Author: coreykupfer

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Authentic Deal-Making Authentic Leadership Authentic Negotiating Deal-Driven Growth

Going Virtual in the COVID-19 Crisis

Going-Virtual

From an early age, Manuel Pistner dreamt of becoming an independent entrepreneur. He started his first company in 2006. It has since grown to over 150 freelancers worldwide. As you can imagine, it was not an easy road to get there. Manuel’s unique business model, however, streamlined the process. His company, Bright Solutions, is a virtual team of freelancers. As a result, they each bring unique skills to complex projects. Consequently, this eliminates barriers that many static organizations cannot breach. Of course hiring freelancers often poses many of the same talent acquisition challenges as hiring full-time employees. Manuel utilizes different business management systems to maintain control and transparency within his organization. This ensures that everything gets done. It’s also means he has a clear understanding of how to best go virtual in the COVID-19 crisis.

Three Steps to Managing a Virtual Team

Managing over 150 people in 67 different countries might seem like a nightmare for many entrepreneurs. Manuel’s system, however, is tried and true. According to him, there are three things that need to be in alignment if your virtual team is to operate at maximum capacity.

One

Provide each team member with a detailed description of their role to hold them accountable.

Two

Ensure clarity around how each team member should collaborate.

Three

Provide each team member with the necessary tools to support your workflows.

This simple process has enabled Manuel to scale his business successfully. He did so while working remotely with people he has never met! You can apply these same methods in your own company as well. This is vital, especially during this COVID-19 crisis.

Working Remote in the COVID-19 Crisis
As the COVID-19 crisis takes hold, more and more teams are forced to go virtual. However, these teams are not hired or trained to operate on their own accord. As a result, there are a lot of challenges posed by this large scale transition.

Manuel provides some tips that might help ease the tension as things fall into place. First, make a designated work area where you won’t be interrupted or distracted. Next, you should structure your workday to avoid over-communication or panic. In addition, leaders must lead by output and not by availability.

All of these best practices will help your team manage their time, output, and communication. This is essential as they adjust to their new work environments. These tools will help you push through these difficult times and weather the COVID-19 crisis with success. Listen to the full episode here!

Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal- Ready Assessment today!

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Authentic Deal-Making Authentic Leadership Authentic Negotiating Deal-Driven Growth

The C.P.R. Framework

Framework

So far, we have covered a good portion of the main topics from my book, Authentic Negotiating: Clarity, Detachment, & Equilibrium the Three Keys to True Negotiating Success & How to Achieve Them. On the show we have discussed the fundamental framework of clarity, detachment, and equilibrium, as well as the six reasons negotiations fail. We’ve also talked about the top five steps to becoming a great negotiator, and how to deal with inauthentic negotiating tactics. In the latest solocast episode of Fueling Deals, we cover the final topic from Authentic Negotiating: the C.P.R. Framework. The three elements of the framework are context, purpose, and results.

What is the C.P.R. Framework?

The C.P.R. Framework consists of three main elements.

Context: The context of a negotiation determines the person we need to show up as in the negotiation. It pertains to our state of being, and how that ties into our purpose and our results.

Purpose: What is the underlying ‘why’ of this negotiation? The purpose must be something positive that speaks to you because it will be your primary driver at the negotiating table.

Results: Any time you go into a negotiation, you want to be clear about the results you want to get out of it.

Effective Frameworks

Many of us know our results before we ever enter a negotiation. The context and purpose, however, are things we need to memorize. If both of these components are no more than a sentence long, you will be able to remember them no matter what factors are thrown into the mix.

You will also benefit from distilling these ideas into short sentences. This practice will help you get to the essence of your context and purpose. The C.P.R. Framework is the single-most effective framework for applying my negotiation tactics, but it is also extremely effective beyond negotiating. To learn more and hear examples of the C.P.R. Framework being used, listen to the latest solocast of Fueling Deals.

Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal- Ready Assessment today!

