The Most Persuasive Man Ever That You’ve Never Heard Of

This story originally appeared in my book club. Since I recently sold the company I launched at 19 years old — we did $5m in sales and raised $2.5m in VC- I’ve shifted my focus to reading a book a day. Join my book club now to see what a 26 year old with one exit under his belt is reading.

I’d never heard of Jerry Weintraub until I saw his steely eyes glaring at me from the Barnes and Noble bookshelf.

“Useful stories from a persuasive man” was the subheadline. I grabbed the book and read those 252 pages faster than any other 252 pages I’ve ever read.

Click here to grab the book for yourself.

Author Rich Cohen takes us through Jerry’s life ranging from getting the rights to take Elvis on tour for $1m when Jerry had $0 to his name, to producing Frank Sinatra’s famous “Main Event” at Madison Square Gardens, to discovering and launching, then divorcing from, the magical career of John Denver.

This book is a book on the art of perception, negotiation, creativity. Jerry was a master at saying whatever it takes to get big things done fast — only to figure out how to make those things actually happen after the fact.

Here are the 3 big lessons I took from Jerry’s life:

Lesson: The “Star of Ardaban” and Why Stories Always Sell

Jerry’s father was in the jewelry business where he bought and sold jems. One night, his father came home from a trip with a huge star sapphire but it was a piece of junk. He polished and cleaned it and then gave it a name.

“The Star of Ardaban”

Why give this name to a piece of nothing? Because people buy the story. The romance.

As his father visited each town, armed guards and a brinks truck would greet him to protect his “valuable collection”. Everyone would go to see the Star of Ardaban but Jerry’s father never sold it — it was too rare, too expensive. What his father did do was sell visitors everything else in his store as they drooled over the Star.

Today, the Star sits in the Smithsonian in DC.

Create stories today. Drive emotions in people around you. They’ll both make you rich and successful fast.

Lesson: You Can Have Elvis If You Come up With $1m in 24 Hours!

Jerry always wanted to take Elvis on the road but he had to get past Elvis manager, The Colonel. He kept getting shut down.

He called once a week for ages until eventually, about a year later, The Colonel called and said:

“Do you still want to take Elvis on tour?”

Jerry said yes.

“Well I’ll be at the roulette table at the Hilton International Hotel in Vegas tomorrow at nine AM. You meet me there with a check for a million dollars, and he’s yours”

“Deal!” (he had no idea how he was going to get $1m)

Jerry stayed up all night figuring out how to get $1m and ended up getting it from an old friend who really just loved Elvis.

Jerry handed The Colonel the check the next morning and the rest is history. Jerry had Elvis and a huge launch to his star studded career.

Stay persistent and trust that you’ll be able to make things happen when they need to happen.

Lesson: Firing Ferguson and The Art of Perception

Jerry discovered and built the career of John Denver until one day John threatened to fire Jerry after several weeks of a mis-managed tour.

John said “The hotels stink, the food is no good, and the venues are just awful, the sound systems are terrible too!”

Jerry begged Denver to give him 4 hours to fix the problem. When the two finally spoke again, Jerry said:

“Look, John. Before we eat, I want you to know I’ve taken care of the problem. Things will be different from here”.

John wanted to know how Jerry solved the problem and Jerry said: “I fired Ferguson”

“You fired Geruson? Who’s Ferguson?”

“There has been troubles with the hotels, the food, the venues, and the sound systems. Well Ferguson has been in charge of all of that. He’s been fired.”

John and Jerry continued working on happily.

Of course, there was no Ferguson.

Convincing people things will be better because of an action is more powerful than the actual action happening itself. Use perception to your advantage.

After reading this book, I had planned to cold email Jerry to meet him in LA only to learn that he just recently passed. Truly a sad loss.

If there was a modern day PT Barnum (not named Donald Trump), it would be Jerry. Click here to grab the book and read this master’s story.

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