DEALING WITH GIANTS: Looking for Trouble

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

DEALING WITH GIANTS: Looking for Trouble

Dealing With Giants

with Claudine Halpern

Looking for Trouble
How to spot pitfalls, sinkholes and trouble and fix it.

In my last few articles I spoke about how to get a meeting with the BIG BOYS, prepare for a meeting with the BIG BOYS, and manage a meeting with the BIG BOYS. Today’s article will begin to itemize trouble spots, pitfalls, sinkholes, things to watch out for, things that you hope will never happen but will. Every one of these things really happened to clients, colleagues, or me. HIS IS NOT FICTION. Be prepared and know how to deal with the issues that are coming at you, OWN THE PROCESS, OWN THE SALE.

1) No one shows up to your meeting, and I mean no one; you confirmed, you sent out an agenda, you created a presentation, and did everything right, and no one showed up, not only are they not where they supposed to be you cannot find your contact anywhere. What could have gone wrong?

o Your BIG BOY counterparty made a mistake on his calendar and will be waiting for you tomorrow (or next week), but tough luck; he’s climbing the Himalayas today. This is an easy one to turn around, you have wasted your travel time but the meeting will still happen, all of the work that you have done will come to fruition, just not today. BE NICE AND UNDERSTANDING, DO NOT PUT YOUR FIST THROUGH THE WALL.
You’ve gained brownie points, the next encounter starts with the BIG BOY apologizing, and you can’t beat that. The BIG BOY owes you before you start.

o You’re meeting with a team from major investment bank’s mortgage group in September 2008 in the evening. For those who can’t remember that far back that was the day that this economic mess really became public. I had a meeting scheduled that evening, I showed up with the hope that I could get past the bust-up. My BIG BOY was no longer at the firm as of that afternoon, needless to say attendance was very sparse, just him and I. We ended up in a very nice bar with me buying. I listened and listened; he is now a potential client on a much bigger deal with a firm that he created. Understand that you are dealing with people first, when a BIG BOY is down he will remember that you were there for him, good karma always comes around.

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o No one shows because they intended to stand you up. If this is the behavior of a BIG BOY, YOU DON’T WANT THEM. You should be very thankful that you found out about their rudeness and lack of courtesy and commitment before they wasted a whole bunch of your time, and by default a whole bunch of your money. DO NOT GOSSIP OR BADMOUTH the BIG BOYS, everyone gets theirs eventually, no need to do anything, again karma comes around. This happened to me and I watched from the sidelines while the people who did this went down, I didn’t do or say anything, I had plenty of help and ended up looking squeaky clean.

2) Everyone shows up, but they are expecting something completely different than what you prepared. I went to talk to a BIG BOY about some business, when I showed and took out the agenda I got that look that you get from a kid who insists he didn’t do it while his mouth is covered in chocolate. They thought that reading the agenda and your emails was someone else’s job.

This is a tough one, can you speak to the issues that they are asking about, by the seat of your pants or not? If you feel you can, then by all means take the risk, if not, DON’T. You are not required to look like an idiot because other people don’t follow up. Ask them what they thought you would discuss, ask open-ended questions, in essence interview the BIG BOYs to find out what they thought you would be talking about.

Admit the miscommunication, DON’T BE DEFENSIVE. Get the questions and maybe the answers that they are looking for, THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY. Set up another meeting with them in a few days or a week. Make sure to get the phone numbers and email addresses. Start over, follow the instructions in my two previous articles.

http://thenationalnetworker.blogspot.com/2009/02/dealing-with-giants-preparing-for-first.html

http://thenationalnetworker.blogspot.com/2009/02/dealing-with-giants-you-only-have-one.html

3) You have a full house, but they are absolutely, positively not the decision makers and never will be. The BIG BOYS love meetings; they will meet with anyone anywhere as long as they don’t have to produce anything.

I have a colleague who has a really great product; he has a small business and was selling to one of the largest international conglomerates. There was a lot of synergy in the product set and it was known in the marketplace that the BIG BOYS were looking to purchase like products, sounds like a match made in heaven?

Well not really, my colleague was hooked into the geek end of the business, and the people he needed to talk to were in the acquisitions department, BIG BOYS DON’T TALK TO EACH OTHER. The geeks were actually trying to find out how the products’ guts worked, they had no interest in doing any business, even if they wanted to they did not have the authority to do business. This went on for over a year. If it’s taking too long it’s not going to happen. We will talk in my next article about when to hold and when to fold, my recommendation was fold, he was wasting his time, and by default his money, with every meeting and conversation.

4) You mess it up, totally and completely. In my first term of college I was asked to make a speech. I was eighteen years old and had never met anyone outside of my neighborhood. I was taking summer courses to get a jump on the term. My fellow students were all over thirty and professionals returning to school for second degrees. I still don’t remember what I said or did, I do remember the look of pity and the F that I got. It can happen to anyone, use the opportunity to NEVER DO IT AGAIN.

Take the time to deconstruct what did and didn’t happen don’t let embarrassment get the best of you. Sit with your team going through each turning point and figure out what you would do differently. If you are friendly with any of the BIG BOYS, ask them to help you deconstruct the meeting and reconstruct it the way it should have happened. If you really have guts, ask for a redo, you may actually get it. I worked for a BIG BOY once, who fired me for a mistake that I made. I contacted him 6 months later and restarted the friendship, I was able to get quite a lot of work from him during the next ten years. He is now one of my biggest fans, I’ve used him as a personal reference more that once.

Next Articles: Next steps, Getting closer to the Close, How to Follow Up, Moving Forward, When To Hold and When To Fold

Claudine Y. Halpern, President, The YCH Group, Inc. Claudine Halpern is a chameleon; she has worked in many different situations during her more than twenty-five years in business; as a management consultant, Claudine advised many of the major brokerage, insurance, and financial houses, completing more than fifteen major corporate initiatives during the past ten years. As a crisis manager for major corporations, Claudine successfully brought in projects and products that other firms would not touch. As a specialist in business and management consultancy, Claudine consults to emerging businesses across the spectrum.

email chalpern@theychgroup.com

http://ychmagicclaudinehalpern.blogspot.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/claudinehalpern

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