The one minute

The nameless protagonist of this slender motivational parable originally published in 1984 suffers from the existential predicament of the salesman: "the quiet fear of rejection" caused by the nagging suspicion that "the customer did not want to buy the product." From a succession of sales gurus he learns the One Minute secret-it's not selling, it's "helping people...to feel good about what they buy." Johnson, author of the business mega-seller Who Moved My Cheese?, offers practical suggestions ranging from sensible (treat customers like people, listen carefully to their needs, use after-sale calls to generate good will and referrals) to questionable (use one-minute positive-thinking rituals to visualize successful sales calls) to sort of depressing (paste sales goals beside your shaving mirror). The "eighty/twenty rule" is paramount: "Eighty percent of our results are produced by about twenty percent of what we do.".