Robert Ringer is not a “touchy-feely” kind of guy. You either appreciate him or you don’t.
For some reason, I resisted reading his book, “Winning Through Intimidation,” for some time. Fortunately, I finally tackled it a few years ago and found just one of the many concepts he elaborates to be easily worth 1000 times the price of the book.
He calls this concept “the mutual attorney to attorney respect rule.”
And while attorneys are not most peoples’ favorite topic of conversation, his idea is not about needlessly enriching them but giving yourself the best chance to come out on top in any business transaction.
Ringer advocates no matter how trivial or “in the bag” a transaction my appear, always have your attorney by your side when the other side has theirs…or even when they don’t. Additionally, your attorney should always be the one who writes the contracts even if the other side is General Electric and the fee to draw it up makes you cringe.
The temptation for the small business owner is to acquiesce and save a couple of bucks on legal fees by letting the other side create the documents. But when the documents are yours, you not only avoid many hidden pitfalls, you are the one who sets the agenda.
“Winning Through Intimidation” is squarely on my list of favorite business books.
Turn back the clock 33 years and Robert Ringer was a fledgling self-publisher nobody had ever heard of. He faced the perennial question most people do at the start of their careers which is:
How to get going?
Here is one of the initial space ads he wrote which got the flywheel moving and shortly thereafter landed him on the bestseller list.
Ringer calls his adversing approach “perception preceding reality.”
I found his ad cliched and heavy handed yet brilliant.
It’s one of the best examples I’ve ever seen of a self-publisher making a rapid breakthrough via space advertising.
Here’s a large image of “What’s All the Commotion About?”
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