E-Book Overview
It's not a question. It is a philosophy to live by. It's Donny Deutsch's motto. And it is the secret possessed by every person with the right stuff—the one-in-a-hundred who gets to the top of their team, their company, their business, their industry. If there is an assignment or a promotion up for grabs, a client or account looking for new answers, do you know how to go for it? Donny Deutsch built a billion-dollar media business asking himself the basic question, "Why Not Me?" Once the reader asks—and answers—that question, a world of opportunity opens up. It is a tool to motivate people, build a business, and create a business culture. Often Wrong, Never in Doubt is an inspirational book from one of America's most colorful and exciting entrepreneurs. It's Donny's story. In a fun conversation with the reader, Donny lays out the core principles that propelled him to create tremendous wealth, build a huge and influential business, and become a national personality. Using inside stories of the media, the advertising industry, and a youth spent growing up on the streets of New York, Donny gives the commonsense bottom line that he has learned along the way, broken down into real, relevant, and inspiring lessons that will be useful to everyone from the front-line salesperson to the middle manager to the successful corporate executive. (It's also a useful guide for dating.)
E-Book Content
Donny Deutsch with Peter Knobler Often Wrong, Never in Doubt Unleash the Business Rebel Within To my dad, who did the hard part. —D.D. For Daniel and Jane —P. K . Contents The Real World The Self-Entitlement Injection Theory 3 The Queens Logic Formula: How I Got This Way 8 How to Get in the Door When the Door’s Not Open 25 The “Don’t Know Him, Don’t Like Him” Syndrome 34 The A-to-Z–Culture Concept 37 The Touch Football Doctrine 43 The Failure-Dichotomy Principle 47 Zig Theory 66 The Hungry-Eye Hiring Theory 74 The Doctrine of Female Superiority 78 The Mutual-Win Management Formula 84 The Great Disappearing-Boss Doctrine 93 The Boss-Subordinate Role Model 98 Sometimes You Have to Be a Dickhead 102 The Ad World Selling in the New Millennium: The Brand-Ethos Model 109 The Corporate Homeland Security Theory 129 Analyzing Advertising’s Corporate Inferiority Complex 134 Solving the Creative-Commercial Equation 141 v Contents It All Comes Back to Babes 146 The Principle of Moral Responsibility and Just Plain Bad Ads 152 The Risk of Not Being Risky 162 The Wayne Newton School of Product Polarization 167 The Hip-Hop–Sprite Syndrome 171 The Business World Women Are Muses 179 The Client-First Formula 182 The Learned-Helplessness Principle 187 The Put-a-Stake-in-the-Ground Theory 189 The Power of Managing Up 191 The Great Motivator: A Good Firing 194 The Miles Drentell Doctrine, aka the CEO Electrochemical Equation 202 Your Own World Do! 207 The Power of Self-Branding 213 Why Hatred Is Good 218 The Multiple-Mountain Theory 222 The Charles Atlas School of Business Theory 226 The Big-Shadow Principle 231 Strength Sells 235 The Next World Got Rich, Let’s Go for Famous 243 Index 249 Acknowledgments About the Author Credits Cover Copyright About the Publisher The Real World The Self-Entitlement Injection Theory The key to success is not purely who’s the smartest, who’s the best, but also who can say with conviction, “I deserve it.” The entire concept is wrapped up in one phrase: Why not me? Why not me? You can’t just say it, you’ve got to own it. In order to pitch $10-million accounts, you’ve got to say, “We should be pitching.” Who’s going to get that $10-million account? Why not me? Why stop at $10 million? Or $100-million accounts? Why not me? Whenever I say those words to people, they laugh. They hear their own wheels turning, they realize h