Tag: authentic deal-making

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Authentic Business Relationships Authentic Conversations About Difference Authentic Deal-Making Authentic Leadership Authentic Negotiating Deal-Driven Growth

HR Insider Knowledge

deal-driven growth and negotiations


Ashley Paré is a Leadership Coach, Negotiation Advocate, TEDx Speaker, and HR Change Maker. She holds a vast reserve of HR Insider Knowledge that she’s gathered over her career. She’s also the CEO & Founder of Own Your Worth, an organization dedicated to breaking glass ceilings. Her signature leadership program, The Activator®, takes clients on a journey within to uncover the hidden blocks that are holding them back from stepping into their power. This is so they can take action to negotiate the career, business, and life of their dreams!

You may have seen her on Good Morning America, TEDx, New York Times, CNN, and more!

Early HR Ambitions?

When she was younger, Ashley wanted to be an author, psychologist, and live in London. (Looking back, she feels like her HR work was a little like being a psychologist!)

The first deal that stands out to her was her first post-college job. At the time, she didn’t know the “rules” of applying for jobs. She did know she needed to be able to make enough to afford housing and student loans, and when she got offered $15 an hour she countered with $16. (They met her in the middle with $15.50!)

That early success enhanced her confidence and showed her that it was possible to ask for more! However, that was a lesson she’d have to continue to learn how to activate as her career continued to grow. Ashley has seen that many women have a similar need to learn how to speak up and negotiate for what they desire. 

[Note: Ashley specifically works with women, and we focus on women’s issues in this interview. I do want to be clear that we both recognize that “women” are not one monolithic group, and that each person is unique and faces unique challenges. In addition, not all humans identify on a binary spectrum. No matter who you are, I think you can find some gems in this episode!}

Avoiding Your Own Core Truth

Many times young girls have no problem asking for a bigger slice of cake, so to speak. As they get older, however, they often stop.

Some of that may be connected to socialization, which often encourages women to be people pleasers, or to play the “good girl” role. Ashley believes that it goes even deeper, however. Somewhere on the journey, many women begin to lose their sense of self. We abandon our truths to ensure that we are liked and to avoid potential negative consequences.

Because speaking up for ourselves can lead to negative responses….we have a tendency to stop. Our sense of worthiness and self becomes dependent upon external validation, which is never fulfilling in the long run. If we don’t build our own sense of self through self-awareness, of course our inner confidence takes a hit!

This can lead women to retreat into their “shell”. It doesn’t have to, however! By digging deeper, women can tap into their core truth and own their value and their voice. 

In my own work, I see how being disconnected from your own core truth and value significantly impacts your ability to be a deal maker.

HR Insider Knowledge

As a former HR leader and business partner, Ashley had access to salary data, leaders, policies, and the best training. Yet, she still struggled to grow her career. She realized she had stopped self-advocating out of fear of what others would think of her, and focused so much on proving herself until she finally burned out. 

She realized that having the tools to navigate a corporate career is important, but what matters most is having the confidence to speak up and use them. Now she’s dedicated her career to sharing her HR insider knowledge to help clients define and articulate their value and effectively ask for what they want. 

Ashley notes that, in her experience, a vast number of companies prefer to be seen and experienced and flexible and open, especially to incoming candidates! When they offer you a position and potential salary, it’s often expected that you may counter with areas that matter to you. In fact, it might even be encouraged! Negotiating should never be seen as problematic.

The worst thing that can happen is they’ll turn you down; that’s okay! Even if you don’t get everything you asked for, it’s likely you’ll learn more about what your options are and where there may be flexibility within the company. That’s a good thing! 

Confidence in Negotiating

Ashley notes that she offers a variety of packages and rates for clientele. As an early business owner, she was apt to negotiate with clients over those rates. Now, however, she rarely does. She is well established, she owns the proven value she has consistently created over the years, and she sets her rates annually.

When she first started as a speaker, her contracts with larger companies and organizations were more likely to involve negotiating. Now, however, she’s found that she has not only raised her rates, but she’s also started getting more “yes’s”. Her ownership of who she is and what she does, and her confidence in communication, has decreased the amount of negotiating involved in getting the rates she desired.

We both see this phenomenon happening for many of the people we work with and around in our careers. Those who own their value and communicate it with confidence are able to command better rates, broker better deals, and have more success at the deal-making table.

Listen in here for the full interview!

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

Strategy for Intellectual Property

Leverage strategy for intellectual property: white background, three white binders stacked on top of one another

David Kalow is a University of Chicago law graduate, and now focuses exclusively on intellectual property. According to David, most companies – both large and small – need help to improve their strategy for intellectual property (IP). This includes making it even more valuable, cost-effective, and revenue-enhancing. IP strategy leverages a company’s most critical assets in the 21st century global economy: ideas and creativity.

Ultimately, he helps you to create and implement an effective, long-term strategy to manage your valuable intellectual property assets, including assets you may not even realize that you have! 

Was Intellectual Property Strategizing Always in the Cards?

David shares that his earliest goal was to be a space pirate. These dreams were based on his interest in sci-fi, and he was sure they’d come together at some point. As he grew up, he assumed he’d find himself working in science, or some other “nerdy” field. He never visualized business!

Once he completed law school and entered the field, David found that he learned deal-making slowly and academically. Starting his own law firm, and later his own solo practice, was his own way of being an entrepreneur. It may not have been what he planned, but he’s excelled!

Now, David’s objective is to make it easier to expand and accelerate business development while reducing legal fees. Your improved IP strategy can strengthen market positions, increase valuation, assist with funding and VC, energize deal making and strategic partnerships. It can even improve hiring, marketing and sales. It benefits early stage startups as much as small, medium and Fortune 100 enterprises, as well as those who finance them, such as VC’s and private equity.

Strategy for Intellectual Property

Any business has intellectual property, and David believes most business owners and entrepreneurs aren’t taking full advantage of it. He does see pharma, medical device creators, and biotech companies tending to appreciate IP and use best practices to strategize it the most. However, even there he tends to see many mistakes made.

According to David, most of these mistakes are common and avoidable when you know what you’re doing and understand the field.

For example, a strong strategy for intellectual property looks at all of an organization’s potential intellectual assets. It then uses every possible IP tool: legal and procedural, formal and informal. The first things people think of, like filing patents, trademarks, and copyrights, are really just foundational basics in what should be a much more comprehensive strategy.

Assuming that doing those basic tasks is enough is a huge mistake (and a very common one)!

Intellectual Property Isn’t Just for the “Big Guys”

David finds that strategizing their intellectual property is most important for startups and small businesses. Why? Because in the beginning, that can be all you have.

