Now that the long (and Maytag repairman like) December break is over, I am back. OK, not quite at full strength but back nonetheless. Over the break I meant to write about the 3 Wise Men. No not Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar, the Magi who were said to have visited Christ. My 3 Wise Men (or maybe 3 Wisest Men is better) are Jeffrey Gitomer, David Maister and Tom Sant. All three are down to earth, practical thinkers who give profitable information you can use today. They are very different from the less accessible, 10,ooo foot/theoretical authors. (Think Jim Collins, Steven Levitt/Stephen Dubner, Malcolm Gladwell or even Jack(and Suzy) Welch.) Each has a specific place in the stable:
- Jeffrey Gitomer is the premier sales and motivational guru.
- David Maister is the premier professional service firm guru. Don't take my word for it, listen to Anna Farmery's "The Engaging Brand" podcast where she extols the virtues of "the wonderful David Maister" followed by an interview with the man himself.
- Tom Sant is the premier proposal writing guru (the American Management Association once called him, "America's foremost practitioner of proposal writing" which makes him my number one Wise Man!) and now the premier business writing guru.
Each Wise Man has a new book out now or due out very soon:
- Gitomer's The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching is the sixth in his incredibly helpful and wildly popular Little Book Series. For some reason I didn't connect with (nor finish) his last book, the Little Green Book of Getting Your Way. I am not sure why that is but the pervious books, particluarly The Little Gold Book of Yes! Attitude, are absolute must reads. (See my Amazon review here.)
The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching tells the story of John Patterson. Patterson bought the patent to a little invention called the cash register in 1880 and went on to form the National Cash Register Company in the perennial BCS losing state of Ohio. Patterson was a business genius who revolutionized sales. Gitomer gives us some background on Patterson, lays out for us 32 of Patterson's principles, adds one of his own (he calls it .5) and generally makes the genius of Patterson accessible to us. Although The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching is a repackaging/retelling of a previous book - Jeffrey's 2004 The Patterson Principles of Selling, it is well worth the $19.99. See a good article on Patterson here
Best Chapter: "Principle 7: Your library is the artesian well of knowledge" - David Maister gives us Strategy and the Fat Smoker. As apt a title for this time of resolution making as any book you'll ever see. And, not coincidentally, that is exactly what this book is about. We all know that New Year’s resolutions typically fail, yet we keep making them. Maister points out that the strategies professional firms make are about as worthwhile as the resolutions made by fat smokers each year - worthless. (If you are or know of a fat smoker you know what he means. I know I do...sans the smoking.) "We often (or usually) know what we should be doing in both personal and professional life,” and that “we also know why we should be doing it and (often) how to do it.” Yet, we still end up at the end of the year, both personally and professionally, fat and still smoking.
This is a must read for anyone who plans on making even $1 working for a professional service firm - from the mail room to the boardroom. The best testimonial I ever heard for David was, “Every time I read David Maister’s books I think that he is ten years ahead of his time.” That is a quote from the head of global business development at one of the world’s largest law firms. Yes, David Maister is about ten years ahead of most firms I know. Maybe, after reading this some firms can cut that down to only five years.
Best chapters: Chapter 17, The Trouble with Lawyers (which could just as easily have been The Trouble with Consultants or Accountants, etc.) and Chapter 18: The Chief Executive's Speech - where David gives professional service firm executives a ready made speech they SHOULD give to the troops. - Saving the best for last (and that is saying something): Tom Sant has given us The Language of Success. I so associate Tom with the narrower subject of proposals that I often forget about his take on writing in general and that he has a PhD in English.
This is the first book on writing that tackles (well) the subject of email. I know from daily conversations I have with friends, family and co-workers that everyone is tired of emails that are filled with errors, don't make sense or are just plain written poorly. Before you even get to chapter one Tom gives eight tips for creating successful emails. (Consultants with email addresses at Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, etc., please note that tip number one is: Choose a businesslike email name. You can use my friends at Google to quickly and easily get an email address - and website - for your company by clicking here. No more consultiant@mindspring.com for you!)
The Language of Success will be added to the Proposal Writer's Bookshelf next to Zinsser's On Writing Well and Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. It will help you get rid of the "four nonfunctional languages" of Fluff, Guff, Geek and Weasel. (Fluff is the type of grandiose writing found in most marketing materials - think “leading edge” - while Guff is the language of most lawyers, accountants and other professional service writers, Geek is technical or obscure language not understood by the audience, and Weasel is exactly that – weaselly and avoids saying anything definitive or qualifies everything.)
Best chapters: Chapter 2, The Problem: How Fluff, Guff, Geek and Weasel Ruin Your Writing and Chapter 3, The Principles: Modern Methods in Business Writing.
Buy all three books and follow all three of the 3 Wise Men. They will have a positive effect on your 2008 and beyond!
If you did not click through above, you can find each of the Wise Men on the web by clicking below:
- Jeffrey Gitomer has a web presence called Buy Gitomer and writes a syndicated weekly column that appears in the Long Island Business News, Baltimore Business Journal and the Grand Rapids Business Journal, among others.
- David Maister can be found at http://www.davidmaister.com/. I think he wins the award for the most robust web presence. Many of the articles that made up Strategy and the Fat Smoker can be found there. Be sure to listen to or read How Client's Choose. This is the one article everyone in professional services should read if they are going to read just one.
- Tom Sant founded Sant Corporation and many of his writings can be found here. He also has a blog called Messages that Matter and a newsletter of the same name. His podcast series is a must for proposal writers (or those in charge of them) and can be found in iTunes.
As Garrison would say, "Be well, do good work, and keep in touch."
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