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Authentic Deal-Making Authentic Leadership Authentic Negotiating Deal-Driven Growth

Acquisitions and Joint Ventures in Technology

Framework-1

Phil Gerbyshak is a speaker at heart. He provides branding, marketing, and sales insights to teams that are looking to grow. It is a skill that meshes perfectly with his current role as the VP of sales training for Vector Solutions. He oversees onboarding, sales training, quarterly tune-ups, product rollouts, international sales meetings, and integrations for three business units across five locations. His thoughts on acquisitions and joint ventures, especially as connected to technology, made for an excellent interview!

As a sales, leadership, and technology authority, Phil knows that organic growth is mandatory for any company to prosper. There is always room for improvement when it comes to marketing and selling your product. But he also acknowledges that organic growth alone will seldom drive the results you want.

Acquisitions and Joint Ventures

Inorganic growth expands your addressable market, your reach, and it increases your bottom line. You get paid more for solving bigger problems. That is why Vector Solutions has already done nine acquisition deals and counting.

As a technology company, Vector’s acquisitions have always been industry-driven, not geography-driven. The primary objective is to buy organizations and integrate their technology with Vector’s current solution. This is so that they can provide even greater services to their clients. You could try to build all of this in house, but it will take significantly more time and resources. The purchased companies are highly efficient and great at what they do. That’s why it makes sense to look for deals that are good for every party involved.

Do Your Due Diligence

Joint ventures and strategic alliances are extremely underutilized deals for smaller companies. That’s is partially because many business owners associate these terms only with large deals for big companies. And while they didn’t work for Phil at first, there was a seismic shift when he started pursuing complementary partners instead of partners who had similar strengths.

On top of this, Phil recommends setting up a trial period with your prospective partner. Things can go south fairly easily unless you trust-but-verify. Avoid being seduced by slick marketing. Even with all of the boxes checked, things might not work out. However, if you do your due diligence during the planning phase, your business will have the best shot at success. Listen to the full episode on the Fueling Deals Podcast.

Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal- Ready Assessment today!

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Authentic Deal-Making Authentic Leadership Authentic Negotiating Deal-Driven Growth

Five Ways to Accelerate Growth

Five-Ways-To-Accelerate-Growth

After one year and more than sixty episodes, we have gathered countless insights from the most talented negotiators, speakers, and dealmakers across industries. And with so much ground covered, we decided to introduce a series of ‘best of’ episodes. Here we’ve distilled the main talking points from our Fueling Deals guests. Today we’ll focus on how to accelerate growth as we learn from our deal-driven experts.

The Experts Take: How to Accelerate Growth

Each quarter will bring a new theme that combines different topics from each interview. This time, the theme is “accelerating growth”. We explore some of the major talking points from my interviews with Carl Gould, Bruce Eckfeldt, Phil Buchanan, and Matt Wavro.

Carl Gould dives into the growth and sale of his two businesses. His creation of monthly recurring revenue, as well as his branding and networking accomplishments, enabled him not only to sell the companies, but also to affiliate with the company and earn an income post-sale.

Next, Bruce Eckfeldt and I had a conversation about how to scale a company. We highlight points from Les Mckeown’s book, “Predictable Success.”

After that, Phil Buchanan shares advice for small onboarding deals and acquisitions. Our focus was on geographical expansion.

And lastly, Matt Wavro explains how he has utilized strategic alliances to accelerate growth. This includes partnering with minority and women-owned business enterprises.

Get the Full Experience

The excerpts from these conversations only represent a small part of the invaluable information from each episode, so make sure to go back and give them a listen if you didn’t get a chance.

Carl Gould, Bruce Eckfeldt, Phil Buchanan, and Matt Wavro each have unique perspectives on accelerating growth in their own companies, or by working with other companies. Make sure to check out the latest episode of Fueling Deals, and keep an eye out for a new ‘best of’ installment every quarter.

Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal- Ready Assessment today!

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Authentic Business Relationships Authentic Deal-Making Authentic Leadership Authentic Negotiating Deal-Driven Growth

New Industry? No Problem!