There are three major property types: land, personal property, intangible. Most of today’s companies aren’t based on owning large amounts of land or unique personal property (like factories, et). Rather, they are based on intangible assets.

If you don’t know how to use, understand, and appreciate IP, you won’t last. Missing opportunities to strategize your intellectual property will injure your revenue making capacity and potentially ruin your business. On the show, David and I discuss a few options for entrepreneurs and business owners to leverage their IP. One important option?

Use an appropriate blend of patent, trademark, and copyrighting.

There are so many ways to leverage your IP! You have to think about how you can leverage them in order to accelerate and strengthen your business. This includes deal-making with those intangible assets, as well as getting protection to ensure that you’ll retain downstream usage of your IP.

The worst use of your IP? Getting it wrapped up in litigation! Think through the fight if you want to avoid the fight, and get the protection you need to confidently strategize for using your IP on the market and within your business.

Think Creatively & Build Your Long Game

For 20 years, David had a client who collected hefty royalties from well-protected IP. By using patents and trademarks across multiple dimensions (software, chemicals, engineering, etc), they were able to bring to market a product that was necessary…and that simply couldn’t be provided without their input.

Rather than only protect their output, they found ways to protect their valuable processes, systems, and tools that made that output possible in the long run.

For years it was standard for computers to have CD-ROM players. Of course CD’s were patented, and the IP involved in their creation and use allowed the creators to benefit for years. It wouldn’t have been market-friendly to have every system use a completely different tool, and the best-positioned one was able to earn the whole market (and the financial gains that came with it).

Cartier watches were able to use trade dress (appearance of goods as the trademark) in a powerful way that enabled them to stand out in the luxury watch market. There are so many ways to leverage intellectual property, especially when you’re familiar with how the field works and what your options are. (This part of the episode reminded me of Bill Cates interview on leveraging IP!)

Make Sure You Protect Your IP Rights

Make sure you have the right agreements with employees and contractors to ensure that IP is flowing into the company. You must own your own rights, and sometimes when you work with freelancers or others on the work-for-hire market you don’t always have the ownership you think you have.

Rather than open yourself up for disputes down the road, you’ll want to do your due diligence on the front end to ensure that you’re protected!

Another note: IP doesn’t mean you have to become greedy and Scrooge-like! Strategy for intellectual property can be good for you, your business, and the world. David notes that research has shown that open federal patents are rarely utilized. Why? There is no ownership incentive, so it’s hard to generate funding or find people willing to invest time and energy to build them out. After all, whatever they create isn’t really theirs.

When you protect your work and have ownership, there can be a positive incentive towards building and investing.

The real reason behind patents is to reward owners and investors. After all, if there is no chance in a return, there is likely no one who will invest. Whenever money gets put into an idea, there is no guarantee that it will work out as planned. Having that idea protected and invested in gives it a chance to take its shape and change the world!

Patents also allow us to maintain and share ideas, without losing our rights. There are so many technologies of old, based on trade secrets, that are simply gone forever. Why? Because the inventors kept them secret, and no one knows how they worked! We diminish the power (and losses) inherent in trade secrets when we make it safe to share our discoveries and work.

Listen in to learn more about how to best create strategy for your intellectual property!

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

Deal-Making is About Relationships

deal-making is about relationships

Here we are at the end of 2020. What a year! Today, I’m offering up a solo-cast that leads back to the most basic truth about deals: deal-making is about relationships. As I share often, almost every business deal is either the start of a relationship, or the continuation of an existing relationship. There’s just no way around it, and it’s a key part of how I teach about the deal-making process.

Also, we just celebrated our 100th episode with guest Joe Apfelbaum! It was an incredible interview, and Joe shared awesome insights about his deal-making prowess and partnership experiences. 

Relationships are a Key Deal-Making Ingredient

Whether you’re in an acquisition or merger, or you’re creating deals with partners, vendors, or suppliers, relationships are a key element. You name the deal, there’s likely going to be a relationship being established, built, or leveraged. 

The journey towards a deal is usually paved by relationships as well. Your broker, your agent, your banker, your partner, your friend — these are the relationships that position us to know who we need to know, get people to the deal-making table, and start the deal-making process.

That’s what makes relationships such an important part of both business and deals, not to mention our day-to-day lives!

2020 Highlighted How Essential Relationships Are

In 2020, relationships played a key role in my life for even more reasons than usual. 

The support, guidance, connection, and opportunities that came from relationships during this hard, long year were key for me. Not just for growth, but for peace, strength, and stability. Now, more than ever, I know that connection with others fuels me, fuels my personal growth, and fuels my business.

I know that many of you have had to make major pivots this year, and I’ve seen again and again how relationships can truly pave the way to make those successful. Even as things have been hard, relationships with family, friends, and industry professionals often provided a key element that allowed us to turn things around, make the best of the options available to us, or otherwise find a way to navigate this year.

If you’ve been part of my relationship network this year as a client, a friend, a podcast listener or guest, a DealDen member, or otherwise: thank you. I truly appreciate you, and I hope to continue together with you into the new year!

Know, Like, Trust: Business Relationships Pave the Way for Deals

People want to do business with people they like. It’s just the truth! 

When it comes to deal-making, nothing much changes. When you’ve built that know, like, trust factor via real relationships, you’ll find opportunities seem to naturally appear. Why? Because when someone is thinking about who to offer a partnership to, who to strategize with, who to make a deal with, they feel best if they’re doing it with someone they know, like, and trust. 

Being in a relationship with someone builds confidence.

Worried that you’re not well positioned when it comes to relationships? Well, there is no magic pill that will develop them overnight! In fact, it can take a long time to build relationships. As the old Chinese proverb says, however:

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.

Another note: Just because deals are technically transactions doesn’t mean that your relationships should be described that way! People sense when you’re only interested in them because you want or need something. If you only set about to build relationships because you’re trying to get something, it won’t work the way you hope.

Instead, practice nurturing your current network. Add value. Seek to serve. Find a way to genuinely support someone else. Connect with people you’ve possibly just “not seen” in the past. If 2020 taught you anything, let it be that relationships matter and are always worth investing in.

Listen in to hear my full thoughts on the connection between deal-making and relationships!

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 Deal-Making Authentic Leadership Deal-Driven Growth

Genius Visionary Deal-Making

Genius Visionary Deal-Making

Krishna Mohan is an entrepreneur, business coach, speaker, and number one best-selling author. You may have seen him on Fox TV or other media outlets. He’s the president of Genius Visionary, and specializes in scaling businesses by doubling their revenues within 18 months. Manufacturing, telecom, data centers and more: Krishna has worked in many industries and truly understands business!

