Welcome to my third book review, this time courtesy of the kind people at Penguin books. There’s a nice theme developing in terms of personal development books that are a little different.  I’ve had the chance to read Never Make the First Offer by Donald Dell with John Boswell, the release of which coincides nicely with the US Open finals.

Donald Dell was one of the first agents for professional athletes. Think Michael Jordan, Andy Roddick, and past stars like Jimmy Connors and Arthur Ashe.  Dell cut unheard of deals for athletes during sports emerging professionalism, and pioneered sports marketing.

His ability to revolutionise sport was born from his ability to negotiate and make deals.

The cover photo tells a part of the story for the Yale graduate, US Open Tennis quarter finalist and dealmaker.  His book ‘Never Make the First Offer (Except When You Should) Wisdom from a Master Dealmaker‘ is a walk through Dell’s  life and his strategies used when negotiation.  There are lots of juicy anecdotes about sport in this half biography half personal development book.

Review

Dell’s love of tennis and his experience in the game really shines, and his direct first person voice is like a coach for the reader.  The book offers plenty of negotiation and dealmaking wisdom from Dell with most if not all advice highlighting a time when the  exact situation came up.  In the section “Recognising Your Leverage – Sell to their emotions”, Dell was approached by Lacoste who were interested in signing American Andy Roddick for sponsorship and promotion to help them break into the US market.  Dell recognised that Lacoste weren’t just interested – indeed, the Lacoste family said that signing Roddick would fulfill a dream to have an American on contract.  That dream was Dell’s leverage for negotiating.

The book does discuss concepts that are by no means revolutionary.  Indeed, at the start of the book, Dell mentions the best-selling self help book of all time: Dale Carnegie’s  How to Win Friends and Influence People.   Having read both (and many similar books) it’s clear that there a lot of similarities between the two.  Negotiations are a reflection of life: most of it comes down to being genuine, building trust and relationships,  respecting people, etc.  As Dell notes, people like to do business with friends.  It’s clear much of Dell’s energy is spent meeting people and getting to know them and earn their trust and friendship. It’s easy to see that if he was not genuine, Dell wouldn’t have lasted a minute.  It’s almost as if Dell is an exemplar sample of a person who has read Carnegie’s book.

So why buy this book?

There’s two answers to this question:

If you love tennis and professional sport and have an interest in business, well, you probably have it already!  You’ll love the references and insights to sports stars as well as the business-savvy displayed by Dell.  That’s one smaller market for the book.

The much larger target that Dell will be hoping to reach are people interested in personal development and self help and are not necessarily sports minded.  The reason why I think this book can appeal is the way it delivers the message.  Dell cites memorable examples and circumstances in the first person where he’s learned the tricks of the trade.  Importantly, Dell doesn’t hold back.  He calls out people from times when he’s dealt with people in love with their own voice, and is happy to spill information on the worst deals made.

Possibly the finest chapter in the book discusses never making the first deal with the important caveat being where you need to make an offer if you know you’re about to be low-balled.  Dell is insistent that receiving the first offer is fundamental in negotiating as it gives you all the information about the other party and their side of the deal.  The only time you need to make the first offer is when you’re about to be hit by something so far under your range that any negotiating from that starting point will be impossible.  Dell’s story about Michael Jordan is a great read.

Dell does have a tendency to continually mention great deals and bangs on about tennis a great deal, but you can’t blame him for that considering his interests.  Some points are a little give or take but the fundamentals are all there, and most are explained in sufficient detail.  As a sports lover I thoroughly enjoyed the book and it’s anecdotes.

TennisWeek.com conducted an interview with Dell to go along with the release of the book.  It’s well worth a read as the interview flows very well with the book.

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