Great-Negotiator

Li Hayes has always been an entrepreneur in one capacity or another. She has never limited herself to just one niche. Her main business is in the public speaking arena. It is here that she began supporting a group of amazing business speakers, as well as helping event managers create wildly successful events through her business, Go Leeward Speaker Management. Her approach to any new industry is best summed up as: No problem!

She has done a lot of major deals to book speakers. She has also helped orchestrate many seminars, bringing audiences unique experiences that change their businesses or their lives.

Recently, however, Li embarked on a new entrepreneurial journey. It all started with the development of an innovative new product, the Cool Me Scarf. In the latest episode of Fueling Deals, Li joins us to share about her journey. She also talks about some of the deals that grew her businesses substantially.

It’s All About the Value Exchange

Talented speakers are the backbone of Go Leeward Speaker Management. Li knows that very single one of them has a powerful story to tell.

Good stories are the key to success, because a good story gives something to the audience. (As opposed to making the experience all about the speaker!). Her speakers also never speak for free; not necessarily in terms of money, but in the value exchange that opens new doors and builds your brand. Li’s ability to construct a powerful business model that generates growth opportunities gave her the experience and the resources she needed to pursue the Cool Me Scarf. Despite having no experience in manufacturing/distribution, she has been able to enter this new industry with confidence.

Barriers to Entering a New Industry

The Cool Me Scarf is a solution for hot flashes designed for busy, working women.

It is elegant, understated, and made from moisture-wicking fibers that pull heat and perspiration away from your body with a very effective built-in cooling pack. As opposed to Go Leeward, a service-based business, the Cool Me Scarf presented Li with a slew of new manufacturing challenges. She’s had to navigate these by forming strategic partnerships, as well as by doing other inorganic deals.

One of the most notable deals was her partnership with Alibaba.com, which allowed for rapid and safe solutions to manufacturing, business transactions, and logistics. It enables manufacturers all over the world to connect with entrepreneurs like Li to help realize their visions. To hear more about Li’s journey and learn how she got her product in the Oscars, listen to the latest episode of Fueling Deals.

Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal- Ready Assessment today!

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Authentic Business Relationships Authentic Deal-Making Authentic Leadership Authentic Negotiating Deal-Driven Growth

Access to Awareness

Awareness

Sophie McLean is a woman of many specialties. In her latest endeavor, she is speaking, consulting, writing and teaching courses and online seminars within the framework of Access to Awareness.

Sophie is using philosophical and spiritual concepts to help leaders effectively make a difference in the world. She does this by helping them develop a clear understanding of what it means to be human. In the latest episode of the Fueling Deals podcast, Sophie joins us to talk about the work she is doing now. She also explains how the concepts of awareness and self-discovery tie into everything in our lives—including deals.

A New Culture for Human Kind: Access to Awareness

For the last eight years, Sophie has withdrawn herself from the world and embarked on a spiritual quest. It reignited her passion for teaching and drove her to pursue the ultimate goal of developing a new culture for humankind. That notion is the driving force behind her company, Access to Awareness. Sophie works to educate people on what is possible with awareness and what it means to shift from surviving, to being alive. So many people are going through the motions in their lives. But with the right guidance, we can begin to see the extent of the possibilities and do something about it. And it all starts with awareness.

The Purpose of Money

In dealmaking, survival is a scarcity mindset. You operate from a place of fear because survival is about reacting to danger. But when you go into a negotiation with that mentality, you can’t work within the fundamental framework of dealmaking. This means you end up negotiating from a position of weakness.

Being alive is synonymous with an abundance mindset, and awareness is the key to getting there. We need to understand our relationship to money, because if we can align the purpose of money with the purpose of our lives, we will access a state of abundance naturally.

Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal- Ready Assessment today!

