Is Rachael Ray a recipe thief? The answer has a lot of overlap to sales philosophy and theory…oh, and that answer is “no – she’s not” 

Three weeks ago, my wife was leafing through a cookbook published by the chef Rachael Ray. She landed on a page that had a recipe for “Chicken & Dumpling Soup”.

My wife exclaimed, “Oh my gosh, my mother used to make Chicken & Dumpling Soup when I was a kid (in the 1980s). I’ve got to find her recipe.”

After digging through a folder of her mother’s old recipes, there it was…her mother’s recipe. It was almost word-for-word the same. Same ingredients. Same portions.

Do you think that Rachael Ray stole my mother-in-law’s recipe for Chicken & Dumpling Soup and passed it off as her own?

Or…could it be, that’s just how you make Chicken & Dumpling Soup?!?

I’m not sure there’s a writer, thought leader, philosopher, or speaker on sales who hasn’t been either (a) accused of stealing someone else’s content, or (b) been the accuser.

But, are these ideas actually stolen?

Or, could it be, that because literally millions of sales professionals every single day of every single year for the past 60-120 years are making cold calls, executing outreach, handling objections, doing discovery, qualifying prospects, and negotiating, that your idea isn’t quite yours?

Of course, there are exceptions…there are bad people, but for the most part, your “idea” may just be how things are meant to be done. There have been a couple of instances where individuals used my research to make my point, and played it off as their own. Yes…there’s a line.

However, not a week goes by where I’m not pulled into or made aware of a conversation about “this person stole my this” or “that person stole your that” idea. 99% of the time, it’s an old idea told in a new way – as was the individual claiming harm’s instance.

My first book, The Transparency Sale: I recently discovered quotes on this approach from the 1770s. Johann Kaspar Lavater, who died in the year 1801, was quoted as saying “He who enumerates the faults of what he means to sell may set up a partnership with Honesty.” Did I steal the concept from Lavater? Well, I am pretty old, so maybe?

In my opinion, one of the top three sales books written in the last twenty years, The Challenger Sale, was written about almost 115 years ago. I recently joked with Brent Adamson & Matt Dixon about how Norval Hawkins advocated for this approach in his 1910 book, Certain Success. Brent joked he’d never heard of him. Of course he hadn’t heard of him!

Three years ago, I delivered a keynote speech which included a chart. As I presented it, a woman in the audience leaned to the person sitting next to her, who happens to be a friend of mine, and whispered, “He stole that!” One the slide with the chart, I prominently displayed its source. As I explained the chart, I said, “This chart is from a research study from (XYZ Company) from 2017.” The chart was published to be displayed. Yet, I was a thief?

I swear if you say it and it makes any sense at all, I can find someone else who said it, too, probably a hundred years ago. Try me.

“We are not original. What we own we enjoy by inheritance of acquisition from others. We are simply telling an old story in a new way, modifying it to meet existing conditions.” – W.A. Waterbury, 1908

Everybody chill.

You didn’t come up with it. You just told it in a new way…good on ya!

Sleep better.

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I’m a sales keynote speaker who also teaches revenue organizations how to leverage transparency and decision science to maximize their revenue capacity. It’s what I do…teach sellers, their leaders, well…entire revenue organizations how we as human beings make decisions, then how to use that knowledge for good (not evil) in their messaging (informal and formal), negotiations, and revenue leadership. I wrote a book Book Authority listed as the 6th best sales book of all time (𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘚𝘢𝘭𝘦), and a second award-winning book (𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘚𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘓𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳).

Reach out if you want to discuss The Transparency Sale sales methodology, or really…anything else (sales kickoffs, workshops, keynotes, the economy, history, etc.)! Email info@toddcaponi.com or call 847-999-0420.

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