1. The power of competition

Whenever you create competition for something you possess—in the Sears example, money—what you have moves up in value. Obviously, the more people who want your money, the further your money will go.

This applies not only to products or services, if you’re a seller—and to money, if you’re a consumer—but also to something as abstract as an idea. Suppose I’m your immediate supervisor at work, and you rush into my office and say, “Herb! I have a marvelous idea … a new concept that’s really something!” If I then ask you, “Have you discussed it with anyone else?” and you reply, “Yes, a number of other supervisors, but they don’t think it’s worth very much,” does that enhance the value of your idea in my eyes? No. Your idea is devalued because there’s no competition for it.

But if in response to my question you reply, “Yes … I talked it over with others at your level, and they said they’d like to hear more, because it sounds terrific!” my reaction will be, “Close the door, sit down, and tell me all about it!” because through creating competition, you’ve made your idea valuable and desirable.

Continuing with the power of competition, is it easier to get a job when you already have one or when you don’t? Of course, the answer is that it’s easier to get a job when you already have one.

Consider this scenario: You apply for a position. For some reason, you’ve been unemployed for twelve months. I examine your qualifications and then politely ask, “What have you done, in the past year, to keep yourself challenged?”

You clear your throat and say, “Not very much.” You tell me you’ve been a domestic engineer … or a consultant.

I reply, “Thanks—I’ll get back to you.”

Your anxiety now causes you to lose your cool. You blurt, “But, when? Could you give me a date?”

I detect that you’re under stress because you lack options. I’m thinking, “How good can this person be, if no one else wants him?” I smile woodenly and answer your query with: “Our office will correspond with you in the near future.”

You lick your lower lip and whisper, “But when?”

I try to make my smile less wooden as I think, “What difference does it make? You aren’t going anywhere!”

Cross-fade to another scenario. You need a loan. You’re concerned because, as an “average person” in today’s economy, you know that you aren’t the only one short of cash.

Have banks pounded on your door, offering you their services? No.

Finally, after much footdragging, you whip up enough courage to enter the local financial institution. Is it a good policy to hesitatingly approach the bank’s lending officer on bended knee and say, in effect, “Please help me. I’m destitute. Save my family from the horrors of bankruptcy. I have no collateral, and probably can’t repay what you lend me, but you’ll be rewarded in the next world for your generosity”? That is not an approach that works.

Here’s the approach to use: If you’re a man, put on a gray, three-piece bank-loan suit. If you’re a woman, put on a conservative-looking dress suit. Wear an expensive gold watch and a Phi Beta Kappa key if you can borrow one. Have three of your friends—your entourage—outfit themselves the same way. Walk through the bank, exuding vibrations that say, “Hi there! I’m a top executive striding through the bank. Keep away from me with your lousy money … I don’t need it. I’m on my way to mail a letter!” Do that, and the lending officer will follow you out of the bank and breathlessly trail you halfway home.

Incidentally, what I’ve just described is what I call The Bert Lance Theory of Money Acquisition. Remember Lance? He served as President Jimmy Carter’s federal budget director. By using the “Keep away from me with your lousy money” ploy, he was granted 381 loans by 41 banks: loans totaling more than twenty million dollars. Twenty million dollars! Why did banks compete with each other to lend huge sums of money to Lance? For three reasons:

1. Because other banks were lending him money, which for all practical purposes meant his credit was first-rate.
2. Because banks thought he didn’t need the money. That was their perception, based on the fact that he acted blasé. He seemingly hadn’t a care in the world. Lance’s attitude was that he was doing banks a favor by giving them the opportunity to lend him money.
3. Most important, because he obviously had options—which he milked for all they were worth. His options were that he could borrow from any bank he wanted to, picking and choosing as he saw fit. This put banks in dog-eat-dog competition with each other to push money into his hands.

When the same banks learned that Lance desperately needed these loans to pay back other loans, his sources dried up.

My point is that Bert Lance perceived that he had options and capitalized on them. He cashed in on the competition he created. You should do the same whenever possible. Above all, never enter a negotiation without options. If you do, the other side will treat you lightly, as in the needing-a-job and the selling-an-idea examples I just gave you.