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Authentic Business Relationships Authentic Deal-Making Authentic Negotiating Deal-Driven Growth

Deal-Driven Growth

Deal-Driven-Growth-1

Stephen Woessner is the founder and CEO of Predictive ROI, host of the Onward Nation podcast, a digital marketing authority, speaker, educator, and bestselling author of two books. He comes from a long lineage of business owners, and the early exposure to entrepreneurship primed him to follow a similar path. After serving in the Air Force for four years, Stephen landed a job with an advertising agency in La Crosse, WI where he became a partner in just three years. There, he honed his craft in digital marketing and devoted his energy to understanding how business owners think, act, and achieve.

Predictive ROI

Predictive ROI has always operated as a digital marketing agency, but over the last ten years, it has transformed into something entirely unique. Predictive’s core services were built to help business owners identify financial opportunities and hemorrhages in the digital space. But recently, Stephen and his team have added podcasting to their service line. Now, Predictive ROI helps business owners build their thought leadership through podcasting and supplementary content, so they can monetize that content with courses, workshops, events, sponsorships, and a variety of other opportunities.

Inorganic Growth in the Agency World

While Predictive ROI’s client base continues to grow organically, the agency is finally at a point where the world of strategic partnerships and acquisitions is finally opening up to them. It means Stephen and the leadership team at Predictive can look into different plays such as acquiring a software company that will increase their analytics capabilities; possibly even absorbing smaller agencies in different verticals with client rosters that are strategically advantageous. But if you are considering inorganic growth as an option, there are a lot of indicators you should be watching to determine if it is the right move.

Will it help you hit your revenue goals within your current timeline?

Are you making the right acquisition or is there a better alternative?

Stephen shares advice for navigating this process in the latest episode of Fueling Deals.

Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal- Ready Assessment today!

Categories
Authentic Business Relationships Authentic Deal-Making Authentic Leadership Authentic Negotiating

How to Handle Inauthentic Negotiating Techniques

Inauthentic-Negotiating

In the last few solocast episodes of Fueling Deals, we have taken a look at some of the major talking points from my book, Authentic Negotiating. So far, we have covered the Clarity, Detachment, and Equilibrium framework, the top six reasons negotiations fail, and the five steps to becoming a great negotiator. So, if you didn’t get a chance to read the book or listen to those episodes, I highly encourage you to go back and cue them up; there are a lot of great negotiating tips that you don’t want to miss.

In the latest episode of Fueling Deals, we dive into another topic from my book that covers inauthentic negotiating techniques and how to handle them.

The Empty Promise: Somebody makes a promise that they know they’re not going to fulfill in the end. You may choose to challenge their promise upfront to test its validity, then use CDE to keep a level head while you decide how to move forward.

The Big Fish: There may be a difference in scope or size with one negotiating party vs. the other. This can be approached with the notion that even a small fish has leverage because there are alternative plays, otherwise, the negotiation wouldn’t be taking place.

Nibbling: There is always another ask as you get closer to finalizing a deal. Sometimes a candid response is the best approach and it is okay to call them out for adding new terms. Figure out what needs to happen for the deal to move forward, and clarify whether or not there will be additional terms down the line.

Quivering Quill: Similar to Nibbling but it is carried out at the closing table to apply more pressure on the other negotiating party. Don’t get triggered or thrown off your game; instead, step back and evaluate whether the last minute concession works for you and whether this is someone with whom you want to do business.

Limited Authority: The other negotiating party abdicates the decision-making responsibility because of their position in the company hierarchy. While this may be authentic in theory, it is often used as an excuse. Stay calm, don’t let it affect you and decide whether or not they are the right partner for this deal in the first place.

Even ‘good’ negotiating tactics are supplementary to our core dealmaking framework, and no tactics or techniques can be substituted for fundamental skills. But you will frequently encounter authentic and inauthentic negotiating techniques regardless. The bad techniques reek of shady business practices and low credibility. And while you might never use them yourself, you need to know how to spot and deal with inauthentic negotiators on the other side of the table.

You can listen to the full episode here.

Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal- Ready Assessment today!

