In periods of high market turbulence, it is incumbent on buyers of businesses, and assets, to appeal not just to the logic of a business sale (deal structure and terms) but to the seller’s emotional and psychological reasons for selling. Here is four “lead off” questions:
What prompted you to consider a potential sale?
What life changes would you like to make and how would a potential sale help you meet them?
What precisely are you seeking to accomplish, personally and professionally with the potential sale?
Here is my 3 objectives in buying now ….., please help me understand what explicitly are your’s in selling now? If we can both see them, we have a realistic chance of determining whether we might reasonably be of help.
How often do you provide your best referral sources with reciprocal help growing their businesses or with desired life changes (buyer’s names, media and promotional ideas, social networking invitations, travel advice and so on)? If you are not doing that monthly, at a minimum, why should they keep you at the forefront of their mind?
Rhetorical question from two curious middle-aged American ladies to the concierge at Brown’s Hotel in London’s Mayfair this week, “everyone here uses the word “amazing”, have you noticed? We love it and we are going to start using it now.”
At this time of the year, the family like to return to the North Norfolk coast for a few simple days of family relaxation. Crabbing, beach, picnics, cycling, barbecues, and catching up with friends. It is a simple life, where iPads and other electronics are largely limited to early mornings or pre-dinner.
The local seaside towns, and villages, change modestly each year. The odd new shop appears on a street corner replacing a fading business unable to weather the quiet “off season” or a tired owner. The flow of visitors waiting outside the family butchers and bakers stopping to converse briefly, is as predictable as the high tide and invasion of 4x4s.
The traditional flint-stone homes aligning the coastal road and the inns get smarter every year but the character largely remains the same. The stately homes, inland, are as likely to be exhibiting cutting edge contemporary art, as they are hosting the de rigeur electronic music festivals for the cool kids.
It is comforting, in a world where disruption and public discourse has ever sharper claws. It is England’s answer to Cape Cod, the area south of Charleston in South Carolina or Falsterbo in SW Sweden.
Understated wealth, where a proliferation of agriculture, tourism and light manufacturing pierce the landscape.
The 3.5 hour drive from London and England’s other major cities, and the absence of mass tourism, enables it to retains its’ charm and unfettered royal association. To those who have resisted its’ attraction or are largely unaware, the months of June through early September make for a fun visit. although a bracing February weekend is equally great for the soul.
There comes a time when of your own accord or others, you must leave (a job, a business or an investment).
How you leave says more about your attitude and behaviour than the mechanics of your departure. Stealing client data, dissing the current/future leadership and burning bridges, merely serves to raise the risk of working with you in the minds of your greatest admirers.
If you don’t see it that way, perhaps you have a “blind spot” that no amount of reputation management can rectify?
Summertime at many British seaside resorts invariably includes a detour to the funfair for many families. The seduction of playing the 2p slot machines with a waterfall of coins tantalisingly perched at the edge. Just one coin might trigger a flood of coins or it might not?
The problem is, it is rare that one coin causes the breakthrough. Indeed, the “pros” around these machines line up a small barrel of coins in the slot and fire a cluster of coins, knowing that in the ensuing mayhem, one large jolt has the greatest probability of triggering the waterfall.
The same analogy is true for entrepreneurs seeking growth capital to exploit the “next big opportunity” (“NBO”) in their sights. The single shot strategy with investors rarely works. Yet a great many entrepreneurs I meet, particularly with enterprise technology, are hardwired to think that maintaining privacy is more important than attracting the widest pool of ideal potential investors. They are too slow in attracting capital, competitors arrive on the scene with bigger balance sheets and the riches go to them, not the entrepreneur.
Make speed your driving force in raising money. Remove everything that detracts from the speed of acquiring growth capital (process, procedure, structure). Do that and while you cannot guarantee success, you will give yourself the very best chance.
A tour of the UK’s Houses of Parliament, and attendance at Prime Minister’s Questions today with my daughter, to see Theresa May’s penultimate performance at the despatch box, left a striking impression.
Not the one of division and rancour over Brexit or racism.
