I am not a natural at sales. I don’t like to push and I don’t like rejection, two traits certainly disqualifying someone as a salesperson! One of my students told me it is the reason Goodman Wave Theory isn’t as well known as Elliott Wave Theory. I dunno. Fortunately, beginning in the 1970s brokers began to think more and more of promoting professional money managers instead of trying to hustle accounts and also trade them successfully. I had several great brokers, such as Eugene Hartnagle, promoting my services.
But, sometimes, even a blind squirrel gathers a few acorns.
Lesson One: Knowledge Outside Your Specialty Pays
I was in Chicago to present at a conference on Artificial Intelligence at the University of Chicago. I had taken a room at the Ritz-Carlton and was a member of the Carlton Club, which offered several extra amenities. One afternoon I was sipping a Sandeman 1977 port at the Club bar. A Japanese gentleman took the seat next to me. He had a duffel bag over his shoulder but otherwise was dressed very well.
I happened to look over and saw a book in Japanese sticking out of the bag. There was a photograph of the author on the cover and he looked familiar. It was Kaku Takagawa, one of the greats of the game of Go! I knew he had only written two books, How to Play Go for beginners and a series of advanced articles, Vital Points of Go.
I couldn’t resist. I made eye contact and proclaimed, “Kaku Takagawa!” Big smile and affirmative nod! I had no idea if he spoke English. Well, he did, and we had a nice conversation about things Go and shared information on our respective businesses. He was an engineer for a Sony subsidiary. We bought each other drinks and exchanged contact information. He soon opened a $50,000 account with me. “If you know Go you must be a good trader!” (I am glad he didn’t ask me to play a game. I learned Go in college and was at best single-digit Kyu, and he was studying Vital Points.)
Lesson: You never know when a bit of knowledge is going to come in handy. General knowledge and education beyond one’s specialty can be a very good thing. Will someone please explain this to my grandson.
Lesson Two: Even Very Rich People Can Be Good Company
Circa 1986 I had one of those old telephone answering machines. One morning I went down to my home office in the basement, saw I had messages and played them back. The first one came from a gentleman calling from Switzerland. He wished to open an account with me and asked me to call soon. He opened for $100,000, my biggest account at that time.
My wife and I flew to Zurich soon thereafter and met him and his wife at their home in Gstaad. My wife shopped with his wife while he and I became better acquainted. He was the heir to a family fortune built on a beer business in Greece that had lasted for many decades. The basement of his chalet was like a mini Jay Leno’s garage! My wife later reported, “I’ve never seen anyone shop like that! She spent more money in two hours than I spend in a year.” We rendezvoused again later in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he had relatives, and we chummed a bit.
He was a charming, humble “regular” guy with bundles of energy, optimism and good will. I enjoyed spending time with him.
Lesson: Even very rich people can be good company. Alas, most of the very rich I’ve met would proudly proclaim, “I got where I am because I am smart and I worked hard!” Well, no. To paraphrase something attributed to General de Gaulle, the graveyards are full of men and women who were smart and worked hard and never got to first base in life. It requires a big dollop of luck, happenstance, and leveraging the free wealth left by those who came before.
Lesson Three: Be Nice to Everyone
I was sitting in my Denver office one morning when my secretary came in and announced, “There is a person here who wants to learn about commodity trading.” Ugh, someone off the street with no business in commodity futures.
I shrugged and told Cindy to show him in. He was middle-aged, wearing jeans, a wrinkled white shirt and a tattered old blue blazer. He had long grey hair in a ponytail. His sneakers were white at one time. I told him to take a seat at my small conference table. I pulled out some charts and spent 30 minutes or so giving him basic information, with no attempt at sales. It would have been a waste of time. He was quite polite and did ask good questions. He thanked me and left.
About an hour later one of my brokers called. “Hey, I sent a prospect over but forgot to tell you, sorry. Did he show up there?” I explained that a fellow with a name like Waddy had come by but probably not the referral. “That was him! I hope you were nice to him. That was the grandson of a famed economist and Goldman Sachs partner. He owns a ton of land down in Aspen.” I mentioned he had asked some good questions. “Sure, he graduated from Harvard!”
I did get an account from him, although not a large one.
Lesson: “Don’t judge a book by its cover!” Or, better: “Be nice to everyone!”
Good Trading!
Michael Duane Archer
Related Reading
- My Pal, Afu: A Hawaii Union Meeting and a Samoan Cocktail
- Commodity Futures Shoot-Out: Why Reward Without Risk Fails
- Goodmanisms: Charlie Goodman’s Sayings on Trading, Explained
Keep Learning the Goodman Way
If this article was useful, these are the next steps:
- The Method: propagation, intersection and the 3-C Principle, drawn plate by plate.
- The Goodman Library: the books, from Goodman for Grasshoppers to The Goodman 6 & 6.
- The Trader’s Playbook: the Molokai setup in one printed, numbered volume.
- Mentoring: work one-on-one with the authors.