Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive

HARVEY B. MACKAY

Reviewed by Jack

Harvey Mackay has always been a “can-do” guy. After college, Mackay took an entry-level job at a local envelope company and worked up into sales. Three years later, he bought a different small envelope company and turned it into a $100 million business. He now is a best-selling business book author who has sold over four million copies in thirty-five languages of this debut book. But his reach stretches past the sphere of his own personal accomplishments. He helped organize a campaign to keep the Minnesota Twins baseball team in Minneapolis, raised the money needed to build the Metrodome there, and has also raised money for cancer research for the University of Minnesota. There is much about Harvey Mackay to be inspired by, including this classic motivational book about how to handle yourself in business situations, surviving and thriving amid the “sharks” who are out to eat your lunch.

The original edition of this book was published in 1988, but the 2005 paperback has an “author’s note” in which Mackay talks about the changes that have taken place between these publications. In the updated version, he has added material on how to apply technology to save time and reach out to others more efficiently. The new material is proof positive that, like Mackay claims, “sharks change,” and staying up to date with all the assets that are available is key to your continued success. But the real meat in this book is the everlasting original content.

Swim with the Sharks is divided into four sections: sales, management, negotiations, and a final section called “Quickies.” With almost 90 chapters in this 250-page book, you will find succinct lessons that are easy to absorb. For example, Lesson 9 in the sales section, “Create Your Own Private Club,” was eye opening to me because I recognized that I have been on the receiving end of this lesson when visiting publishers in New York City. Mackay explains how you don’t need to have a fancy club membership to impress a client. He offers step-by-step instructions on how to call the best restaurant in town and know what to ask for so that when you walk in, you are greeted personally, and when the meal is complete, you just walk out, because everything is prepaid. End result? You’ve given your client the impression that you are a big shot and deserving of his business. Lesson 19, “Show Me a Guy Who Thinks He’s a Self-Made Man and I’ll Show You the Easiest Sell in the World,” is a concise chapter containing only this insight: “All you have to do is make him think it’s his idea.” Simple yet effective, with just the right amount of real-world boldness to know that Mackay means business.

Other examples of Mackay’s wisdom are counterintuitive. From the Management section comes Lesson 64, “The Acid Test for Hiring”: “Ask yourself, How would you feel having this same person working for your competition instead of for you?” From the same section is Lesson 44, “Your Best People May Spend Their Most Productive Time Staring at the Walls”: “If you discover one of your executives looking at the wall . . . instead of filling out a report, go over and congratulate him or her. . . . They’re thinking. It’s the hardest, most valuable task any person performs.” These are certainly obvious concepts—hiring good people and supporting a creative environment—but Mackay comes at these insights with an alternate perspective that enables us to internalize the lessons because they are so unexpected.

“I used to say that networking is the most underrated management skill. Now I believe it may be the most important management skill, bar none.”

In his final section, called “Quickies,” he includes an amusing story titled, “How to Get to Know a Celebrity.” When Mackay was set to meet Castro, he did a little research and found that Castro enjoyed bowling. Upon meeting the man, Mackay asked him how he kept in such good shape. Castro, who supposedly didn’t understand English, replied before the translator translated, “Bowling.” Mackay told Castro that he was a three-time bowling champion in college and . . . suddenly Castro and Mackay were communicating in English. Mackay believes that to connect with celebrities, you need to avoid the “fan syndrome” and instead talk to them about their interests.

There are books that break new ground and then there are books that show you a new way to think about the basics. Harvey Mackay has written a classic version of the second type of book, with the added imperative that your survival is on the line. The information offered here is truly timeless, presented with humor, and will be around to save many business lives for years to come. JC

Swim with the Sharks without Being Eaten Alive: Outsell, Outmanage, Outmotivate, and Outnegotiate Your Competition, Collins Business, Paperback 2005, ISBN 9780060742812

WHERE TO NEXT? Here for more irreverence Here for more quick quotes Here for another animal | EVEN MORE: Fish! by Stephen C. Lundin, Harry Paul, and John Christensen; Eating the Big Fish by Adam Morgan; It’s Not the Big That Eat the Small . . . It’s the Fast That Eat the Slow by Jason Jennings and Laurence Haughton; What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School by Mark H. McCormick