Businesses these days talk a lot about figuring out what the customer wants. Well, here’s your first lesson: the customer doesn’t know what he wants. This book is going to show you how to convince him he wants the thing you’re selling. Les Gold has been in business since age twelve, when he started selling used golf clubs from his dad’s basement. Now he owns Detroit’s biggest pawnshop, American Jewelry and Loan, and is the star of the hit reality TV show Hardcore Pawn. As a third-generation pawnbroker, Gold grew up in the business, dealing with customers who could be unruly and violent as often as they were friendly. He became good at selling just about anything and at buying items for what they were worth. Although he started at his family’s small pawnshop, he has now expanded into a fifty-thousand-square-foot former bowling alley, making a thousand deals a day. On any given day, he could be taking a vintage car in to pawn or chasing down a thief who’s just stolen a gold chain from the store. No business school in the world can teach you as much about buying, selling, negotiating, managing employees, dealing with customers, advertising, tracking trends, and predicting the economy’s ups and downs. In this entertaining, honest book, Gold takes you inside some of his weirdest, wackiest deals and steals. From the monkey his dad once took in to pawn to the deal Gold made for a stripper pole, he has no boundaries for what he considers to be part of his business?and neither should you. You will learn: How to tell an emotional story when you’re selling?and take emotion out of the transaction when you’re buying Why judging your customers before you know them can kill a potential deal How to deal with risk, both mental and physical How to communicate with employees (even if they’re your own kids) Why investing in relationships with your community is time well spent Why your business should never be limited by what others tell you it should be No place in the world prepares you better for the working world than a pawnshop, and Les Gold takes you inside his shop to share what he’s learned from fifty-five years in the most interesting job in the world.

Get Smarter is Schulich's original and informative attempt to impart lessons learned in a lifetime to today's youth by someone who has achieved success in both his personal and professional life. In short, stand-alone chapters he covers such universal issues as: Making decisions Choosing careers Handling business Dealing with adversity Managing relationships Investing lessons The objective (to paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes) is to stretch young people's minds with new ideas, age-old truths and insights such that they never return to their original dimensions. Readers of this book will derive considerable inspiration from the life and business lessons contained in it. Many business or life lesson books leave you with two or three main ideas. Seymour Schulich's hope is that each reader who invests in this book will leave with twenty to thirty ideas?and some that they can use to help transform or shape their lives. About The Author: Seymour Schulich, 67, is a Canadian self-made billionaire whose career has spanned stock brokerage, investment counseling, mining, and the oil industry. He is among Canada's greatest philanthropists, having donated in excess of $200 million. Over 650 scholarships are awarded annually to students in Schulich schools. He holds degrees in science (chemistry), an MBA and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). Derek Decloet, 33, is one of Canada's most respected business journalists. He is a widely read columnist for The Globe and Mail newspaper. He is married and lives in Toronto with his wife and son.