Recommended reading: Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good by Paul Newman and A.E. Hotchner.

Newsletter and specialized information publishers are constantly being told to rethink the ways they're doing business, to think outside the box, to push the envelope, to ride the cutting edge (ouch!)--to cite just a few of the management consultant's cliches.

Now along comes a book that gives life--flesh and blood--to those cliches, from the unlikely business partners Paul Newman, the actor and racing car driver, and A.E. Hotchner, author of 15 books, including Papa Hemingway, and 12 plays and musicals.

But it's neither movies, racing cars, books, nor screenplays that this pair of madcap business neophytes discuss in Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good. It's the story of Newman's Own--first the salad dressing, then the spaghetti sauce, then the popcorn and lemonade.

Shameless Exploitation picks up an engaging momentum as the authors listen to and then ignore all the expert marketing and business management advice they receive from the "experts" on their way to becoming the first company to place all-natural foods in supermarkets.

Going commercial

When our odd couple decided to bottle Newman's Own for more than just friends and family, they took on the following mantra: "There are three rules for running a business; fortunately, we don't know any of them."

The next 30 pages of the book describe their efforts to find a bottler and to figure out their promotion strategy. In meeting after meeting with the food experts, they rejected the conventional wisdom in favor of "instinct, imagination, and mostly luck." They also conceived of their adventure "as a great way to poke fun at the mundane method of traditional marketing."

From their initial successes with the salad dressing, they went on to introduce the first spaghetti sauce with fresh components, including "particulates"--chunks of tomato--and no preservatives.

When told this was impossible, Newman said, "Stay loose, men, keep 'em off balance." He got his way. This is the attitude that more business people could successfully employ. Shameful Exploitation details the growth of New-man's Own and subsidiaries to a multi-million-dollar, international operation.

Hole in the Wall Gang Camps 

Their philanthropic endeavors are also an inspiration to any business person. By 1994 they had donated almost $62 million to charity--100 percent of their after-tax profits. By 2003, they had established Hole in the Wall Gang camps for seriously ill children serving 31 states and 28 countries.

This book provides excellent mental exercise for managers.

Reviewed by Paul Swift