One of the bright new lights of the local blogosphere is Melinda Jacobs, the socialite daughter of financier Irwin Jacobs. Yes, she is another elitist liberal in a town full of elitist liberals with a journalistic megaphone. But I must say its refreshing to see one who's earned her position the old fashioned way (by inheriting a fortune) instead of relying on a shadowy cabal of agenda pushing puppet masters to front her.
Plus I don't think we've ever had a local blogger able to deliver lines like this, at least with a straight face:
I just received this Holiday card from Quincy Jones, and it inspired me to reflect on the fun memories I have growing up knowing such an incredible man.
And this ....
Without having to go far, I ran into Ted Mondale, whose sister Eleanor is one of my closest friends, and who is also responsible for making downtown St. Louis Park look super-hip.
Wait a minute, I thought Chad the Elder was responsible for that. When he's spotted cruising the Hwy 7 strip for a nine piece McNuggets and a style job at Super Cuts, there's a celebrity buzz around town and it was that way long before Ted Mondale showed up.
But I don't want to quibble. I want to praise Melinda Jacobs for, among other things, giving us insights in to common problems that afflict us all, like this:
Every year I have the same dilemma: What do I get Carl Pohlad for Christmas?
He is the man who literally has everything. Including a $500 million gift from the taxpayer's of Hennepin County. Not bad for a guy who already happens to be a multi-billionaire. Just how does that happen, anyway? Ms. Jacobs give us some insight. Cue the Ghost of Christmas past to guide us through this flashback of how Carl honed his craft as a young man, selling cars:
As soon as a customer was even close to buying a car ... here is how Carl would seal the deal: He would tell the customer(s) that he had to run the offer by the owner. (What they didn't know was that HE was the owner.) So, he would excuse himself, telling the customer he would be back shortly, and he would go to a corner and talk to HIMSELF. Then he would return and tell the customer that HE really had to work over HIS boss and would probably take a loss on his commission, but if the price was a deal breaker, he was willing to forego his sales commission. Little did the customer know that even in those days Carl Pohlad had a brilliant poker face and was already in the green. :)
I love this story, because I just can't picture Mr. Pohlad selling cars. But as he told me... He was HIS number one car dealer, and repeat customers only wanted to work with Mr. Pohlad because HIS commission was not as important as HIS relationship with his customers!
The "I'm giving up my personal commission to make this sale" line is a scam? I'm stunned. Disappointed. Confused.
True story, when I was in 10th grade I went shopping for basketball shoes at the Maplewood Mall with a friend. Looking over the beautiful new Air Jordan models for that year had us salivating. The triple digit price immediately burned off the drool, it far exceeded the budget our parents had provided.
But the guy in the fake referee's shirt trying to sell them would go easily into that good night. He slightly lowered the price. But was rebuffed. He then took it down another incremental notch. And was again rebuffed. (He had no idea how steely a negotiator a man with no money can be.)
Then with a hang dog expression, and anguish in his voice, he announced he really wanted us to have these shoes and, although he shouldn't do it, he was willing to forgo his personal commission, and drop the price a little more, to make the sale. It was still about $30 more than we had, so we again had to decline. We left the store, feeling lousy for both ourselves and true empathy for that salesman who did all he could for us, yet we couldn't come through for him.
And that salesman in the fake referee's shirt was . . . . Carl Pohlad. And now you know the rest of the story.
Actually, no. It was some punk kid not much older than us. But a sales prodigy, using those manipulative tricks at such a young age on such low potential marks as us. I'm sure he moved onward and upward to a series of more lucrative sales gigs. And now he's probably fighting off a series of lawsuits, indictments, and personal bankruptcy over his antics in the subprime mortgage lending market.
Or maybe he's a billionaire. These techniques can work over a lifetime. At one time Carl Pohlad was using them to hustle used cards. And approximately 94 years later he was doing it to hustle a transfer of tax money to his personal bank account. Remember back in 1997, when he launched one of his early drives for a new stadium, we were offered this deal:
The sharpest blow to Pohlad's public standing grew from the 1997 stadium plan. Officials initially said Pohlad would contribute $80 million of his own money, but it turned out that he had offered a loan, not a grant.
Former Republican governor Arne Carlson, a Pohlad supporter, spent considerable political capital unsuccessfully fighting for a stadium. "That $80 million that was really part of the deal all of the sudden became a loan that collapsed everything and it also collapsed the credibility, and from that time on it's become almost an impossible subject to deal with," Carlson said. The Pohlads say the whole thing was a misunderstanding; they didn't intend to mislead anyone.
Even the successful ballpark deal that was passed a year ago was pushed by the Twins and his media mouthpieces with the understanding of how much the Pohlad family had sacrificed for this community by owning the Twins and that he doesn't want anything for himself, it's really for the people.
For a lifetime of running this gambit, and including the taxpayer's in the latest variation, if Melinda Jacobs is still looking for that perfect Christmas gift for Carl, I'd suggest something like this.
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