Don't fool around with the folks at the bottom. They can't help you. Head for the top guy. You can't go wrong and you can't do better.
Trahey's Simple Rule
Would you hire you?
Never send your letters to the General Manager or to the Chairman of the Search Committee or to a title. That title has a human being wearing it. Find out who has it. Direct your letter to someone.
Go for an interview when you feel dead-ended. If someone calls you at 9:30 a.m. to set the time for your luncheon date and you want to say "Right now," it's time to get out your contact list and set up some interviews.
Never dump a good idea on the conference table. It will belong to the conference. If you must dish out ideas for your pay, at least write them down and sign them before you dish them. Yell "Thief, police, thief" when you see someone in the swipe process. Never, for a second, think that one human being will give you a credit line if he can take it himself.
It is better to give than to get. It is never easy to fire someone, but it's a lot easier than being fired. Do not equate being fired with failure. Many hard workers and good workers have been fired for reasons that have nothing to do with performance. It's psychologically important to you to find out the reason why you've been canned and to adjust it to your self-image.
Race, don't walk, when you see an opening you can fill. Wanting power is half the secret of getting it. The moment the job is yours move your tail into the office that held the power before. Move your secretary. Hold a party. Make it appallingly embarrassing to move you. You'll get to stay.
If a woman goes into business..."She usually doesn't have the kind of knowledge that a young man gets from his scout club, his football coach, his pastor, his brother, his father, his uncle, etc. We women go it alone most of the time and I was simply lucky as hell to have three brilliant men help me." Those men, incidentally, were Phillip Sills, a clothing manufacturer, Abraham Feinberg and Stanley Marcus, of Neiman-Marcus fame, who gave Jane her first big break in advertising.
How do you get a girl to start thinking about a career early? That's really where it has to begin. And it has to begin with her parents. We're all conditioned to the kind of life we're expected to live by the time we're 5.