The Mafia is the longest running corporation in history. It thrives along with other organizations during prosperous times and flourishes even more in periods of economic decline. Bear or bull makes no difference to the Mafia.
For all the well-deserved criticisms of the Mob's violence, its most successful members have always been remarkably astute businessmen -- they have applied their street smarts to legal enterprises and earned millions doing so. In fact, the Mafia is just like any other major organization in America, raking in billions a year in profit. But few people realize that every large crime family is comprised of many individual Mafia crews that are run just like small businesses.
My new book, Mob Rules: What the Mafia Can Teach the Legitimate Businessman, brings together all of the Mob's accrued wisdom and shrewd business practices so that small business owners everywhere can learn a thing or two from their counterparts in the underworld.
Here are 10 lessons small business owners can take from the Mafia:
Louis Ferrante: Former Mafia Associate Gives Lessons For Success In Legitimate Business (PHOTOS)
|
Post a Comment
Ron Russell, author of "Don Carina"
N.E.PA mobster built a mansion with a truck-sized garage. Drilled a hole down into the abandoned coal mine below. Won a contract to dispose of hazardous liquid waste. Had the tanker driver pour it into the mine every night...done! Slight problem--the mine leaks into the river. The city/county/state/fed has a problem that will last essentially forever as the vile stuff continues to ooze into the drinking water (the Susquehanna, to be precise, which empties into Chesapeake Bay).
Bad enough that the mining company did their thing in an unregulated environment, hazarding and killing generation after generation of underpaid miners and spewing crud and pollution in all directions until new safety laws made it unprofitable. The mobster knew he was breaking law after law, and did it anyway. An honest hazardous waste disposal contract would have cost the client far more, but would have obeyed the "niggling little regulatory details" and protected the entire watershed from disaster. Does the mafia show you the way to live your life?
Was the Pa. wiseguy convicted?....sentenced?
Was he appointed to head the Superfund under Bush?
Where is he now?
I am jumping subjects a bit but our politics suffers now from loss of contact with reality. If the Republicans and Democrats were gangs they would be the "gangs that couldn't shoot straight."
Wall Street and the political guys they bribe right now do not seem to be able to stay out of trouble and have no good counselors.
Real business people know how not to cross the line of criminal acts. If they do cross the line, a sane business person is not delusional. The delusional crime bosses ended up in jail or with a bullet in the head. The non-delusional bosses are doing just fine and we never heard of their names.
Goldman Sacs and Tim Geitner and Larry Summers are far too well known, they are flashy like John Gatti was and that was not good for business. It led to a sorry situation in the end for the Teflon Don. You know too big to fail!
An additional lesson: anyone can get caught.
incorporates by filing with the attorney general of every state
it does business in. Then it has all the rights and liabilities
of every citizen in that state. No less, no more. level
the field and restore justice. Then the suffix 'INCORPORATED.'
at the end of its title means something.
to defeat organized crime simply by making it legal. Looks like
my suspicions are confirmed.