Ed Wallace:

Except during a short few golden years, it’s never been easy to sell cars. In that one all-too-brief period, after the Second World War, GIs flush with wartime salary savings and a public tired of driving antiquated cars from the 30s all flooded into dealerships at once, trying to buy the few vehicles available. For the most part, though, achieving greatness selling cars is not an easy career path. That’s a shame, because most people actually enjoy getting new cars; they just claim to hate the process – or so we are told.

In reality, over the past 30 years right at 85 percent of all new car buyers have said in surveys that their last car purchase was handled in either a “satisfactory” or “highly satisfactory” manner. Not surprisingly, most car salespeople say that they enjoy dealing with about 85 percent of their customers.

As for the dreaded negotiation, anyone who’s been selling cars for more than six months can tell you it’s typically the customer who usually starts the process. You may not realize it, but you open negotiations the moment you ask, “Is that the best you can do?”

Sarah Everts:

Lucky for Edna Murphey, people attending an exposition in Atlantic City during the summer of 1912 got hot and sweaty.

For two years, the high school student from Cincinnati had been trying unsuccessfully to promote an antiperspirant that her father, a surgeon, had invented to keep his hands sweat-free in the operating room.

Murphey had tried her dad’s liquid antiperspirant in her armpits, discovered that it thwarted wetness and smell, named the antiperspirant Odorono (Odor? Oh No!) and decided to start a company.

But business didn’t go well—initially—for this young entrepreneur. Borrowing $150 from her grandfather, she rented an office workshop but then had to move the operation to her parents’ basement because her team of door-to-door saleswomen didn’t pull in enough revenue. Murphey approached drugstore retailers who either refused to stock the product or who returned the bottles of Odorono back, unsold.

Johanna Kassel:

Sears, the department store, was one of the most prolific manufacturers. It sold more than 70,000 of its Modern Homes from 1908 to 1940, customised and delivered to a local rail depot in a boxcar or two. About 25,000 are estimated to remain today.

Models ranged from two-room cottages without indoor plumbing to the Magnolia, which had a dozen rooms including servants’ quarters. The cheapest sold for less than $1,000; the grandest for more than five times that amount.

Kit catalogues highlighted the labour and cost savings. A 1926 catalogue stated that a Sears home would save more than 230 man hours during construction and eliminate the need for an architect. Though it saved only about $125, that was enough to make home ownership achievable for many.

Jason Fried:

In 2005, I read a book called The Innovator’s Dilemma, by Clayton Christensen. It blew my mind, because it seemed to describe my business perfectly. 37signals had just released Basecamp, our Web-based project-management app. Aimed at small-business owners, Basecamp was designed to be affordable and easy to use. It did only a few things, but we made sure it did them well.

Our major competition at the time was Microsoft Project, which was expensive, complex, packed with features, and aimed at large organizations. It wasn’t particularly pleasant to use. I’ve yet to meet someone who is excited about Microsoft Project.

In The Innovator’s Dilemma, Christensen explains how successful companies with well-established products are constantly being threatened by newcomers. Winners, he argues, don’t lose when new rivals attack from the high end of market. They lose when start-ups attack from below. This, of course, was precisely what 37signals was trying to do to Microsoft. And it was working. Needless to say, I became a passionate fan.