Pinned

Michael Dell and Sam Zell's Shared Strategy

I’m making my way through Direct from Dell: Strategies That Revolutionized an Industry, Michael Dell’s autobiography. He’s the founder of Dell and, according to Forbes, worth about $115 billion as of this writing. A big part of Dell’s successful direct-sales model was understanding customer needs deeply and offering appropriate solutions.

Michael said he spent roughly 40% of his time with customers at the time this book was published, even though he was the CEO. How he did that caught my attention. “By spending time with your customers where they do business,” Michael wrote, “you can learn more than by bringing them to where you do business. You can experience the issues and challenges they encounter in their daily lives, and better understand how your product ultimately affects the ways in which they serve their customers.”

This passage gave me pause because it wasn’t the first time I’d heard this. Sam Zell was a prolific entrepreneur and real estate investor. In his book Am I Being Too Subtle? Sam shared a story about learning the value of observing people in their own environments. Because of this lesson, Sam didn’t have people meet him at his office. Instead, he spent over a thousand hours a year on his plane, traveling the world to meet people. He wanted to see them in their environments so he could learn more about them.

Sam, like Michael, was wealthy. He was worth billions when he passed in 2023. People would gladly come to see either of these guys in their office. But both insisted on leaving the office to go see people because observing someone in their home or workplace is an immense learning opportunity. The better you understand someone, the easier it is for you to add value and have a positive relationship with them.

When two credible and unrelated people say the same thing, I take note. The lesson is clear. Get out of your office and go see people—especially your customers—in their offices.

Connected Books
Am I Being Too Subtle?

July 2024

Sam Zell's masterclass on entrepreneurship and investing. His unfiltered thoughts on his contrarian investment philosophy and his unique approach to business and life. Sam shares frameworks for understanding real estate, supply and demand, and market cycles.
A billionaire's thinking on real estate and dealmaking. Insights on market cycles and supply/demand imbalances were great. Read 2017 hardcover.
Direct from Dell

February 2025

Autobiography from Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computer. Details how he bootstrapped the company and how his early strategies propelled Dell to over $12 billion in annual revenue in just 14 years.
Read 1999 hardcover