EMBRACING THE WIND -- SAGA OF AN INVISIBLE THOUGHT LEADER!

THEDELTAGRPFL@cs.com wrote:
Note to Emailers:

My agent thinks my two recently completed manuscripts, CONFIDENT SELLING** and CONFIDENT THINKING together should be a blockbuster. We shall see. Since I have done little else the last several months then work on them 60 to 70 hours a week, I gave pause to vent my frustration in this missive to him. Call it what you like, but it felt good to get it off my chest. Almost euphoric. Be always well.
Jim

**Confident Selling was first published in 1971 and became an international best seller. This is a totally revised and updated version of the original text, but with the same premise, which is that the problem with selling is not the buyer, but the seller. Once the seller overcomes his fears by embracing them, the rest is easy, and success is assured.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Ned,
I think I've finally written a combination of books, and like you say, which complement each other and may prove useful to people in all walks of life.

We, too, complement each other. I know industry from a cadre of positions in the corporation: from six summers in a chemical processing factory (food industry) in virtually every phase of the operation as a laborer in a workforce of some 2,000.

I was one of the most respected summer workers, getting the most hours, and not afraid of any kind of work. I've written about the valuable lessons it taught me about labor and management. It also gave me a vivid appreciation of the factory process, philosophically, psychologically and economically. It is the basis of my three cultures: comfort, complacency and contribution.

When I graduated from Iowa, I wrote to the company for a recommendation, and Standard Brands Inc., now ADM, said they would match or exceed anyone that made me an offer.

I worked there as a chemist. I followed this with two years in the Navy as a white hat on the Flag Ship of the Mediterranean fleet, the USS Salem (CA-139), so I've got the military perspective, too. Thanks to it, I acquired the GI Bill which made it possible to get my Ph.D.

The rest of the story is pretty well documented in my writing: from chemical sales engineer with Nalco to area manager in the field, then as a corporate executive trouble shooter about the globe for Nalco to facilitator of the formation of a new company in South Africa.

At that point, during my best wage-earning years, I took a two-year sabbatical. I went back to school for the next six years, and got my Ph.D. in organizational/industrial psychology. I know academia up close and personal, too. Factory process is clearly in evidence if the conflicts are not more petty. Henry Kessinger once summed it up very well: "The reason academic infighting is so bitter is that the stakes are so small."

Concomitantly, I had a ten year stint as an adjunct professor to several universities, up and down the East coast, including one with AMA Professional Institute, doing extensive OD consulting as well.

Then, I went back in industry with Honeywell (USA) as an OD psychologist, and then with Honeywell Europe as Director of Human Resources Planning & Development.

So, I've spent my time in the laboratory of experience on all phases of the modern workforce from being a day laborer to a working bee both in line (sales and R&D) and staff (OD psychologist and corporate executive and internal-external consultant), not to mention a student (undergraduate and graduate level) and academic (adjunct professor).

I write from that all inclusive range and perspective. I don't know of a thought leader in the country that can match my eclectic background.

And yet, to this date, I am virtually unknown. So, well CS/CT change all that? The question is academic because in any case:

(a) We are all in the selling business; and

(b) The biggest sale we ever have to make is on ourselves. The rest is gravy.

These two books: CS &CT, as you point out, address that problem.

If we can ever find a publisher, perhaps the one that publishes Steven Covey, we could sell the book in bulk to corporations.

The other thing I envision is that it could be made into a training program in which trained professionals could deliver the course across the globe, not just in the USA.

I wrote a book for Honeywell on train-the-trainer, and it was so well received that a professor (psychology) at the University of Tampa wanted to use it as a text. Honeywell refused because it was proprietary material. Honeywell was not in the publishing business.

In any case, I wouldn't have gotten a dime out of it inasmuch as I signed that authority away when I joined Honeywell, as I had done the same thing with Nalco.

I mention the latter because I wrote CONFIDENT SELLING for my people when with Nalco but in an abbreviated form. Still, it was essentially the same book. As I've said before, I wrote the book in six weeks, sent it off to Prentice-Hall and it was accepted the first week P-H received it. I hadn't mentioned that I had written the book in outline form long before it was published as a book.

Two things that come to mind of recent memory that tell me we are on to something.

(1 ) I attended a concert at my grandson's exclusive private school, Tampa Preparatory, and a series of "young scholars" gave their take on what they thought and what was important, then the director of the school, along with other faculty members gave their two cents.

I looked to BB, and whispered in her ear, "What does that sound like?" She smiled, "Your book." I corrected her. "My books!" She shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "Whatever."

I don't know what you mean by 10-10. You must accept that I don't know your end of the business. You are my agent, but I look to you also to be my business manager. Down the road if we need a public relations person, it will be as much your call as mine. If I create a syllabus and have a training program to license this material to others, I will want your input and advice on what would be the best deal.

We have been starving in the literary sense for so long that whatever is offered the tendency might be to jump. As I said before, I will not give up the copyright to either book. I've done that before, and lost. The residuals to CS/CT are where the money will be made, not on the initial printings.

(2) The timing of these books is right. The current major feature of Time magazine is on worrying about the wrong risks in which people consume their energy locked in the past (with nostalgia) or focused on the future (with trepidation). CS/CT are about what you can and should do right now (with gusto)!

Finally, I don't want publicity for publicity sake. I want to sell books. We both deserve that. We have treaded water long enough.

Be always well,
Jim

__________________________________________________