Jewish Life Digital Edition October 2015 | Page 49

INSTEAD OF LASTING ONE HOUR, THE MEETING LASTED MORE THAN 12, NOT FINISHING UNTIL 2AM. I became even angrier, at which point he upped his offer to seven-and-a-half percent. Seeing that I was adamant, he put his hand in his back pocket, pulled out a wad of American dollars and said, “Okay, how much?” I made a quick calculation and he counted out the dollars without further argument. I won’t even try and guess how the Israelis knew about this change in South African law that only a handful, at most, of specialised South African attorneys knew about, but here they were on the scene ready to make a bid for one of the concessions being granted to building companies. In fact, within a year, the market was nearly completely dominated by Israeli building companies, which actually did a good job and were preferred by the public to the South African builders. The Israeli public company which I represented was to become one of the dominant players in the field and become my biggest client, bringing me lucrative work for more than a decade. Five years after the signing of that late-night agreement, I was at a cocktail party arranged by this same client. I was asked to say a few words of welcome to all of the bankers and associates of this Israeli public company. As I walked to the podium, the chief accountant of their South African company approached me and said, “The chairman asked that you announce that the total value of the projects on hand is now R50 million. Seven-and-a-half percent could have been a nice tidy profit.” I took comfort from the fact that they had been a triple-A client for five years and it looked as though they were poised to be so for at least another five years. One day while in court, I ran into the colleague who had referred them to me so many years before. I went up to him to thank him. Since we hardly knew each other, I had been very curious for a long time as to how he had known that I spoke and understood Hebrew, and now I had an opportunity to ask him. He told me that he was once at a meeting at my offices, where we were closing a deal in my boardroom. My receptionist put through a call and I expressed my agitation with her for disturbing me at such a critical time. Nonetheless, I took the call and proceeded to speak to the person on the other end in Hebrew. I sat there listening to him, recalling how my receptionist had interrupted that meeting and prevailed on me to take a call from a visiting Rosh Yeshiva who had been struggling to get hold of me while he was in South Africa collecting for his yeshiva. I had always viewed taking that call from the Rosh Yeshiva in the middle of that meeting as a disturbance and a distraction. Little did I know that, by taking that call, I was actually planting the seed for one of the biggest and most profitable clients of my entire career! It may not always be so clear and we may not always get reminders, but we never lose out when doing the right thing. JL Hirsch Lyons Schools DISCERNING PARENTS KNOW WHAT TIPS THE SCALES IN EDUCATION We know what tips the scales FOR A WELL BALANCED EDUCATION 011 640 4314 [email protected]