It Pays to Be Polite

<p>Clint Greenleaf wasn't the best student in the world.</p>

<p>In the mid-1990s, Mr. Greenleaf was working toward an accounting degree at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., while training for the Marine Corps. While his friends had stellar grade-point averages, "I was a bit lower on the academic totem pole—maybe a lot lower," says the 37-year-old.
Still, he decided to apply for internship positions at top firms. His friends "all rightfully laughed at me for applying, knowing that there was no shot for me to get a job," Mr. Greenleaf says. "As it worked out, I got six offers, one from each of the firms."</p>

<p>His friends asked, " 'You don't go to class, your grades suck, and you're not good at accounting. How could you possibly get offers?' " Mr. Greenleaf recalls. The secret, he told them, was basic Marine discipline he had learned in ROTC—things like dressing neatly and being polite during interviews.</p>

<p>"My friends doubted this theory, and jokingly told me that I should write a book," Mr. Greenleaf says.</p>

<p>He took them up on it and wrote a 28-page booklet, with hand-drawn Sharpie illustrations, entitled "Attention to Detail: A Gentleman's Guide to Professional Appearance." In the summer of 1997, he printed 100 copies at Kinko's and gave them to his friends and parents. They all had a good laugh, he says, and then Mr. Greenleaf went to work at Deloitte & Touche LLP as a staff accountant.</p>

<p>But there were still 60 books lying around, so Mr. Greenleaf decided to try to get rid of them. He placed a classified ad in a newsletter to sell the books for $5 a copy—and within two weeks he was getting between 50 and 100 checks daily. Over the next year, he sold about 10,000 copies total.</p>

<p>Along the way, Mr. Greenleaf realized he wasn't enjoying accounting, and publishing would be a better vocation. After seven months at Deloitte, he left to start Greenleaf Book Group LLC, specializing in business books but covering a range of other fields and genres.</p>

<p>Now the company, based in Austin, Texas, has grown to 36 employees, and has had six books on the New York Times' best-seller list, five on The Wall Street Journal's and 12 on both.</p>

<p>The company has "become a real force in the industry," Mr. Greenleaf says.
—Barbara Haislip</p>

<p>How</a> one Marine founded a publishing company on discipline - WSJ.com</p>