The best advice I got as a young I.B.M. salesman came from a crusty old regional manager: "Make your numbers.
Before our acquisition by Google as a business, you have to go quarter to quarter to make your numbers.
She added, "Promises of what e-commerce will do are hard to swallow when you need to make your numbers next month".
"It was more important to make your numbers than to follow the rules," said Ms. Osiecki, who was based in Milwaukee and sold Aranesp.
"He believed in lean and mean," said Robert D. Fagan, who was with G.E. from 1976 to 1985, and is now chairman of Teco Energy in Tampa, Fla. "He'd insist that you make your numbers, but he'd let you decide how to do so".
"We don't think this is the time to make your numbers by retrenching, by cutting back or by being like a turtle crawling into its shell," said William J. Lovejoy, G.M.'s group vice president for vehicle sales, service and marketing.
Under no circumstances, he said (the very thought clearly evoking feelings of disgust), should the committee be chaired by "anyone from the public sector or a professor .Equally unmissable would be the class on "Making Your Numbers".
Make your numbers reasonable.
Second, make your numbers reasonable.
You certainly have to make your numbers.