Early Deal-Making with Krishna Mohan

An early deal of interest that Krishna remembers involved an IT company. It had been founded and had a strong client base, but the owners weren’t especially active. They weren’t clear on the value of the client base they had built, and were thinking of simply closing the business rather than selling it!

Sensing an opportunity, Krishna stepped in. After asking how they planned to leverage their clientele and contracts, he suggested they do one of two things. Either hire him to maximize their options, or let the business go by selling it to him.

They sold it, and within two years Krishna turned it into a million dollar company. He attributes this to his business acumen and his ability to create profit and opportunity.

One thing he reminds listeners: You don’t know where the deal is going to come from. It is vital to keep your eyes open and be watching for options!

For example, there are thousands of companies in the IT space. Which ones are worth considering acquiring? Which ones are just a dime-a-dozen that might not be worth investing in? Krishna has seen that smaller companies often do well in their niche, but they don’t always see as clearly how to scale and grow.

When you understand the value of the service a small company provides and can look ahead to consider how that might be leveraged in greater ways, you have the potential of finding a gold mine. Krishna shares that you have to be able to look for a wide range of options.

Career Building Moves

Krishan shares that he dreamt of becoming a doctor when he was a boy. As a teenager, however, he realized he was much more interested in the money and opportunities to be found in business. This propelled him into the SAAS space, and then into corporate industries. 

He has worked in management and sales positions in a variety of private and government industries, but he found that there was always something that bothered him. Bureaucracy, being a “needle in a haystack”, and red tape were pretty typical in large businesses. As a result, he pivoted into smaller businesses, hoping to find something more. Although this was more satisfying, Krishna eventually realized that the natural progression of his career seemed to be leading towards entrepreneurship.

After founding a tech company that he went on to sell for over seven figures, Krishna founded Genius Visionary. His work here was based on patterns and problems he was noticing in the industry. The solution for the problems he found? Genius Visionary! Now, the company provides everything from group and DIY business coaching to financing assistance and acquisition advice.

Passively Looking for Deals All the Time

Krishna says he is passively looking for deals at all times. 

From products he sells to businesses he works with, he’s always looking for potential. He’s asking himself questions like: Where could this go? How could this be leveraged? What opportunities are hidden within this?

He tries to sense how business is going, and what’s happening behind the scenes. As he interacts with business owners, he seeks to understand why they are in business and what they are trying to accomplish.

After years in the game, he feels he can “sense” when an opportunity is ripe.

One thing that plays a role: looking for motivated sellers. If the owner doesn’t want to exit, then the deal isn’t going to happen. Whatever their WHY might be….you have to be able to find it and communicate to them in order to navigate a deal you’ll both benefit from.

Mapping Accounts to Increase Deal-Making Potential

Krishna recommends always mapping accounts. You must understand who is involved, what is happening within the account, and what potential an account has for expansion. Also, know what goals the account holder has, as well as what goals your business/organization has for the account.

This allows you to know how you can achieve success. This is success for every business and person involved. For example, building additional projects and services out of existing accounts increases profits and grows your business. 

Having a high-awareness of an account’s needs and potentials also enables you to “speak their language”. When you do this, you build trust and likability, both of which are key to growth and future deal-making. This is key, because it’s not all about dollars and cents. People need to see that you care, that you understand their business, and that you have their best interest in mind.

Genius Visionary Deal-Making

Krishna knows how to preach value in ways that companies understand. Doing this allows him to get in the door and start creating value. 

Creating these opportunities is key. If you want to grow your business, make deals, or improve your business, you have to get clear about your purpose and start looking to find the options available to you.

There is no “ready to go” deal. It’s never that simple! There will always be behind-the-scenes work necessary to get people to the point of being ready for a deal. By being prepared and expecting deals to happen, you can pave the way towards successful deals. 

Smaller companies are often ripe for deal-making! Why? Well, for one reason, 85% of businesses do not qualify for traditional lending. This happens for several reasons, but ultimately means that non-traditional funding and creative deal-making is necessary in the business space!

Listen in to hear more about the difference between using your FICO score for financing your business, versus building business credit! Krishna offers great advice on using credit options like this to open doors to growth.

Krishna notes that his company, Genius Visionary, works hard to help companies prepare for success on a variety of levels. This includes small group advising, DIY business coaching, financial advice, and more. By building strong foundations, businesses can better equip themselves for growth and deal-making. This is a strong position that enables expansion beyond what many small business owners dream of!

Listen in to learn more about credit, debt, and growth!

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 Deal-Making Authentic Leadership Authentic Negotiating Deal-Driven Growth

Deals For Small Businesses

deals for small businesses: a glass shop door with a black and blue "Open" sign hanging from it.

In this week’s solo-cast, I wanted to spend some time talking about deals for small businesses. If you’ve been a listener for a while, you know that one of our premises is that businesses of any size can do deals, whether you have capital or not. It’s a myth that deals can only be done by big companies with big money. While I do have guests who share about large deals involving large amounts of capital, it doesn’t mean that those are the only deals out there. I’ve also featured many guests who own or work with small businesses, and they are leveraging the power of deals (and experiencing great success!) as well. 

Ep. 3: Ramon Ray, with influencer and sponsorship deals.

Ramon is an influencer who has key connections with businesses and entrepreneurs. He doesn’t have millions of followers, but he has quality followers. He capitalizes on that quality following by creating deals between them and other companies.

Ep. 7: John Bly, with acquisition deals, including deals done without significant capital.

John has been able to attract deals by bringing things other than capital (like partnerships) to the table. Within his first 18 months of business he was leveraging his deal-making power to create growth for his business. Gradually he built up to bigger and bigger deals, eventually moving into a succession deal.

Ep. 34: Julia Pimsleur, with an early deal with PBS that she created out of nothing.

When Julia was first getting started with her children’s language learning company, she was looking for gaps in the market. At a trade show event she happened to realize that PBS had a lot of learning related programming, but nothing in her niche. With some planning, she crafted a pitch and signed a deal with them – no major capital needed!

Ep. 41: Ralph Peterson and I ended up having a brainstorming session on small business growth.

Ralph provides management training and other services. On our episode, we ended up having a full blown brainstorm session on the kind of deals he could potentially create. If you want to get your own small business deal creativity flowing, check this one out!

Ep. 42: Gary Kane, with deals in the lower-middle market.

As a founder, Gary knows all about starting with nothing and building up. He’s also an amazing deal creator. In our interview, we especially talked about the kinds of deals that can be done in the lower-middle market.

