Where Mr. Smith Lives

Understanding customer needs is not just a sales tactic; it’s a fundamental principle. It’s the difference between trying to sell people to gain something for oneself and meeting people’s needs. Satisfying a need might very well equal a sale. An old story illustrates...

It Only Takes One

Billy Graham preached a lot of crusades, none more important than the one he preached in Los Angeles when he was 31 years old. A few months earlier, Graham was emotionally crushed when a crusade in Altoona, Pennsylvania, had been a disaster. Billy even considered...

Don’t Do What You Don’t Do Well

One of the most critical decisions in television history and for my personal entertainment was made over 60 years ago. A young television writer and sometime actor for a popular TV variety series in the 1950s decided to write a situation comedy in which he would star....

A Successful Flop

I watched the high jump the other night on the Olympic TV coverage. I was amazed at how high the contestants could jump. They also all jumped using the same technique. When I was a boy, no one jumped that way. Let me explain. In high school, Dick Fosbury was tall,...

Focus

Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company and figured out how to make automobiles affordable. He once stated, “A weakness of all human beings is trying to do too many things at once. That scatters effort and destroys direction. It makes for haste, and haste makes...

Why Work?

A man died and woke up in the next world. He found himself in a beautiful place. He rested in that lovely spot, and then he grew bored. He called out, “Is anybody here?”  A servant dressed in white manifested himself and asked in a serious tone, “What do you wish?”...