Rainmakers, Suckers, Idiots and Fools

Rainmakers. Suckers. Idiots and fools. All standard words used by The President of the company who paralleled himself to Jack Welch and General Electric after reading Welch's book. As a matter of fact, considering the great generals in history, Napoleon, Mussolini, and Hitler, his disrespectful demeanor to his troops that worked for him fit the mold. Yes, general electrified fits him well.

The man had a knack for capturing ideas, keeping them locked in his mental prison and then releasing them in meetings as though they were his own.

"I think I want to run a few full pages in Automotive News. It will build the brand. It will look good to the clients and manufacturers," he would profess, all the while not having an idea of brand building. He would read an article about another successful company and then switch his focus overnight, thinking if the other guy could be successful at it, so could he. General electric- the man- had been struggling with identity since we first met at the San Francisco restaurant show years before. He and his partner, the co-founder, were scoping out the restaurant industry. Fortunately for the restaurants of the world and the owner's who struggle to keep eateries growing general electrified chose the Automotive Industry to permeate with smoke, mirrors, SEO, SEM and the marketing expertise of a man who eight years before didn't know how to produce a press release.

That was a better time. Back then the company had fewer employees – nobody to make harassment charges- they had a smaller office on Market street- no empty cubicles depicting the failure of a 10,000 square foot office move, and no struggles with customer service and cancellations. You don't have cancellations if you don't have clients.

Yes, "start up" was General Electrified mantra of saving grace. And, it is the greatest mode ever created in business. But only in a fledgling Internet business can it be used as an excuse for product malfunction, inadequate service, and continual functionality failure.

However, the genius behind the endeavor, general electrified, and the man navigating the company through rocky waters had maintained throughout his continual failure of product that "eweryone has the same problem. Microsoft, Oracle, they all come to market late. This is new technology. Plus, car dealers are all morons. They don't know what's up," he would openly profess. What he failed to understand is that failing new technology gets old fast.

When I was summoned to General Electrified's office in 2003 I was surprised that he wanted to have a meeting. He said he wanted to redo my website for trade - I would do some marketing and public relations for his company and he in turn would redesign my website. Since our relationship had been casually friendly I opted for the deal and began to develop a marketing and public relations campaign.

What I didn't know was that he had burned through two other marketing guys because of his micro-management style before me. As a matter of fact his empployee burn rate is something his investors need peruse. Can all of these employees be that incompetent? If so, they should have different hiring criteria, if not they should have different General criteria.But that didn't matter to me; I was a consultant working for trade. How bad could his micromanagement style be?

Pretty bad is the only way to answer that question. In reviewing the 7968 emails I received (and never deleted) from the time I began work as a consultant until my departure, I realized that General electrified's frayed management style was peppered with harassment and brow beating. And, the victim here, was his co-founding partner, the restaurant equipment salesman who was used as the front man for a company that had little, if any, attachment to the United States in ways of business principles, strategies, or products. As the plot unfolds I was hired as a consultant to develop a smoke and mirror program to entice auto dealers to sign up for something that only a rainmaker could sell.

Tomorrow: How to plan a golf tournament and not invite your customers