Ep. 43: Bill Cates, with leveraging intellectual property and licensing deals.

Bill is a speaker, but rather than depend solely on speaking fees, he’s proactively found other ways to make deals and create revenue. One lucrative (and often underutilized option) includes leveraging his intellectual property to create a successful business. From books to videos to workshops, entrepreneurs can look beyond a fee-for-services model and create deals around licensing!

Ep. 75: Jesse Cole, on using creativity to stand out and grow.

Jesse has built many amazing deals based on partnerships. He’s experienced an incredible amount of success in an industry that is often struggling to get by. More recently he’s been working on online subscriptions and followings as a result of pivoting due to Covid.

Increasing Small Business Sales Through Partnerships

If you’re a small business owner who isn’t necessarily looking to acquire other companies or make deals that require large amounts of capital, you’re not excluded from deal-making! Here are a few things to ask yourself as you consider how you might be making more small business deals:

  • How can you increase sales/growth organically through deal-driven growth?
  • How can you make applications to other companies, industries, or verticals by connecting with those who have access to your market?
  • What opportunities might you have to create deals with those you perceive as your competitors?
  • Who is selling complementary products or services to a client base (or demographic) you’d like to break into?

When you consider the client acquisition cost in building a new customer base, it’s worth it to consider creative strategies beyond marketing. Even though partnering with another organization as an affiliate means giving up a percentage of sales, if they are connecting you with a broader customer base and increasing business, it might be worth it. There is always a cost to customer acquisition; why not pay part of that out through commissions rather than via an ads budget?

Depending how you structure your partnership or affiliate deals, you may be able to upsell and cross sell other products without having to share that revenue. 

Just a reminder: these deals aren’t substitutes for other growth methods. They are, however, additional opportunities for small businesses to pursue.

(I also referenced Damon Gersh’s episode on becoming a dominant force in your industry!)

Licensing & Small Businesses

Licensing is highly lucrative, but often underutilized. If you’ve uniquely created something, however, there are a lot of opportunities here! If you offer speaking, training, or online courses, you can consider additional opportunities to license the content to clients.

Rather than paying per use, or you being paid for each individual delivery, you can use licensing to scale your small business.

You can also consider the “train-the-trainer” model, where you retain control of the content but certify trainers who can use your intellectual property. Often, they pay a licensing fee to continue using your content and resources.

Many small businesses underestimate the amount of intellectual property they have available for potential licensing; take inventory of what you have available, and see if you could leverage it for deal-making!

(I also referenced David Bach’s episode, where we discussed licensing as well!)

Building Collaborative Relationships

Consider using this downtime to get into alignment with other local businesses. 

You could create an association and use it as a platform for networking. You can also build either informal or formal strategies for creating collaborative relationships. Many deals can spring out of these kinds of groups!

I remember an area of New York in which related businesses in the home building/renovation space chose to work together to create a district for customers in need of their services. Even though some of these businesses were in competition with one another, by working together to become the “go to” place for their ideal clients, they increased traffic and business for every member.

Entrepreneurs and small business owners too often think they have to be a lone wolf to succeed. In reality, there are many lucrative opportunities to connect, collaborate, and build growth together. We need to get past our automatic assumptions that we can’t work with our competitors, because sometimes it really makes sense!

What Does it Take to Become a Deal Maker

For small businesses, becoming a deal-maker is about getting past the assumption that you’re too small for that to be a valid option. When your mindset is telling you that being a deal-maker isn’t on the table, you become blind to the options you have available!

Shifting your mentality and opening yourself to opportunities can really get your juices flowing and make you aware of what’s truly available.

Right now the economy has created a strong dichotomy; some businesses are flourishing, and others are really struggling. Take a look around; how might you tap into the markets and businesses seeing a lot of success right now? Or how might you bring extra talent into your organization right now as a result of some of the struggles we are facing today?

Covid has also been an invitation to get creative about deals. Contractual rights, ownership or partnership opportunities, and future profit shares are all on the table.

If you’re a smaller business looking to benefit from deal-making, you should take these three steps:

  1. Change your mindset and understand that you CAN be a deal-maker.
  2. Look at your business goals, and consider who you can partner with to achieve those objectives (don’t eliminate competitors).
  3. Focus on shared objectives, and go to a professional to help you sort out the actual structure and logistics of the actual deal.

To hear the full solo-cast, listen in here!

https://shows.acast.com/coreykupfer/episodes/episode-96-deals-for-small-businesses-with-corey-kupfer

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.

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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

The Power of Feeling Worthy

the power of feeling worthy: General Motors electric box showing high voltage

Renee Reese is The Worthiness Queen. She helps leaders, entrepreneurs and professionals heal their relationship with money and success and finally experience the power of feeling worthy of their next-level dreams. She’s also a transformational writer, speaker, and teacher and an innovator in the personal development industry. 

In addition to all that, Renee is an attorney, certified success coach,  NLP practitioner, T.I.M.E. techniques practitioner and hypnotherapist. She speaks and teaches all around the world, focusing on mindset and personal development. She is a dynamic, in-demand speaker and audiences love her for her practical application and takeaways, transparency, and relatability. You can listen in to our full conversation here.

Childhood Joint Ventures

Growing up, Renee always wanted to write. Now, writing is a huge part of her platform and work (she has a book coming out soon)! She also had aspirations of being an actress, which didn’t materialize. Her speaking and teaching does put her on stage and in front of crowds frequently, however, which she enjoys.

The first deal Renee remembers was negotiating a sleep-over at a friend’s house. Her early strategy was to wait till her mom was in a great mood, and to then have her friend do the big ask, since her parents were less likely to say no to someone else! We might consider her a master of the strategic alliance, or even a joint venture!

As an adult, Renee now works with leaders, entrepreneurs, and more. She got started as an attorney, but found herself burnt out and exhausted early in that career, despite financial success. Unfortunately, she was noticing that a lot of technically successful people were lacking confidence, passion, and positive relationships with their money too. In her heart she knew: there has to be another way, because this can’t be all that success is.

If you’re healthy, with friends you love and money in the bank, but you’re lacking a sense of worthiness….none of it will feel good. All too often, high-performers go from one thing to the next, hitting goals yet feeling empty. Renee helps people create alignment so they can experience success both internally and externally.

As an entrepreneur myself, I know how powerful alignment and personal money relationships are!

Owning Your Worth

I know that owning your own worth is a huge part of successful negotiations. When you’re dealing with fear, scarcity, and lack — it’s almost impossible to create strong negotiations you can confidently bring to the table.

