know he’s beaten, I thought. I dialed the number they had left me.
“Oh yes, Mr. Peebles, Mr. Jackson wants to speak to you right away.”
Jackson was in his car, on his cell, when they connected the call.
“I wanted to tell you that you’ve been a worthy opponent, you’ve done a good job here,” he told me. “And after I win tomorrow, hopefully we can sit down and work out a deal for the Shorecrest. And you’re welcome to be on my team. There’s room for everybody if you want to come on and join my team and bet with us.”
“Hey, thanks, Gene, for the call,” I said, thinking to myself, what an arrogant SOB. “And by the way,” I said, “if I should get lucky, if by some strange coincidence or happenstance I should win, you’re welcome to be on my team as well.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, OK, we’ll hook up tomorrow, after the vote. Let’s hook up and see if we can’t work out a deal on the Shorecrest.
“OK.”
I remember telling Katrina that this guy didn’t know what was actually happening; he was completely out of touch. And I realized at that moment a hugely important principle: The reason Jackson would lose, with everything going for him, was that he had entirely delegated the project. He had let his “Miami people” handle everything, including wooing the city commissioners. When we presented to the Miami Design Preservation League, for example, he didn’t show up, and I remember pointing that out to them.
“There is only one developer here, giving you the respect to come here personally,” I told them. “And that’s me.”
And I did that time and time again, when I would meet with community groups. I’d tell them that development is a business with problems that come up. Who’s going to be here to solve them? I’m here right now, I would say. Has anybody else come to you to ask for your support, other than through a subordinate? I was there, while they delegated.
This is a hugely important business lesson. There are certain things so important that you cannot delegate them. In a competitive environment, when you’re trying to get something from somebody, you’ve got to ask personally. That’s why you see the president of the United States going all over the country, to small towns, asking people for their vote. And that’s why I beat Jackson. He had lost even before the vote, and he didn’t know it.
Excerpted with permission of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons Inc., from The Peebles Principles: Tales and Tactics from an Entrepreneur’s Life of Winning Deals, Succeeding in Business, and Creating a Fortune from Scratch by Roy Donahue Peebles. Copyright © 2007 by Roy Donahue Peebles.
The Peebles Principles
1. Control the deal. When going into any major deal you need absolute control over some key element. Never negotiate a deal unless you are essential to it.
2. Make your money going in. The best risk to take in any deal is the early risk,