SAP CEO McDermott on his terrifying accident, and how he honed his business skills at 11 years old

by Dramelin 2:00 AM 0 comments

“What the little one has to do is figure out what the big one either is structurally unable to do because the rule book says you can`t, or they`re unwilling to do because they don`t have that entrepreneurial spirit.
” “I always wanted to be somebody.
Starting out young and having lots of little jobs, whether it`s working for the town delivering papers, pumping gas, working in an Italian restaurant, pushing shopping carts at Finast Supermarket.
I just always had the desire to work.
I loved work.
And I loved improving my status and being in control of my own destiny.
And I always had that spark,” he said.
The jobs he had as a teenager set the stage for the rest of his life as a highly successful salesperson.
Aged 11 he had a newspaper route and more than doubled his customers by delivering the papers exactly how people wanted them.
“Most people asked for it in the mailbox, but older folks preferred it between the screen and the door,” he wrote in his 2014 autobiography “Winners Dream, A Journey from Corner Store to Corner Office”.
At 15, he got a better-paying job at a supermarket.
After waiting in line for an hour to apply, he spotted the manager Jack Kelly, and went right up to him, shaking his hand and saying: “I just want you to know that I waited in line for the last hour to submit my application because I really want to work here,” he wrote.
He got paid around $2.
30 an hour, and took on extra jobs as a handyman and as a waiter at a fancy Italian restaurant.
Aged 16, he bought the Amityville Country Delicatessen in Long Island for $7,000, getting his first orders on credit and putting in video games to beat off competition from the 7-Eleven down the street, which only let high school kids in four at a time.
He won out because he gave customers what they wanted, and the business was successful enough to pay for his college education.
“What the little one has to do is figure out what the big one either is structurally unable to do because the rule book says you can`t, or they`re unwilling to do because they don`t have that entrepreneurial spirit,” he told “The Brave Ones”.