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November 4 - November 12, 2018
CAA’s goal was to have all the clients, and therefore all the conflicts; we used to say “No conflict, no interest.”
Nothing in Hollywood is anything until it’s something, and the only way to make it something is with a profound display of belief.
back-end participation—
palliating
He was the velvet glove; I was the iron fist.
I always told our agents, “Make your clients think they’re your friends—but remember that they’re not.”
we spent hours and hours discussing the game theory of how to play the networks against each other.
My pitch ran the risk of sounding fulsome: another salesman, full of blarney. But it’s only blarney if you can’t make it happen. If you can, then it’s the truth—and the truth is the supreme sales tool.
always tried to instill the negative in advance, inoculating my clients against the worst things our competitors and buyers would say about us.
propitiated.
always tried to plot out, at the beginning of any complex negotiations, the desired end point.
“It falls under no harm, no foul.
temporizing
La Scala, a Beverly Hills bistro that was the place to be seen,
I believed that nobody wants to be treated as just what they are. Everyone wants to feel encouraged to become even more than they are—
Never mind that the deal almost fell apart twenty times; deals always almost fall apart twenty times.
Sydney was Hamlet reincarnated—he never made a fast decision.
We even had a no-fly-by-day rule: if you flew to New York, you took the red-eye so you didn’t waste a workday in the air.
We worked insanely hard, but we fostered the illusion of working impossibly hard.
I believed momentum was everything—once a company relaxed, it was done for.
having complete information was the key to decision making.
I insisted that our agents have a reading list: one national newspaper, one international newsmagazine, and one special-interest magazine, such as Golf Digest. I had two hundred magazine subscriptions, and I’d skim the magazines as I was on the phone,
“That was a great lesson—how you made everyone feel comfortable and important, while you were learning everything you needed.”
weren’t high art—but they were artfully made
We weren’t in a creative medium; we were in a commercially creative medium.
I happen to hate clams. But if Paul Newman loved clams, then I loved clams.
“You know, I’ve been a movie star for a long time. And no matter how hard I try to tell myself I’m just a normal person, I keep hearing how wonderful I am. It gets to the point that you start to think you’re something you aren’t.”
I preached, “No conflict, no interest”—
Switchboard calls were the networks’ way of measuring heat in the mideighties, an early version of Twitter followers.
inexorable.
Creating a zone of calm, in a chronically overexcited world, proved disarming.
I took to having one or two assistants study the guilds’ mug shots and shadow me, warning me sotto voce when they spotted a relevant face. Even then I feared I’d blow it. I had a huge zone of protection around me—five assistants—and it never felt like enough.
Like all the great ones, Jay was a gifted manipulator.
AS CAA GREW, Ron and Bill and I were the unquestioned rainmakers. We generated 90 percent of the agency’s business.
Limited income + heavy servicing = bad deal.
I often had to offer more than I could deliver in order to be able to eventually deliver what I had offered.
In one of his essays, Michael wrote: If you want to be happy, forget yourself. Forget all of it—how you look, how you feel, how your career is going. Just drop the whole subject of you.… People dedicated to something other than themselves—helping family and friends, or a political cause, or others less fortunate than they—are the happiest people in the world.
Nemawashi, The Japanese style of bottom-up consensus.
former vice president Walter Mondale remarked about the future, “What are our kids supposed to do? Sweep up around the Japanese computers?”
It took many months to gain the trust of the Japanese. They did not rush decisions. Courtesy trumped candor; yes usually meant no, and no often meant yes. More than once I ran into Americans back from Tokyo who exclaimed, “I had the best meeting ever and we’re going to close!” I told them to get back to me in a year. A year later they’d ruefully call to report that their deal was still pending.
Sony’s bureaucracy was like the House of Borgia.
But working with Sony had taught me how slowly deals moved in Japan, and how they didn’t move at all until you established relationships.
“Everyone you’ve met with is in the business of selling assets. But I’m in the business of building assets, and I think you are, too.”
I called Don and Roberto and said I had something, “and you’re either going to love it or hate it. My guess is you’ll love it, but it’s high risk, high reward.” Inoculation, pure and simple.
Don’t cross your legs and don’t show the soles of your feet; it’s disrespectful.
Never take your jacket off in a meeting without asking everyone else if they want to take off their jackets, too. Never ask about the other person’s health—that’s strictly private.
