Summary: Overnight Success

Review and Analysis of Trimble's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Publisher: Must Read Summaries
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9782511018095
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Biographies
• Index: Business

The must-read summary of Vance Trimble's book: `Overnight Success: Federal Express & Frederick Smith, Its Renegade Creator`.

This complete summary of the ideas from Vance Trimble's book `Overnight Success` tells how, in 1970, Frederick Smith envisioned a streamlined fleet of aeroplanes that could deliver packages anywhere overnight, and how he transformed that idea into a billion-dollar industry. In his book, the author reveals the obstacles that the company had to overcome, including how to finance the first official flight. This summary gives readers an insight into the personal and professional life of Smith and his journey to success.

Added-value of this summary:
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To learn more, read `Overnight Success` and discover the story behind the American phenomenon, FedEx.

Summary of Overnight Success (Vance Trimble)

1. Fred Smith

Frederick Wallace Smith was born 11 August 1944.

His father and namesake died when Fred W. was only four years old. Fred Senior had, in 53 years, built an incredible business empire worth more than $17 million. He was the founder of the Greyhound Bus Line, and owned the 170-unit Toddle House chain of restaurants. He also owned cotton plantations, beef ranches and a huge luxury yacht. Sailing was one of his passions.

While Fred was growing up, he became good friends with an uncle who was a Major General in the Tennessee National Guard. As an 8-year old, Fred became the unofficial mascot of his uncle’s unit - they even equipped him with a .45-caliber pistol.

Fred’s sister, describing him as 15-year old, said:

“If you met Fred then, you would have been dazzled by him. This man was charming, articulate and just winning. You would follow him anywhere as a leader. He would start waving his hands around, and conjure up these images, and your checkbook just bounces in your hand, and you are ready to follow him over the next hill, and wherever. He was a terrific salesman, who made fantasies come alive.”

When Fred’s two elder sisters left home, Fred and his mother moved into a house at 1130 Audubon Drive, Memphis, Tennessee. Just down the same street, a singer named Elvis Presley had just brought his first house.

Fred went to Memphis University School, a college prepatory school. He played football, basketball and baseball in addition to serving as the sports editor of the school paper. Importantly, his school work also excelled and in his senior year, he was elected Class President. To round out the perfect All-American success story, he had a girlfriend who was a cheerleader.

At age 15, Fred fell in love with flying. He went to a National Guard conference in Nashville where he met Colonel Fred Hook, a Memphis Air Force officer.

Colonel Hook had learned to fly as a teenager and from there he had worked as a crop duster, barnstormer, air show acrobat, airline co-pilot and eventually he had become a P-51 fighter pilot flying with General Claire Chennault’s Flying Tigers in China.

Colonel Hook soon fell in love with Fred Smith’s widowed mother and when he retired from the airforce in 1965, he returned to Memphis, divorced and remarried forty-six-year old Sally Smith, Fred’s mother.

2. University

While Fred had always excelled at High School, he found Yale University a different proposition altogether. He failed to make the football team, and threw himself into flying every spare moment. He also joined the Marine Corps Reserve, with the objective of becoming a naval aviator but unfortunately he failed the eyesight standard required. Overall, Fred was so busy on his sidelines that his grades suffered.

In August 1963, while home from Yale, Fred Smith was in a serious road accident. He was driving his new Corvette with a friend, Mike Gadberry. A spectator described the crash:

“The car was flipping end over end. It was bouncing high in the air. It would hit one end and flip completely over and hit the ground again, and then flip again. For the car to act like that, it had to be running seventy-five, eighty, even one hundred miles an hour. The car was upside down several hundred feet on down the highway. At once I could see the boy still in the car was badly hurt. He was lying on his back, struggling to breathe. If he’d had immediate care, he might have made it. But he literally just choked on his own blood.”

Fred Smith was taken to hospital and treated for concussion and shock. His friend, Mike, died at the scene of the accident. A close friend of Fred’s, Dr. Coor said:

“I still think that experience had a great influence on Fred in his life in terms of what he did. I think he felt very badly, and I think he pushed himself to the limit in everything he did. He probably would say, no, that didn’t have anything to do with it, but I always thought it might have.”

Back at Yale, Fred threw himself into his activities with doubled vigor. He worked on reinvigorating the Yale Flying Club which had originally been formed by Juan Trippe who later went on to found Pan Am airline. Fred put fliers up on bulletin boards and held meetings for the students to learn more. He also convinced the Piper Aircraft Company to lease the club some planes. Fred acted as the promoter and enjoyed the use of the planes frequently himself. The Yale Flying Club is still in operation today.

As a term paper for a 1965 Economics course, Fred Smith prepared a 15-page document which described the hub-and-spokes concept that would later form the basis for Federal Express. Fred received a “C” for the term paper.

The concept was this: A “hub” would be located in a suitable Middle American location (like Little Rock or Memphis) and the “spokes” radiated out to Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami and the far corners of the USA.

A package from Boston going to California would first be flown to the Memphis “hub” where it would be sorted and rerouted out on...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Book Presentation
• Summary of Overnight Success (Vance Trimble)
• About the Summary Publisher
• Copyright