Renee has noticed that when people are struggling with worthiness, they often struggle to come to the table with clarity on their non-negotiables. It’s not about being aggressive, it’s about matter-of-factly knowing what you need, what you’re willing to compromise on, and what you plan to take away from a deal. When you’re not coming from a place of worthiness, you tend to feel a strong sense of urgency around forcing deals to go through. Why?

Because your sense of success and worth are tied to the outcome of every deal. When you KNOW you’re coming from a place of worthiness, you don’t have to feel that your own reputation, worth, ability, or success are tied up in the deal. You are empowered to hold firm to your own non-negotiables, and you know you can walk away if the deal isn’t a good fit for you.

This is easier said than done! Owning your value and knowing our worth are powerful….but often they are concepts we only understand intellectually. Living it is a whole different ball game. Renee shares that owning your own value starts with your relationship with yourself.

You have to know your own desires, know your own strengths, and know the outcomes you want. Renee literally tells herself: “Self, you can tell me anything.”

She knows her boundaries, she knows what she craves, and she defines herself on her terms. Rather than trying to escape and avoid feeling bad feelings, awkwardness, loneliness, or scarcity, we often try to run (and force things to happen). Instead, you can actually allow yourself to sit with yourself, feel those hard things, and know that you can trust yourself to listen to yourself, be with yourself, and show up for yourself.

Trust Building With Ourselves

In a romantic relationship, you expect to build trust slowly. The relationship with ourselves is the same. We have to start slowly, communicate openly, and demonstrate acceptance and care.

One way of building self-trust is to keep the promises you make to you. If you said you were going to make your bed every day….ask for the promotion…write the book….you can build trust by actually showing up and doing those things. Pay attention to the ways you show up for yourself, and also take note of the ways that you don’t show up. Actually listen to yourself: what’s happening when you don’t show up? Why won’t you keep your word to you? Be willing to listen, learn, and make changes as needed.

When it comes to achievement and growth, Renee says we can build trust in our ability to experience success as well.

She recommends writing down three things you’ve already succeeded in, and three things you’d like to succeed in. Just like you’ve succeeded before, your mind starts to see your new list as things that are possible as well. Whether we believe it or not, we are constantly creating in our own lives. The best way to tap into that power is to be intentional about creating the vision we actually desire.

We all carry subconscious beliefs about topics like money, achievement, power, and success. Everything in our world starts with belief.

Self-Belief and Deal-Making

If you walk into a negotiation with the belief that the other person at the table is better and smarter, or that they deserve more, of course you’ll be dissatisfied with the deal you make. You’ll sell yourself short, and make compromises.

When you believe in yourself as someone who is intelligent, deserving, and successful, you’ll show up at the table differently. 

I teach that being crystal clear on your objectives and outcomes is an essential part of deal making. What Renee is saying here is so true: if you come to the table with a lot of internal blocks and haven’t done core level work, it does impact your negotiating.

Self-worth also impacts the deals you’re willing to attempt to make. If you can’t get by your fundamental self-worth struggles, you deeply limit the rest of your life.

Building the Life You Deserve

Renee’s work centers on helping people overcome these internal struggles and limitations so they can truly experience alignment and success.

One of her favorite clients was experiencing some level of success, but also dealing with massive amounts of doubt and fear. People on the outside wouldn’t have known, based on how she showed up, but she was unhappy.

From her business structure to the way she was showing up….she knew she wasn’t owning her work or her worth. When Renee started working with her, she was going through a dry spell, which was a repeating pattern in her life.

She would hit new income goals, then go into a complete slump and have no money again. It was the feast or famine cycle, which many entrepreneurs are familiar with!

Renee used strategies and tools from her NLP training that helped the client go straight to the root of her money beliefs. Internalized beliefs about being secondary, not deserving, and less than had impacted this client since childhood, and when she understood what they were based on she was able to blast through them and experience transformation.

Clearing past beliefs opened up so many new doors for her, and it all started with the root. Renee’s clients find that clearing these blocks changes their lives and their businesses.

Externalization + Personal Value

I noted that our society sends us so many messages about what we need to have and how we need to look in order to be valuable or worthy. That deeply impacts our confidence and self-worth, which bleeds over into our businesses and deals.

Renee agreed, sharing that consumerism is a huge driving force for many of us. It fuels a more, More, MORE mentality that makes it impossible to understand the abundance that is available to us in the present moment. And the reality is….there is never going to be enough in the external world.

There will always be something new, something different, something bigger and better that tells us we aren’t enough. We cannot understand our own personal value and worthiness when we are constantly looking at external measurements for validation. 

When we are building our relationship with ourselves and our own self-trust, we have to be able to detach from external messaging and gain clarity about our own values and desires. That’s the only way to maintain an internal sense of value and confidence, regardless of external circumstances.

Another way of coming at this is to clarify our WHY. If we are pushing ourselves to achieve because we are measuring ourselves against what we “should” be doing, it’s not going to work. Growing for growth’s sake to fuel vanity isn’t going to serve you in the long run. Get real with yourself about what you truly desire, and why it matters to you. Those are the goals that matter – that’s what you need to pursue.

To hear more about Renee’s take on negotiations and worth, 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

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

 

Categories
Authentic Deal-Making Authentic Negotiating Deal-Driven Growth

Internal Succession

internal succession deals: 3 business people standing in an office with large windows

Today’s guest, Michael Vann, is a highly motivated and driven Business & Transaction Advisor at the Vann Group. Michael has over 18 years of experience in both corporate and entrepreneurial settings. He has a passion for the growth and development of high impact companies. He’s also shown a proven ability to advise clients in a manner that results in growth and success. Using his knowledge and expertise, he is able to work with clients to develop strategies and solutions that build on a company’s existing foundation, unlocking its unrealized value. Ultimately, Michael also works with clients on succession deals, including internal succession.

Early Deal Making

Having grown up in an entrepreneurial family, Michael notes he always had a bug for business. Although M&A wasn’t on his radar early on, creating businesses and doing deals certainly was! The first big deal Michael was part of involved selling a coffee shop, which went quite well.

Now, Michael’s activities focus on serving as a trusted advisor to owners and leadership teams that require insight and execution of strategic initiatives and transactions. This includes areas like mergers & acquisitions; the development of joint ventures & strategic alliances; the acquisition of financing and capital; and the launch of new business models & divisions. As an industry agnostic, Michael has successfully worked in a wide range of industries, including insurance/financial services, industrial/business services, manufacturing, and food & hospitality.

