Billionaire Salesman

“Ideas are precious and fragile things and it’s terribly important that we encourage them.”

Perhaps the most outstanding salesman this country has ever seen, H Ross Perot hardly needs an introduction. Outspoken, fiercely independent, charismatic, determined – these are but a few of the adjectives that describe this former IBM salesman who left the parent company that spurned his idea to revolutionize the installation and management of computer systems. He went on to found Electronic Data Systems which was bought by General Motors in 1984, making Perot the largest single stockholder in the giant GM, as well as the second wealthiest man in the country.

Perot scoffs at the money part and instead latches onto the responsibility that comes with greatness in any arena. Below are some of Perot’s thoughts on a variety of subjects. With characteristic candor and sharp wit, he pokes holes in pomposity and shares his deeply felt vision of America as a can-do country that must get up and get going again.

On job security:

Get up in the morning and look in the mirror. You’re your own job security.

On building a team:

I was dead interested in getting beyond talk and getting down to action. Now the first thing you’ve got to do in a company the size of General Motors, or in any company, is tap the full potential of the people. If the people are all divided up and fighting, you’re never going to do that. You’ve got to build a single unified team. In order to do that, you’ve got to build trust and respect right down on the factory floor. You’ve got to earn the loyalty of the people.

On Failures:

Failures are skinned knees – painful but superficial.

On entrepreneurial spirit vs. mega-management:

I don’t believe that treating people with dignity and respect, tapping their ideas, focusing all of the energy of an 800,000-person organization on one thing – making a great car – is entrepreneurial. I just think that’s plain good business.

On company philosophy:

The car capital of the world is Toyota City – not Detroit. The company philosophy is, “Every employee is a brother.” That’s what we have to have.

On his most recent struggle with GM’s board of directors:

You know there are a lot of ways to fight – you don’t always fight the same way – sometimes use bottles, sometimes use knives, other times just kick ’em in the shins.

On success:

A man is never more on trial than in a moment of excessive good fortune.

On Quotas:

There was a time when I identified with Thoreau’s line about the mass of men living lives of quiet desperation. I was working as an IBM salesman and they put a quota on the amount I could earn. (In the first nineteen days of 1962, Perot exceeded his entire year’s quota.)

On Perot’s ouster from GM’s board for $750,000,000:

This is not the end of the book, this is just another chapter, so stay tuned because it may get more interesting before it’s over.

On EDS’ beginnings:

Our biggest assets were our dreams.

On hometown expense accounts:

I haven’t sold anybody over lunch in my whole life. There’s nothing worse than driving home a point when a guy’s fiddling with his salad.

On the status quo:

If it doesn’t make sense, change it!

On activism:

An activist is the guy who cleans up the river, not the guy who concludes that it’s dirty.

On education:

Our education does not develop leadership. Our focus has got to be on the development of people, not gadgets.

On family:

If I could do one thing, I would try to construct a strong family unit for every family on the basis of love, understanding and encouragement.

On ideas:

Ideas are precious and fragile things and it’s terribly important that we encourage them.

On his public criticism of GM:

Until last summer, try to find anything I ever said that wasn’t very positive and very constructive. They never had a better salesman.

On who makes policy:

It’s kind of hard to forget 800,000 people. It’s awfully hard to forget those folks who work in the factories. We’ve got this crazy phenomenon all across big business in this country – every time we have a problem we want to blame the people on the factory floor. Now with a sports team, the people would laugh you off the field. If the team can’t win, you blame it on the coach.

On our society:

Our country is so big and complex that people turn the switches off. Apathy is our greatest national weakness.

On fundamentals:.

The most fundamental things don’t cost money. You don’t have to spend a billion dollars to start treating people with respect, you don’t have to spend a billion dollars to provide true leadership.