summary the knack Personal MBA AM Sourcing

How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs
Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up

THE KNACK

(Bo Burlingham. Norm Brodsky/ Portfolio Hardcover
/October 2008 / 256pages / $25.95)

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THE KNACK
How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up
MAIN IDEA

Everyone wants to know the step-by-step formulas or the specific set of rules which
guarantee success in business. They don‟t exist.
Instead, there is a way of thinking which can be termed “the mindset of success”. When
you have that mindset in place:
• You become better equipped to deal with whatever situations and whatever
opportunities arise.
• You increase your chances of winning, which hopefully means you can stay in the
game longer.
• You end up doing the things and taking the steps which mean you win more than you
lose.
Instead of trying to find a fail-safe formula for success, focus on getting and then
maintaining the right mind-set. Once you develop these habits of mind, you can then
acquire the kind of life you want to live.
“I believe it‟s such mental habits that allow people to become successful entrepreneurs.
I myself have been an entrepreneur for three decades. I‟ve built more than eight
companies, including a messenger business that made the Inc. 500 list of
fastest-growing private companies for three straight years and a records storage
company that I sold for $110 million in a leveraged buyout. Along the way, I‟ve had the
privilege of meeting many other successful men and women company builders, and I‟ve
noticed that most of us share these mental habits. They are the secret of our success.”
– Norm Brodsky
About of Author
NORMBRODSKYis an Inc. magazine columnist along with Bo Burlingham. Mr. Brodsky
has launched seven successful businesses including Citi Storage which sold for $110
million. Another of his companies, Perfect Courier, was featured for three consecutive
years in Inc.‟s annual listing of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in America.
Mr. Brodsky is a graduate of Rider College and Brooklyn Law School. In addition to
writing, Mr. Brodsky is also active in making company acquisitions, starting new
businesses, mentoring and developing real estate.
BO BURLINGHAM co-writes Inc. magazine‟s Street Smarts column with Norm Brodsky.

He is also editor-at-large of Inc. magazine. Mr. Burlingham graduated from Princeton
University and is the author of several books including Small Giants, The Great Game of
Business and A Stake in the Outcome. In addition to his publishing career, Mr.
Burlingham has worked for Fidelity Investments and as a board member of The Body
Shop Inc.
The Web site for this book is at www.theknack.info.

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“You will never stop making mistakes. Hopefully, the new ones won‟t be the same as the
old ones, but they‟ll be equally painful. They‟ll bug you just as much. As upset as you get,
it‟s important to keep in mind failure is still the best teacher around.”
– Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham

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“It‟s good to have a lot of competitors because educating a market is a very expensive
proposition.”
– Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham

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“For people who want to start a business, there‟s nothing more mysterious than figuring
out how to raise money. I hear it from them all the time. A lot of these would-be

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entrepreneurs have good, solid business ideas they‟ve researched and tested, but – try
as they might – they can‟t find an investor. „What am I doing wrong?‟ They ask. „How will
I find someone like you?‟ They don‟t need someone like me. What they need is a batter
understanding of investors.”
– Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham

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“The first lesson of business: you can‟t do business with everybody. There are people in
this world who want more for their money than you can provide, and no amount of

negotiating will change their minds. There is only one word you can use to deal with
them, and you have to learn it, hard as it may be to say when the customer is standing in
front of you and the sale is on the line. That word is „no‟.”
– Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham

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“Winning is not just about closing the sale. You win when you close the sale and at the
same time lay the foundation for a good relationship that allows you to keep the
customer for a long, long time.”
– Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham
“Growing a business is much harder if you are constantly having to replace customers
you‟ve lost. Which would you prefer, after all – making fifty sales in a year and having a
100 percent customer retention rate, or making a hundred sales a year and having a 50
percent retention rate? I‟ll take the former any day of the week. Yes, you‟ll have more
sales during the year, and you‟ll wind up with the same number of customers at the end,
but, if you lose one account for every two you land, you‟ll spend twice as much time,
energy and money to get them as you would if you made half as many sales but were
able to hold on to all the customers you signed up.”
– Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham
“You need to find out in advance what it will take to keep the customer happy after
you‟ve closed the sale.”
– Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham

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“When I started my first business, I knew I wanted to have a great team, and I thought
assembling one was a fairly straightforward process. You just had to hire the right
people and then take care of them – pay them well, provide good benefits, offer various
perks, whatever. But like many ideas I had back then, that one proved to be an illusion.
For openers, I discovered it‟s very hard to tell in advance who the best people really are.
First-rate employees turn up unexpectedly. All you can do is to make your best guess in
hiring people and give them a chance to perform. Some will disappoint, and some will
exceed your expectations. Either way, it will be months or even years before you know
exactly who you have.”
– Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham

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