Rather its’ inhabitants emotional and psychological difficulties, in not being overly beholden to the “past” (traditions), nor stargazing at distant “future” issues (Britain’s economic relations post-Brexit) but maintaining a ruthless focus on the “present”.
Making smarter decisions today about the immediate future. Resolving real world issues within their power and control. Dealing fast with the “tough stuff”, quality of life issues: improvements in public education, finances, health, security, skills development and relations with the EU.
Self-limiting the navel gazing, rancour and endless parliamentary debate over issues such as climate change that whatever they decide today, they will never be judged upon when the results come in, 30 years henceforth.
Appropriately, we were joined before proceedings began, by an individual, who epitomises the contrast between the past, present and future like no other Westminster figure. The double-breast suited, moderated tones of Jacob Rees Mogg, Conservative MP. A stubborn idealogue to some with his “catholic” views on Europe, abortion and so on, and to others “The Moggster”, the ultimate man of principled politics in a world of fake news.
The gravity pull to the “past”, is led by the ultimate “rent seeker”, Speaker of the House John Bercow, who wallows in his sense of place with undeniable pleasure. Striding past us with his entourage, royal wave and constant smirk, before heading onto his “stage”. Loathed by some, glorified by others and fanned by a media drawn to his eccentricities (“order, order!”).
You sense here is a small man, who stands tall on the Westminster “gravy train” but when his term ends, he will find it a struggle standing up in the real world. A “John McCririck” of politics. Propped up by serial roles as a late afternoon TV game show host or visits into the Big Brother house, to reignite the fading embers of fame, and to maintain the trappings of state.
The normative and coercive pressures in this workplace are immense and unusual but rarely acknowledged publicly. It is everywhere, on the walls, in the notices and the order sheets.
To understand why Britain is where we are today, and Westminster in particular, forget the UK’s democratic structure, process and procedures that surround Brexit. Focus on the people doing the work. An aspiring young politician, I have met a few, is immersed in acquiring the skills to build a parliamentary career but rarely coached well to remove bad attitudes.
When they have spent decades in the august surroundings, pulled only into line by the Whips Office, those beliefs that inform their attitudes and behaviours are rarely changed.
What we need right now in Westminster are superb political coaches but where do you find them? Who is willing if they can be found to fund their work? Who is willing to accept that they need coaching?
If you don’t think that is an urgent priority, pay a visit yourself. Look around at the environment and the people doing the work.
When you default to email over a sensitive matter, when a phone call or a conversation in person would better elicit the reassurance or not that you are seeking, you are not putting the “trusting relationship” first. In a relationship business, which most of us are in, you can ill afford that mindset.
Off a thrilling weekend of sport, two fine examples (Novak Djokovic and the England Cricket World Cup victors) of the merits in “hanging in there” for entrepreneurs, when things aren’t going right with your capital raise.
The market conditions aren’t ideal today, your timing is “off”, and the investor across the table seems to be to dictating play at every turn. Keep the faith in your own judgement, make the decisions that you know to be right and have the courage to not fear failure. You’ve succeeded when not at your best. You’ve attracted capital from those resistant in your initial approach. You’ve learned that building trust is essential before investors will commit (take your time). Don’t allow “second guessing” to infect your thinking or performance (fear and procrastination).
It is a reasonable expectation that a referral made on your behalf to another party, might end up with you and the other party discussing a “need” or a relationship not previously mentioned at the outset. So long as that is clear to all parties when they talk (no hidden agenda).
In other words, a referral for a lead adviser to assist in a capital raise or selling a business might result in a conversation that diverts to, and an offer made, for a co-adviser, not a lead adviser role. Both parties are free to accept or decline the “lesser” offer and leave feeling that they have been treated well.
What is dishonest and unethical in my view, is taking someone’s genuine time and interest in a specific relationship or role, and using it for disingenuous purposes (to shoehorn them secretly into another role or worse, to pickpocket proprietary information for competitive advantage).
This is first and foremost a relationship business, where success is never guaranteed with referrals but respect is a minimum requirement.