Internal Succession Deals

Michael and his father, Kevin Vann, recently co-authored Buying Out the Boss: The Successor’s Guide to Succession Planning. (And back on Ep. 88, I did a solocast on internal succession deals and opportunities!) So I knew my discussion with Michael about internal succession deals would be a great follow-up.

First off, Michael notes that there are many moving pieces in a succession deal. Those moving parts are what attracts Michael to internal succession, as he finds them challenging and enjoyable to work on.

Small, local companies play a large role in the economy, as well as in their own communities. Internal succession deals are a way to keep them locally owned and operating, even when the original founder steps down or moves on. Another key component to succession? Maintaining company continuity and growth through a succession.

Michael notes a stat that over 50% of business owners don’t believe their successor was prepared. He works with business owners to help them build the support and systems needed for a healthy succession.

The Buyers Don’t Always Know What They’re Getting In To

At the start of the succession deal, Michael notes that buyers are often at quite a disadvantage. They don’t always know the ins and outs of everything they are getting into, and they are sometimes coming from the position of being an employee. Even if they know the business, that knowledge is usually constrained to a specific area.

Transitioning to being the full fledged owner and CEO of a business is a huge shift. It’s not just about taking on a new title. This may help us understand why only 6% of successions involve an existing employee.

Michael notes that not every employee has a desire to take over a business and become the CEO either. Just because an internal succession deal may seem desirable, he cautions business owners to remain aware that they may not have an employee who would truly make sense to take over.

If you know you’ll one day desire to transition out of your business, you need to know it can run without you! It’s tempting to remain heavily involved, but you can make yourself more attractive to both internal and external buyers if you can demonstrate that the business can remain stable without your constant oversight and presence.

Conversations with Owners

Michael notes that there is a difference between scale and value. Many people can find a way to scale, but not everyone can build long term value that lasts.

From the perspective of a potential buyer, long term value is much more important than the ability to scale. Business owners need to move beyond short term thinking and consider what parts of their business are saleable, or worthy of passing on to the next generation.

Unfortunately, family businesses tend to have low statistical success rates across the generations. Michael has seen that keeping the second generation vibrant and growing is key to their success. Beyond that, however, he tends to see a downward spiral in experience moving into the 3rd and 4th generations of family businesses. Sometimes later generations are coming into the business from a place of entitlement, and other times they are there out of obligation. Either way, it doesn’t tend to translate to success.

I noted a practical problem that also occurs is that most generations get successively larger. The math gets quite hard when ownership is splintered among 15+ people, as getting people on the same page can be quite hard and the business needs to support more people.

Family strife, differences in vision and direction, and willingness to take risks all come into play for multi-generational businesses.

Trends in the M&A Market

When Covid hit, Michael’s group saw three deals stop dead in their tracks. Eventually one moved forward, but the other two died. Around May, however, they saw things start moving again.

He attributes this to business owners who are accelerating their transition processes after having watched the way the market has been moving. Increased uncertainty has caused a number of owners to decide to get out now while they can, even if their numbers are a little lower than expected.

Michael did note that they haven’t seen any large valuation impacts yet. He’s encouraged clients not to panic, and has seen plenty of active buyers in addition to sellers. By making wise decisions from a calm place, most business owners should have the ability to make solid decisions regarding their futures despite challenging times.

For deals that are moving forward, there has been an uptick in clawback provisions. This creates a balance for both sides of the transaction, and may be worth considering if you enter a deal in the near future. As a structure, it protects both sides and creates a bit more deal security. I agreed, noting that our firm has seen a similar trend.

In Massachusetts where Michael is located, he notes they’re in a strong manufacturing market, with precision aerospace and medical devices especially. There is a great asset base there, and the deals tend to be quite solid.

Whether you’re looking to buy or sell, the market is solid and deals are getting done every day!

Listen in to Episode 94 to hear the full interview and get Michael’s take on some of the biggest mistakes people make while trying to get deals done.

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

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

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

Create and Transfer Business Value

Transfer Business Value

Laurie Barkman is the CEO of SmallDotBig, where she works with entrepreneurs, private companies, and family businesses on innovation, transition, and growth strategies. All this is to help clients achieve their long-term goals. She also works with closely-held companies to grow the value of their business and prepare to transition ownership in 7-10 years. As the Host of the Succession Stories Podcast, Laurie speaks with CEOs and experts about how to create and transfer business value. Altogether, Laurie has more than 20 years of digital transformation, entrepreneurship, and intrapreneurship in tech, retail, logistics, and service industries — from startups to corporates. 

Laurie’s Early Start

As a young person, Laurie had no idea she’d go on to be a CEO. She did start to recognize pretty early, however, that she was a leader. As a student she was often in situations where she had a chance to make an impact, create change, and coordinate with other students. In fact, her mom thought she’d go into politics and be a diplomat!

When it came time to pick a school and major, however, Laurie still didn’t know what she wanted to do. As a result, she chose a school and area of study that she felt would serve her no matter what direction she ultimately went. Her first career move after graduation? HR!

Laurie considers her first deal-making experience to be selling Hickory Farms meat and cheese as part of a fundraising campaign. She sold so much she earned a prize, and she considers this her first confidence boost in the sales arena. 

As her career has evolved, Laurie notes she has been in a variety of different industries and companies. From startups to billion dollar traded companies, Laurie has found ways to be innovative and creative. Now, she looks back and sees that her journey is what brought her to where she is today.

Healthy Succession Planning

Laurie loves working with entrepreneurial families, in which the founding entrepreneur created something and future generations have grown it into something even larger. She shares about a 3rd generation family business she worked in during her career. The family had moved from horse and buggy delivery to larger transportation to reverse logistics.

Eventually, Laurie was involved in the company’s succession plan. This required understanding the potential of long-term strategy with multigenerational impact. Stakeholders mattered, but so did employees and customers. 

Companies who have this sort of long-term vision inspire Laurie, and she loves partnering with them to help them see the potential for healthy succession possibilities.

As we were talking, I realized that we haven’t had much podcast content focused on family businesses. I’d love to dig into this area even more because there is so much that can be said about family members running a long term business together. There are major partnership dynamics at play, as well as other factors. (Would you be the perfect guest for this? I’d love to hear from you!)

Family Businesses, Family Values

Laurie notes that family businesses are incredibly unique. Each one is a sort of “snowflake”, in that you’ll never find another exactly like it. That’s one of the things that makes them so much fun to work with!

She shared the concept of shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations. Essentially, the first generation invests and innovates to build something successful, but the second generation is fearful of “sinking the ship”. They are more likely to play things safe and fail to creatively expand and grow. The third generation may be able to turn things around, but it may also be too late. There may also be family conflict, or a family that has grown so quickly that the business cannot sustain them.

