Word: salesmanship
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Leahy would be the last man to discount the value of good salesmanship, but the real issue, he insists, is the quality of Airbus jets. He eagerly awaits the planned A3XX, a double-deck 550-seat mammoth with onboard sleeping areas, lounges, duty-free shops and exercise rooms, which will sell for up to $240 million apiece. "It will be a totally different way of flying," he says. Airbus will put the plane in service by 2005 if it can get the advance orders to justify the $12 billion development cost. So far, only a handful of airlines, mainly...
Then there's Airbus, long ridiculed by Boeing as a massive pork-barrel project for second-rate aircraft manufacturers. Last year the European consortium captured 55% of global-passenger jetliner sales, outflanking Boeing for the first, but probably not the last, time. Competitive prices and superior salesmanship are factors in the success of Airbus, but so is technology. Airbus beat Boeing to the market with computer-laden "fly-by-wire" technology, which, it says, enhances safety while lowering costs. The flying experience is so similar from model to model that Airbus-equipped airlines save millions of dollars in training costs...
...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 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...