Categories
Authentic Business Relationships Authentic Deal-Making Authentic Negotiating

Deals in a New Industry

Deals-In-A-New-Industry

Although Neil Rosen started his career as a teacher, he would later be driven to serial entrepreneurship by fate. Neil’s passions culminated in his first business, a children’s furniture store, which grew into five locations that were immensely successful.

The chain of stores provided Neil with the financial means to pursue his next great endeavor, which he ultimately achieved by selling the store to his employees. That was the first major deal Neil did, and it laid the foundation for his next businesses, while also teaching him the fundamentals of dealmaking.

Neil was able to keep the skilled management team on staff while receiving payouts over time, and it was a great deal for every party involved. But nothing would prepare him for doing deals as a pioneer of internet companies.

The School Report

Neil’s next business, The School Report, designed a program to gather 3rd party data about public school districts. That information was then sold to real estate brokerages and shared with potential homebuyers for a win-win-win. Although Neil started the business with his wife in their basement, it grew rapidly and brought a lot of new deals to the table.

He had technical experts providing services for equity. He used a participation interest vehicle to raise more capital without losing equity. He then raised venture capital. There were many different types of deals that Neil had to navigate throughout the lifespan of the business. But the difficulty of doing deals as an early-stage internet company prepared him for every challenge he would face moving forward.

Raising Capital

From the early days of commercial internet, through the boom and bust of the late 90’s and early 2000’s the landscape was changing and the learning curve was getting much steeper. When you are working with venture capitalists, there is an expectation of rapid growth. However, it is much more difficult to sell your ability to deliver in an industry that is just getting on its feet.

VCs were hesitant to work with internet companies at the time and it posed a lot of problems for Neil and his team. They had to pivot numerous times and even renegotiated with their VC to reduce its stake in the company before selling it a short time later. But a lot of valuable lessons came out of the experience, which Neil brought forth into his future endeavors with eWayDirect and Certain Source.

If you want to learn more about Neil’s journey, listen to his episode here: https://www.coreykupfer.com/podcasts/neil-rosen/. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn.

Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal- Ready Assessment today!

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Authentic Deal-Making

Authentic Leadership & the Hero’s Journey

The-Hero-Journey-1

Acting From Your Inner Truth
Dov Baron works with the world’s top business leaders and high-level entrepreneurs to help them answer the question, “What’s next?” It may sound like a simple question, but when you’re already operating at the highest level, there is rarely an obvious choice to make. Dov takes his clients on a heroic journey to chip away everything that isn’t real. The journey enables leaders to unbind their success from their identity so they can leave old parts of themselves behind and move into their soul’s purpose.

It is an intense process that only rewards the committed, but the people who push through see incomparable results.

(Interested in growing your own ability to lead authentically? You can get a FREE copy of Dov’s ebook, Authentic Leadership!)

Discover Your Soul’s Purpose

When Dov’s clients grow their businesses and achieve new successes, it is not because they are focusing on business and strategy. Rather, it is because they are focusing on building a stronger connection with their soul’s purpose. Really doing that work has measurable results; one of Dov’s recent clients even grew his business by 5000%. But in our own world where we may already be highly successful, it is extremely difficult to be willing to go deep and chip away everything that is not truly who we are.

We are always doing, but we are rarely being.

Learning how to enter that state of being will put you in a position to handle anything life throws at you. Doing this work will also transform you, your personal life, your business and the deals you do.

Win-Win-Win

We have talked about the fundamental principles of negotiating and dealmaking many times on Fueling Deals. With Dov’s philosophy, we can build on those ideas.

In a deal, we always want to serve the souls on both sides of the negotiating table. One way to do that is by figuring out what drives the other person so we can reshape the context of the negotiation. Shift away from the win-lose mentality and approach the deal intent on enriching the lives of every party involved (beyond just the money). By creating a deeper connection with our soul’s purpose, this is all possible. But only you can make that happen.

You can always make the deal a win-win-win.

Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal- Ready Assessment today!