Birth of a Salesman by Walter A. Friedman
Clearing the Hurdles by Candida Brush, Nancy M. Carter, Elizabeth Gatewood, Patricia G. Greene, and Myra M. Hart
Just Enough by Laura Nash and Howard Stevenson
The Watson Dynasty by Richard S. Tedlow

Birth of a Salesman
by Walter A. Friedman (Harvard University Press)

Walter Friedman’s Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America documents the history of salesmanship, from the days of peddlers to the creation of modern sales forces at companies like National Cash Register (NCR), Fuller Brush, and General Motors. What a farmer-turned-salesman termed a “mean caling” [sic] in 1810 today is a respectable profession that employs roughly 12 percent of the U.S. workforce. Relying heavily on material from salesmen’s diaries and journal entries, sales ledgers, trade journals, and company archives, Friedman shows how the “consumption-based economy of the early 20th century originated in the face-to-face selling strategies of peddlers and book canvassers of the previous generation.”

The book begins in the early 1800s with a look at the hardships of the first New England peddlers who left the backbreaking drudgery of farm life to try to make a living selling buttons, combs, and other sundry items to suspicious and penny-pinching rural homesteaders. From these humble origins, Friedman traces a series of transitions that imposed ever-greater organization and professionalism on sales activities. Independent peddlers gave way in the postCivil War era to commission-based canvassers hired and trained by manufacturers to sell agricultural products and books by Mark Twain and Ulysses S. Grant, for instance. “Drummers,” who acted as the middlemen between manufacturers and wholesalers in the mid-19th century, dwindled in number by century’s end, as mail-order companies such as Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward gained ground and manufacturers began to sell their own distinctive brands and develop their own distribution networks.

Birth of a Salesman includes a look at the early sales strategies that led to the rise and dominance of corporate icons such as Heinz, Coca-Cola, General Motors, NCR, and Procter & Gamble. Chapters on the 20th century consider how mass production, mass media, and technology have influenced the way goods are marketed and sold.

Friedman, who is coeditor of the Business History Review at HBS, also documents the development of scholarship devoted to marketing, consumer behavior, and industrial psychology, academic disciplines that have helped to spread American-style capitalism into every corner of the globe.

— Deborah E. Blagg

Clearing the Hurdles
by Candida Brush, Nancy M. Carter, Elizabeth Gatewood, Patricia G. Greene, and Myra M. Hart (Financial Times Prentice Hall)

Every day, women in the United States launch more than 450 new businesses. They employ more people than the Fortune 500 and contribute over $2.3 trillion to the U.S. economy annually. There is power in these numbers, but the truth is that women-led enterprises grow more slowly and remain much smaller than those created by men. In 2000, for instance, American firms owned by women averaged $2.4 million in sales, compared with an average of $12.3 million for all privately held firms.

HBS professor Myra Hart and four women colleagues from other universities — all noted authorities on entrepreneurial growth — began a collaborative research project in 1998 to tease out the underlying reasons for the disparity in enterprise size and growth rate. Clearing the Hurdles: Women Building High-Growth Businesses identifies several unique challenges that women entrepreneurs encounter as they develop new businesses. The authors focus on factors that influence female entrepreneurs’ choices of business and industry — personal motivation, commitment, education, experience, social conditioning, and cultural stereotypes. They point out that the choices women entrepreneurs make often cause investors to classify their ventures as undesirable investments.

The book includes chapters on the human capital component, financial savvy and risk propensity in women, the effects of strategic choice of business concept and industry sector, and the influence of networks and social capital on accessing human and financial capital. It also provides an in-depth analysis of the venture capital industry and raises questions about why women have so much difficulty getting their business plans into the right hands. It concludes with specific recommendations for overcoming each of the hurdles that stand between a young start-up and a vibrant and successful large enterprise.

Although aimed at women entrepreneurs, Clearing the Hurdles provides a thorough examination of the entrepreneurial process — including concept development, business planning, strategy, resource acquisition, and organizational growth — and offers useful insights for anyone who wants to grow a business.

