When you’re pushing the envelope, you’re looking to maximize your advantage. You’re looking for the edge… the angle…the window.

Webster’s? No. More authentic. Mackay. Those are the opening words of Harvey Mackay’s book Pushing the Envelope: All the Way to the Top. But they are also a definition they define the simplicity and the genius of Harvey Mackey.

In his fifth, and one of his best books, Harvey Mackay digs down to the roots of the sales, service, and entrepreneurial endeavor, and shows how to push the envelope and win at every turn.

I read a lot but a Mackay book is different. I read every word. His offhanded statements of business wisdom are brighter than those who preach business for a living. Mackay doesn’t preach it – he lives it and tells others of his experiences.

Pushing the Envelope goes beyond “how you do it” to “what I did and how you can implement it to succeed.” Big difference. That’s how Mackay has created winning books by making them real-world, and real easy to take action.

Let me tease you a little with the content. How about chapters like:

Now that it’s February, Happy New Year

How to close tomorrow’s sale today

If it’s a tie, you lose

Creativity killers

Falling up

The one week MBA

Let other people make you look smart

and 83 other envelope licking chapters with information that sticks.

Quotes? Oh yeah! from people like Dirty Harry, Troy Aikman, Warren Buffett, Ty Cobb, Clark Gable, Woody Allen, Muhammad Ali and a hundred others.

Content? A feast of meat and potatoes. Vital information about the intricacies of business, sales, and service, telephone, homework, bidding, deal making, getting a raise, getting fired up, questions, experts, idiots, unconventional wisdom, smart, stupid, chopped liver, fuzzy logic, creativity, losing, winning, failing, and succeeding. In a word: answers.

At the end of each chapter is a Mackey Moral. A “sum up” sentence that ties the message into a personal thought. An “ahha!” Here’s a few to ponder:

Good salespeople don’t just supply products. They are constantly looking for ways to help their customers improve their own products.

In negotiation, as in poker, a superior hand can be beaten by superior knowledge of your opposition.

Show me a good phone receptionist, I’ll show you a good company.

The best way to see around corners is to spend some time in the neighborhood.

Start your new year today.

Anyone can make a resolution. Very few can keep them.

Mackay has the incredible faculty to understand the root causes of actions necessary to win. And he can write about them with an articulation that has positioned him as America’s business expert of the twenty first century.

A wordsmith in every sense of the definition, he has the ability to grab you in chunks. Two page, understandable, digestible, implementable chapters. In short, a feast of words, served in bite-sized morsels.

Mackay makes you want to read the next, and the next not missing a word, an idea, or an action you can put into practice the minute you read it. In fact, I found myself underlining and nodding yes at every page.

Pushing the Envelope isn’t just a book to own, it’s a book to use.

Harvey Mackay is to business communication what Marshall McLuhan is to media communication. The last word and the best words.

Mackay offers his advice for all. But in the end, you’ll know which ones have heeded it. They’ll be the ones who have pushed the envelope all the way to the top. They’ll be the ones others refer to as “winners.”

“What will he do to top this one?” I ask myself. The answer is evident. Harvey Mackay pushes his own envelope.

 

FREE GitBit… More Mackay Morals and Maxims and expanded list of Harvey Mackay wisdom. Wisdom to help you succeed. Just go to www.gitomer.com click Access GitBit, register and enter the words, PUSH THE ENVELOPE in the Search box.