a waste of time.

But the fellow who did it happens to be the agency’s leading salesman year in and year out. The schoolteacher even baked him a cake when she got her check from the insurance company. She bought the car, of course, even though she hadn’t made a commitment. Successful people do things others don’t like to do.

— Harvey Mackay, Beware The Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt, Lesson 8