Other issues in family succession can be connected to lack of fit or ability to take a business on, or a lack of a successor because there are no family members left.

Building skill sets and creating a pipeline for next generation talent is a key part of succession, whether you want to keep your business in the family or not!

On her podcast, Succession Stories: Insights for Next Generation Entrepreneurs, Laurie has interviewed multiple CEO’s of family run businesses. She has noticed that family run companies tend to be incredibly value heavy. They understand where the values have come from, and how they play out in day to day life. These values are also attached to the history of the company, and it’s essential that they are written down.

She emphasizes that any business can benefit from having value clarity. Another of Laurie’s clients, not a family business, recently came to her without clearly established values. The start of their work together was to figure those out.

Top Down or Bottom Up

Laurie notes that a family board can be a really helpful method for families running a company together. This might be considered a “top down” system. She notes that these boards can include owners or higher level executives within the company in addition to family, but it is comprised heavily of family members. This board is in addition to an executive board, or advisory board. Family boards can help diffuse family tension and provide a forum for conversation.

On the other end, a “bottom up” approach may mean that family members start at the bottom of the business and work their way up. When it comes to family members working within the business, Laurie notes that it can’t be forced. If a family member doesn’t want a role or position, then it will never work.

Strengths, motivation, and fit are absolutely key “buckets”, in Laurie’s point of view.

A healthy succession means that a potential family member needs to have the necessary strengths, they need personal motivation and desire, and they must fit into the role that needs to be filled, which includes personality, organizational dynamics, and more.

Although any of those three buckets might not be 100% at the start, time can change and grow all things. Listen to the full episode to hear Laurie share about a family member who originally didn’t have great fit or motivation, but who later came to realize that running the business was his calling!

Family business or otherwise, healthy succession relies on the ability to create and transfer business value across time. Sometimes there is unnecessary drama and chaos because a business’s leaders don’t know who they would be outside of their company.Rather than let go and learn who they really are, they cling on in an attempt to retain a sense of self. This can be especially problematic in family run businesses, because there are the added pressures of the family name being attached to a certain way of being.

Create and Transfer Business Value

In the technology world, things move fast and the larger successful tech companies are comparatively new. There aren’t many multi-generational families who have been involved in the tech space, and even less with the ability to transfer business value!

Laurie notes that she got into digital marketing as a personal career pivot herself; it wasn’t her first path, as it wasn’t for many. As a result, she had an early look at what it means to have technology or tools, but no market. She also saw that start ups can appear really glossy from the outside, but can be really messy on the inside.

Because her role was connected to succession and going to market, she could see that internal mess was problematic. In another shift, Laurie moved into apparel retail at the start of the ecommerce boom. She considers that a corporate start up, in that it was an established company doing something brand new. Again, she was involved in structure, scaling, and marketing. Her career has allowed her to work with budgets of a hundred dollars, and a hundred million dollars.

As a result, Laurie knows how to assess a business and get to the root of what’s working and what is not. She has an eye for understanding fit, operational needs, and market, all while building value.

She also knows what it means to create and transfer business value. Rather than leave money on the table, Laurie helps businesses think through healthy succession based on the transfer of accrued value.

Now, Laurie loves working with small to medium privately owned companies in order to bring together a strategic planning process that creates momentum to move forward. When a team understands where they are going, they are aligned and empowered to grow. This brings a business to life; it’s creating the plan AND executing, which is key. (90% of strategies don’t get implemented….which renders them worthless!)

Listen in to Episode 93 to hear the full interview!

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 Deal-Making Authentic Leadership Authentic Negotiating Deal-Driven Growth

A Deal-Maker’s Paradigm Shift

Paradigm shift

Jeff Dennis is the trusted advisor to the CEOs of fast growth companies, where he provides strategic and financial advice. He is a lawyer, serial entrepreneur, best selling author, and public speaker.His book, Lessons from the Edge, is a collection of stories by 50 entrepreneurs who share their biggest mistakes in business and the lessons that they have learned. He’s a sought after public speaker for audiences across the world. Here, he shares about the deal-maker’s paradigm shift that has helped him grow throughout his career.

Creative Problem Solving as an Entrepreneur in Residence

Jeff shares that, early on, he expected to take over the family business. After circumstances changed, however, he had to reinvent himself. This reinvention is what ultimately brought Jeff into the entrepreneurial space. 

Now, Jeff is an “Entrepreneur in Residence” with Fasken Law, one of Canada’s largest law firms. He helps them answer the question: How does a big law firm do business with these new tech companies?

These startups often have vast legal needs, but often few resources early in. Although some of them turn out to be unicorns that achieve wild success, many don’t. It’s clear, however, that they have legal needs. Part of Jeff’s role is to enable Fasken Law to meet those needs creatively. He considers himself to be part intreprenuer, as he’s building a small business inside of an institution. He’s part business advisor, as he does quite a bit of coaching and consulting within his work. And he’s part lawyer too, as a licensed legal professional! His journey certainly has been a “typical” lawyer’s journey, but he’s enjoyed his alternate career path.

Some of Jeff’s creative ability comes from a unique deal he crafted early in his professional life. It involved his family’s restaurant business, a massive theater complex raining debris on their patio, and a revenue guarantee that enabled them to sell at a profit. (Curious about the details? Listen HERE to get the whole story!)

Discovering a Deal-Maker’s Paradigm Shift

Prior to Fasken Law, Jeff went through multiple iterations of business. First, he thought of himself as a real estate guy. He was registered with the Ontario Securities Commission as a limited market dealer, and was syndicating real estate.

And then the market crashed. It seemed like everything Jeff was involved with was connected to real estate, and suddenly that was nothing but bad news. Rather than throw in the towel, Jeff set to work reenvisioning himself.

His realization? He was a deal-maker. This paradigm shift allowed him to see that real estate had been a commodity that he was making deals around. Rather than fixate on the commodity (real estate), his world opened up when he realized he could create deals in any sector, with any commodity.

Jeff has since done deals in mining, cosmetics, insurance, stocks & bonds, TV productions, franchises, and more.

If you’d like to hear more about Jeff’s thoughts on the “pound of flesh” required to take investor money in these types of deals, listen to the full episode here!

Always Growing

As he branched into deals, Jeff also worked hard to network and grow professionally. He joined EO (Entrepreneur’s Organization) and worked his way from local leadership to the international board. He wrote Lessons From the Edge, which became a bestseller and launched his speaking career. And he’s since traveled the world, speaking globally.

By using his deal-making skills as a springboard, Jeff has advanced personally and professionally throughout his career.