As the authors note, the basic challenges men and women encounter as entrepreneurs are similar. It’s just that for women to succeed, they often must learn “to run a little faster, jump a tad higher, and, like Ginger Rogers dancing with Fred Astaire, do it while wearing high heels and moving backwards.”

— Deborah E. Blagg

Just Enough
by Laura Nash and Howard Stevenson (John Wiley & Sons)

“Who wants to be a millionaire when billionaire is the new standard?” In the course of research for their book, Just Enough: Tools for Creating Success in Your Work and Life, authors Laura Nash and Howard Stevenson came to view such observations as evidence that popular notions of success have become pegged to unrealistic and ultimately self-defeating goals.

Transformed by the excesses of the 1990s, “the idea of success seems to have wandered far afield into an expectation of limitless expansion,” Nash and Stevenson write. “As the ante gets higher, our experience of success has been impoverished.”

To counteract the sensation that “nothing is ever enough,” business ethicist Nash, a senior research fellow at HBS, and Stevenson, an entrepreneurship expert and HBS professor, offer a practical framework designed to help readers define and achieve success in terms that are personally meaningful and enduring. Their research, based on over 300 hours of interviews, suggests that there are four basic elements in a successful life: happiness (feelings of pleasure or contentment); achievement (accomplishments that compare favorably against similar goals others have strived for); significance (the sense that you’ve made a positive impact on people you care about); and legacy (a way to establish your values or accomplishments so as to help others find future success).

Since pursuing one of these goals at the expense of the others creates an imbalance, the most successful people in Nash and Stevenson’s study proved to be those who were able to shift their time and energy from one category to another, in much the same way that one shifts from one image to another when looking through a kaleidoscope. The key to doing so is the ability to define “enough” and then employ it to pursue accomplishments in all four success categories. The authors guide readers through a step-by-step process for developing a “personal kaleidoscope” that will enable them to assess their own strengths, values, ambitions, and emotions more accurately and to recognize and enjoy success when they achieve it.

Nash and Stevenson believe the message behind Just Enough is particularly timely as fast-trackers rethink their priorities in the sobering aftermath of 9/11, ongoing corporate scandals, and the high-tech boom and bust. “It’s about wanting to build something of lasting value in a world where the ground shifts daily,” they write. “It’s about wanting to make the most of your life.”

— Deborah E. Blagg

The Watson Dynasty
by Richard S. Tedlow (HarperCollins)

Love, money, and power make a potent brew, as evidenced by HBS professor Richard Tedlow’s new book, The Watson Dynasty: The Fiery Reign and Troubled Legacy of IBM’s Founding Father and Son.

IBM was built by Thomas J. Watson Sr. in the face of monumental obstacles. Considered one of the greatest salesmen of all time, Watson joined IBM in 1914 and led the company for four decades. His eldest son, Tom Jr., was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps despite a mediocre academic record and a deserved reputation as a playboy.

Tedlow digs deeply into the Watson family personalities, showcasing the emotions within the relationships as well as their impact on the firm. Both Watsons had clear visions of what their company could become. The achievement of their visions was sometimes hindered by their volcanic tempers.

During the decade after World War II when the Watsons ran the company at the same time (“It could hardly be said they were working as a team, running the firm together,” writes Tedlow), “the impact of both their strengths and shortcomings was evident.” Executives were often forced to choose between father and son. Both Watsons were “capable of great and disinterested kindness.” However, both could be quite cruel as well.

When Tom Jr. finally had the company to himself after his father handed over the reins shortly before his death, he had to compete with his father’s legacy. His solution was the IBM System/360, one of the great new product introductions in business history.

When IBM began to decline in the late 1980s, a decade and a half after Tom Jr. had left the company, many people thought its chances for survival were slim. The skeptics were proved wrong. “The Watsons had built IBM to last,” explains Tedlow. (The company earned $7.6 billion in 2003.) In The Watson Dynasty, Tedlow shows in vivid colors the impact that emotion, rather than solely rational calculation, can have on business leadership.

Post a Comment