Many people think of Gates as a computer geek who made good because of his awesome techno-skills. But Gates is much more than a computer maven. The real roots of his success lie in his incredible dealmaking skills.

As pretty much everyone knows by now, Bill Gates did not invent the DOS operating system that launched Microsoft into the stratosphere. What he did do, however, was make the deal of the century when he negotiated the purchase of DOS (referred to at that time as “86-DOS”) — for a mere $50,000!

Funny how life works. I’ll bet you don’t even know the name of the guy who actually wrote the DOS program (for a now-defunct company called Seattle Computer Products). It was a twenty-two-year-old programmer by the name of Tim Paterson, and he accomplished the feat in — get this — four months.

Paterson got paid pocket change for his efforts, while Gates parlayed the acquisition of Paterson's creation into becoming the richest human being on the planet. I guess I could say that life isn’t fair — but if you’re over twenty-one years of age, you already know that.
Of course, Gates was just getting started. He then turned right around and set up a meeting with top execs at IBM. At that now-historic gathering, the IBM corporate types wore pin-striped business suits, while Gates showed up in a stained T-shirt. According to one observer who was at the meeting, he looked like a seventeen-year-old kid negotiating with grown men.
But underneath that nerdy-kid persona was a master dealmaker. Gates managed to negotiate the second deal of the century when he got the guys in the pin-striped suits to agree to install DOS in all of IBM’s PCs.
And he still wasn’t through. Perhaps an even more masterful dealmaking accomplishment was that Gates reserved the right for Microsoft to sell DOS to other companies. That one dealmaking coup (which, in dealmaking parlance, I like to refer to as a “throwaway bonus”) laid the foundation for Microsoft’s worldwide domination of the software business … and, to use a fitting cliché, the rest is history.

Robert Ringer has arguably helped more people transform their aspirations and goals into reality than perhaps any other author in history. For more than two decades, Ringer’s works have stood alone as the gospel when it comes to conveying worldly wisdom that translates into tangible results.

Ringer is the author of three #1 bestsellers, two of which have been listed by The New York Times among the 15 best-selling motivational books of all time. All of his books combined have been read by more than 10 million people worldwide.

Robert Ringer has appeared on numerous national talk shows, including The Tonight Show, Today, Good Morning America, The Montel Williams Show, ABC News Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show.

In addition, he has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, and The New York Times.

Have you ever been shafted out of a fee or your share of a deal?

Then read on ...

Dealmaking Empire Builders By Robert Ringer

If you look at the great entrepreneurs of our era — Kirk Kerkorian, Donald Trump, and Rupert Murdoch, to name but a few — the one thing they all have in common is that they are great dealmakers. All of them hire others to handle their day-to-day operations, while they work on identifying and closing lucrative deals.
And so it is with many individuals in a wide variety of occupations, people who have used their dealmaking prowess to build empires.

Wolfgang Puck is undoubtedly a great chef, but probably no better than thousands of other great chefs. From what I know of his rise to the top, it is clearly because he is a dealmaker supreme, who found a way — make that many ways — to transform himself from a gourmet chef into a culinary empire.

Ditto Howard Schultz, the man who built Starbucks into a global phenomenon. Start a chain of coffee shops? Are you kidding me? What a terrible idea. Nevertheless, in the face of declining coffee sales in the U.S., Schultz had the audacity to charge $3 for a cup of the world’s dullest and most common drink — and served it in a paper cup, to boot!

more at http://www.robertringer.com

• To maintain responsibility for the output of the project you'll need to plan ahead.

Prepare a timeline outlining all the tasks/projects on the left and the dates they need to be completed to the right. Also schedule in regular follow up dates to make a progress check. Later, you can fill in the person's name to whom the task has been assigned.

• When you meet for the first time with the person you have chosen, outline your project simply and ask for feedback on the project and the timeline. If you can, adjust your timeline to accommodate their input - this opens the door and moves you into the mode of collaboration and gains buy in from your helper.

• Build trust and strengthen your role as a manager by letting your helper know you will be following up on these dates ahead. Use positive language to support your team and let them know you are in this together. If appropriate, praise past accomplishments and link them to the present task.

• Plan to celebrate. Plan an opportunity for everyone to get together to share the stories of their personal success and tie it into the team’s success.

Last but not least, always have thank you/success note cards ready to let people know you appreciate their contributions.

Effective delegation is actually crucial for effective succession. For the successor, and for the manager too: the main task of a manager in a growing thriving organization is ultimately to develop a successor. When this happens everyone can move on to higher things. When it fails to happen the succession and progression becomes dependent on bringing in new people from outside.

Delegation can be used to develop your people and yourself - delegation is not just a management technique for freeing up the boss'

As a giver of delegated tasks you must ensure delegation happens properly. Just as significantly, as the recipient of delegated tasks you have the opportunity to 'manage upwards' and suggest improvements to the delegation process and understanding - especially if your boss could use the help.

Managing the way you receive and agree to do delegated tasks is one of the central skills of 'managing upwards'. Therefore while this page is essentially written from the manager's standpoint, the principles are just as useful for people being managed.

Robert Collier