Innovation Blog

Beatles’ Hard Years’ Night: It Takes Much More Than Talent

By Shlomo Maital

 

The Young Beatles

 

Here is the Beatles’ success story. They made a demo tape of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”. They sent it to America’s Capitol Records.  Capitol executives loved it, grabbed it, the album became a smash hit, the Beatles were invited to appear on Ed Sullivan (hit TV show)..and the rest is hysterical groupie history.  

   Very little of this is true.   Here is how it really happened, according to a fine new book.*  “Love Me Do” was a big hit in Britain for EMI, but the American affiliate of EMI, Capital Records, refused to issue it, or any of the album’s singles, including “Please Please Me”. 

   Were the Beatles upset, angry, hurt?  Did their egos lead them to tell Capitol to …@#$^%&*?

   No.  They used the Saroyan Syndrome.  Innovators should remember it.  Young William Saroyan,  a budding writer, sent a short story to Saturday Evening Post, then the leading market for such work.  They rejected it. He then wrote them, “I will send you one new story every single day, until you accept one”.  And it took a year, but they finally did.  The rest is history – he became one of America’s best fiction writers.

    The Beatles continued toinnovate, to  record new material and sent it to Capitol – for one solid year.  At long last, in 1964, Capitol released “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” which quickly became Beatles’ first #1 hit in the U.S. and made Capitol Records a serious fortune.   Note that the Beatles did not continue to pitch the same material to Capitol.  Instead, their producer, George Martin, sent something to Capitol “only when he had something new and improved”.

    Stubborn persistence – which my research has found is a top quality of successful entrepreneurs, second only to (and very similar to)  resilience. 

   It takes a lot more than raw talent to break through.

* Richard Courtney  and  George Cassidy, Come Together: The Business Wisdom of the Beatles.  2011. Reviewed in Global New York Times, March 21, p. 18.