Word: salesmanship
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...newspaper Ochs already owned, in Chattanooga, Tenn., was almost underwater, and his personal debts were threatening to sink him and the large extended family he supported. His plan was to save the paper and himself by breaking into the big city market. With brilliant personal salesmanship and no little bit of financial finagling, he finally won the backing he needed. On Aug. 19, 1896, he announced on the front page of his newly acquired newspaper that his "earnest aim was to give the news impartially, without fear or favor...
Kroc gave people what they wanted or, maybe, what he wanted. As he said, "The definition of salesmanship is the gentle art of letting the customer have it your way." He would remain the ultimate salesman, serving as a chairman of McDonald's Corp., the largest restaurant company in the world, from 1968 until his death...
...this twice-a-year ritual of calling, I have often failed to raise funds sufficient for much more than a snack. Often I would gripe to myself that they had given me the dregs from the list; realistically, I also attributed these dismal results to my own weak salesmanship. This time, things started no better. Of the first dozen classmates I called, not one answered the telephone. Where were all those likely donors when I wanted them? To have nothing to show after a half-hour's work further depressed my already low expectations...
...this time, things picked up surprisingly. I got several guys to give $200 and one to up his contribution to $350. By my standards of salesmanship, that was not at all bad. I may not have come close to qualifying for the prize bottle of wine, but I could take the Harvard ball-point pen home without scruple. When classmates are home, it's usually not that bad. Most people treat the call as expected and appropriate. They've grown accustomed to the call: it's not like taking them away from the dinner table to sell them...
...when his life starts crumbling, you can almost smell his comic flop sweat through the screen. Tom Schulman's script is smart about the media's ability to create celebrities--and the viewer's need to embrace them--until it goes soft-hearted and -headed by denouncing the very salesmanship that Hollywood and TV are built on. For an hour or so, though, the film has the gaudy assurance of a Ginsu knife infomercial...