Next on Best Seller's List --DeWese

I've decided to write another book. This book will have lots of pictures and maybe 16-point type. This way, slow readers, like me, can say they read a book and will have something to talk about at cocktail parties.

I have a title. It's a little long, but it covers the book's contents. It's going to be titled, "The Mañana Man's Guide to Cooking, Selling, Parallel Parking, Marriage and Happiness."

The literati, those erudite academic phonies who are my critics, will say, "What qualifies this idiot to write about cooking, selling, marriage and happiness?" They will assert that parallel parking is not even worthy of words. They'll whine that my topics are not related.

Hah! Boy will I prove them wrong. First of all, the topics are not only related, they are synonymous!

As to my qualifications, just ask the people who eat what I cook. I am Nureyev in a kitchen. I am pure grace as I multi-task to create multi-course meals. I was informally trained by my mother the late Jessamine Heinlin DeWese, my grandmother the late Jessie Clyde Heinlin, and my wife's grandmother the late Elizabeth Cobb Allen. Finally, the great chef and a protégé of James Beard, John Clancy of Four Seasons fame, formally trained me. Chef Clancy trained me during the three summers I cooked at the Christopher Ryder House on Cape Cod, where we fed about 600 to 700 well-heeled demanding diners every evening.

As my training progressed, I moved up from Vegetable Boy to Sauce Chef. Now, I'm an eclectic and intuitive cook. My repertoire knows no bounds—name it and I'll cook it for you.

Cooking and selling are the same. You can't cook or sell without self-confidence. You can't be a great cook or a great salesperson without selecting your own ingredients. I do all the grocery shopping because I want to see, touch and smell the vegetables and meat that I'm going to prepare. You have to be intimate with your ingredients, and great salespeople must be intimate with the customers they wish to serve.

Putting in Some Time

It's no good for a sales manager to say, "Here's a good prospect. Go after it." The salesperson must research the prospect and become convinced to develop a personal zeal for selling the new account.

That's just one of the common selling and cooking characteristics I'll cover in my book.

Selling and cooking, of course, segue right into parallel parking. I am one of America's top parallel parkers. I have never, mind you, ever failed to slide my vehicle into the tightest space on the first pass. Parallel parking similarly requires confidence, but it also requires the timing and spatial judgment that only comes from practice. It's the kind of judgment and confidence that accrues through practice; what enabled the Orlando Magic's Tracy McGrady and the New York Knicks' Allan Houston to fire nearly 40 percent from beyond the three-point line last season.

Unfortunately, many salespeople never practice asking for the order or making the first few remarks they must make to a prospect. They don't rehearse a few indirect questions they should use to cause the customer to open up about his or her printing needs. Customer conversations should be extemporaneous, but practiced. This will make them as relaxed and effortless as my smooth reverse into a tight spot with my new Cadillac about six inches from the curb.

Man oh man! I am crushing the critics. I'll bet they can't even parallel park their racing bikes.

I don't even need to say it. You know it already. Cooking, parking and selling are intimately linked to marriage. Unlike my critics, who I doubt are actually in a relationship—but in case they are involved, are probably in either marital or significant other counseling—I have been married to the same woman for 41 years, in a relationship that improves every day. I never needed counseling because I simply surrendered to her will immediately.

Rule One was, "Anne is always right." Rule Two, of course, is, "When in doubt, see Rule One." If you can't see how a successful marriage relates to selling, then you need a frontal lobotomy.

I will, of course, expand on this in my book. Some uncaring louts have said, "DeWese, you are the most whipped man in North America." They don't understand. In yielding control, you don't have to sweat all the small stuff like which bills to pay. It's left me free to make all the big decisions, like deciding on a column topic.

Finally, if you can cook, parallel park, sell and have a successful marriage, you will damn sure be happy. My happiness is rooted in my limited mental ability. Fundamentally, I'm too dumb to be anything but happy. This is true of my integrity. I don't lie because I could never remember my lies. My memory is so poor that I'd get the elements of the lie messed up. So I stick to the truth.

Brighten Your Mood

Salespeople need to be happy. Whiners and malcontents never make it in sales. They waste precious hours dwelling on their employers' weaknesses instead of investing time in search of new customers. It should go without saying that unhappy people are really unhappy with themselves.

Customers can spot unhappy salespeople in a heartbeat. The last thing they need is another unhappy person in their professional lives.

Everyone is unhappy occasionally. Something bad happens and a salesperson is unhappy, but it's directly related to some event like the dog ate my new Hawaiian shirt or your best friend took your pickup and left town with your wife—and you sure do miss the truck. That kind of unhappiness is transitory. Boom. It happens. You're unhappy. And it's over.

Fundamentally, day in and day out, I'm happy. I'm 61, fat, diabetic and ugly, and I wouldn't trade places with any 35-year-old, flat-belly hardbody. I wouldn't make the trade because they probably haven't had the rich life I've enjoyed, will enjoy for the rest of my days, and they can't cook, park or sell as well as I can.

I can't wait to get started on the recipes for selling, cooking, parking, marriage and happiness. I'll bet Oprah will endorse my book for her book club. Dr. Phil will probably make "The Mañana Man's Guide to Cooking, Selling, Parallel Parking, Marriage and Happiness" his textbook.

My critics will whine, snivel and marvel at the book's ascension on the New York Times' non-fiction best seller list.

I'm going to start practicing my signature for the book signings. While I work on that, I encourage you to get out there and sell something!

—Harris DeWese

About the Author

Harris DeWese is the author of Now Get Out There and Sell Something!, published by Nonpareil Books. He is a principal at Compass Capital Partners and is an author of the annual "Compass Report," the definitive source of information regarding printing industry M&A activity. DeWese specializes in investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, sales, marketing, planning and management services to printing companies. He can be reached via e-mail at hmdewese@aol.com.