Peter
How Conrad Hilton Built His Empire
This is well worth the 45 minute minute time investment because Conrad Hilton not only built a great hotel empire but lost it all a number of times over the decades. He always bounced back when lesser men were crushed. You can read about him at his Wikipedia page.
Click to watch.
Marcus Lemonis’ Growth Strategy for Mr. Green Tea
This was a another good educational episode for aspiring Marcus Lemonis types. Rather than being distracted by the issues of highly dysfunctional owners, Marcus was able to immediately get down to business with Mr. Green Tea’s management. In the Planet Popcorn and LA Dogworks episodes the audience was tipped off early through editing that the owners were going to be difficult to work with if not downright impossible. With Jacob Maarse Florists, the owner’s last minute on camera reneging on the deal and outrageous denial that Marcus had sunk well over $150,000 into his business came as a shock. We all knew that Hank had an immature streak in him early on but no one was expecting such a shocker of an ending. Thankfully with Mr. Green Tea we could get back to more interesting business lessons.
So let’s apply Marcus’ three-part system for analyzing a business: People, Product, and Process.
Here’s a cynical look at how one can become a billionaire rather quickly in some parts of the world. The piece outlines four strategies.
It’s worth the read.
Brinkmanship: the art or practice of pushing a dangerous situation or confrontation to the limit of safety especially to force a desired outcome.
One of the stories that best exemplifies how tycoons can think differently is about Fred Smith realizing that FedEx had run out of cash and would have to stop flying. Co-founder, Roger Frock, tells the story this way in his history of the company Changing How The World Does Business. On page 101, Frock writes:
Marcus Walks Away Again
Well, this was another episode where our hero Marcus couldn’t get past the People component of his three-step fix-her-up methodology to work on Products and Process. However, it still offers up a valuable business and life lesson which I will get to shortly. But first I want to say that the episode brought back some memories for me. Back in the 1980s, right after completing my degree I moved into a third-floor apartment in an old four-story mansion that had been built in the Roaring 20s for railroad executives. The mansion was situated in the most exclusive neighborhood in the city so that in addition to being a fabulous place to live, it also offered tenants a prestige address.
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