As he was writing and speaking, he also transitioned into angel investing. During this stage, he worked with early stage companies on commercialization and capital raising. Later, this experience would assist Jeff as he began crafting fixed-fee deals aligned with startup values and needs.

Creating Services & Products That Work

When Jeff talked about how a big law firm tends to deal with tech companies, the only word that came to my mind was “poorly”. Ultimately, law firms expected to operate with large hourly fees. And startups and entrepreneurs that were building tech companies couldn’t afford that.

There was an entire underserved market that was having to forgo legal representation, or deal with minimal legal counsel because it was out of range of their budgets. Jeff brought his deal-making experience to bear. Working within Fasken Law, he developed a concept for a fixed fee model that he knew would attract tech companies.

This creative solution required a great deal of negotiation. As a traditional law firm, they had to let go of “how it was always done” in order to try something innovative and new. From incorporating the company to creating shareholder agreements, creating employee contracts, and building employee stock option plans; Fasken Law became startup friendly.

Jeff shares that hundreds of companies from every sector came through these programs. Because they were structured as fixed-fee offerings that could be customized as needed, they were highly attractive to the startup market.

Ultimately, the deal-maker’s paradigm shift Jeff encountered early in his career has shaped his professional life ever since. There is power in making deals!

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 Leadership Authentic Negotiating Deal-Driven Growth

Pitching Deals As Your Authentic Self

Authentic-Self

Have you ever met the full-figured diva who has taken the business world by storm and won BIG? Well now you have! Precious L. Williams, also affectionately known as the #KillerPitchMaster, can help you #slayallcompetition. She does so with her “killer” elevator pitches, media pitches, and investor pitches. I’m really excited to share our conversation, especially as it pertains to pitching deals as your authentic self.

Who is Precious Williams?

As a child, Precious wanted to be a talk show host. Even then she knew that her future was going to include using her voice and commanding the attention of an audience. She could not have been more right!

Today, Precious is a world class master communicator. She works with successful entrepreneurs and speakers around the world. Her main role is to help them take their professional pitching and speaking skills to the next level. Williams has over 25 years of experience in creating unique speaking and public speaking techniques. In addition, she is known for her innovative training programs and services to her clients. This includes sales teams at Fortune 100 companies, including Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, eBay, and more.

Prior to her rise, she shares that her first real deal was getting her job back. She had been fired from a grocery store, and she went back and laid out the reasons she should be rehired. (Once she got it back, she realized she didn’t want it anymore and resigned!)

Pitching Deals For Sport

As a 13-time national business elevator pitch champion, Williams has been on top television shows and publications. She’s widely known for her pitching, branding, and professional speaking skills. Here in the US she has been featured on Season 8 of ABC’s “Shark Tank,” Forbes Magazine, CNN, ABC, MSNBC, Wall Street Journal, and the movie “LEAP,”. She’s also been featured in other outlets around the world. Precious is also the author of a #1 bestselling business book and has been featured on top podcasts and stages globally.

The philosophy of her “killer” pitch is evident in the strategic and personalized creative communications and presentations solutions Williams puts forth. She is a quintessential serial entrepreneur, international professional speaker, and corporate trainer. As such, Williams is equipped to bring life, authenticity, strategy, and boldness to all your oral and written communication needs. Her ability to pitch herself, and to help others pitch themselves, has been a key element of her success!

The Shark Tank Experience

By the time Precious made it to Shark Tank, she had already coached multiple clients on their own presentations. She felt like the best kept secret. Getting her own chance to pitch a business she cared deeply about was an exhilarating experience.

She listened to her music, then said GAME ON. Walking down that hall, seeing the doors open, and facing the Sharks was like nothing else. Precious shares that she felt spellbound during her experience. At the end Mark Cuban said “You are a master at your craft.” Every question they asked, she had an answer for. During our interview, she shared multiple times that she felt she had been born for that moment.

Regardless of all the prior feedback Precious had received about how her gender, race, and background were going to prevent her from success, she rose to the occasion. Not only that, but she blew it out of the water. Most impressively, she wasn’t even there for a deal! She was there to prove that it could be done. If you’ve seen her episode, you know she achieved her goal.

Benefits of Pitching (Thinking Beyond the Deal)

Precious shares that her first ever pitch was getting onto the Your Business with JJ Ramberg show. At the time, she didn’t even consciously know she was pitching. Her second ever pitch was on the elevator segment of the show. It resulted in a $500,000 win! She had been told it could never happen for her, but it did.

Too many people think about the money first and foremost when they pitch. Precious shares that you need to think beyond that. Consider who else is in the room. Possible partners, mentors, collaborators, or future investors are all around you. You’re constantly making connections and contacts. Pay attention to who else is in the room!

Because of these secondary opportunities, you can think of pitching itself as a gift. Regardless of the immediate outcome, just the chance itself to pitch as the ability to create traction and transformation in your business.

As a business person, you never know who you’ll be sitting next to on a plane, in a restaurant, or anywhere else. You should be able to share what your business is, what pain points it addresses, and how people can get involved in a succinct and compelling way. Too many people can’t do that! Your elevator pitch shouldn’t be dry and boring. You should be sharing about your business with passion and intensity.

What is going to let your listeners know that YOU are the right person for them to work with and invest in? Share that!

Change Your Language and Change the Game

When Precious pitched her lingerie company, she didn’t get up and say “Here’s lingerie for plus sized women.” Why? No one cares. That’s not interesting or compelling. Instead, she changed the language to make it compelling. You have the power to consider each and every word you use to present your product or company. Choose powerful options!

For Curvy Girls Lingerie, she pitched the company as being “The ultimate shopping experience for full figured divas and plus sized fashionistas!” People wanted to know more about these women, this market, the product. It didn’t feel boring, it felt exciting. It also helped her tap into a market of over 30 million women who are size 14 or larger who want to wear beautiful undergarments.

In addition to your language, you need to think about your mindset. Do YOU believe in this product? Can you prove that you are behind your product 100%? Can you show up and bring your pitch with passion and intensity time and time again? If not, why would anyone else be interested? You owe it to yourself and your dream to pitch with passion every time.

Pitching With Passion

Precious believes that part of her purpose here on earth is to use the power of language to pitch your brilliance and passion. For anyone who has been told that they can’t because of some perceived stereotype or barrier, she is here to say that you can.

There is a brilliance inside of you that deserves to be seen. Precious loves to come alongside these people and kick through doors together. How? It’s all done with the power of the pitch!

Wan to learn more about the power of pitching? Interested in an example of how to break-through implicit bias within the deal making industry? Listen in 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!