Shane was a clever business strategist and Joint Venture Broker from whom I was privileged to learn a very important lesson. I’ll tell you the story, and you can draw your own conclusions.
Strategizing the Target
Shane heard about an entrepreneur who could help him move a large amount of products. This entrepreneur (I’ll call him Dennis) was busy, successful, in demand, and very selective. Many people continually vied for Dennis’s attention, and salespeople spent a lot of time trying to sell him stuff. Shane took a month to do some serious due diligence and information gathering on Dennis –
- his family,
- business,
- employees,
- goals,
- background,
- philosophy,
- hobbies,
- you name it.
Then he paid a detective to gather even more information. When he was properly prepared, he spent a thousand dollars buying and using Dennis’s products and services.
Now Dennis knew who Shane was – a respectful client.
Setting the Bait
Shane knew that Dennis’s family was very important to him, so he paid a photographer to do a professional photo shoot of Dennis’s family. Then he invited Dennis to go deep sea fishing with him and a few carefully chosen friends.
He spent another month working on his relationship with Dennis until Dennis regarded Shane as a friend. This included buying Dennis a new guitar. Up to this point, Shane didn’t try to sell Dennis anything.
Catching the Fish
Three months to the day after Shane targeted Dennis, he closed the deal. Shane’s total investment, he told me, was five thousand dollars, which was tax-deductible. The deal made him forty-thousand dollars NET profit after deducting the five thousand. And Dennis made twenty thousand.
What Shane did was to strategically get the maximum amount of credibility and leverage before introducing his deal.
He told me that, at any time during this three-month process, if he felt the deal wasn’t going to work, he would have cut bait and walked away.
A General, Not a Soldier
That was ten years ago, and Shane and Dennis are still doing business. (I called Shane to make sure.) How different from the desperate posers who push their scruffy little business cards at you without even knowing you. Shane makes a lot of money, because he is a general, not a soldier. He is:
- rational,
- professional,
- unattached,
- reliable,
- respectful,
- and skillful.
He values relationships, and he takes nothing for granted. You would never see him in a “Business Networking Group” or a Chamber of Commerce meeting.
Many Ways to Achieve the Same Results
Of course, it doesn’t always take five thousand dollars to position yourself for a successful deal / Joint Venture. There are many ways to accomplish the same results for pennies on the dollar, and even for nothing but time and effort, but I like this illustration. As Ayn Rand said,
“Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think.”
The emphasis is on THINK – something most so-called entrepreneurs avoid in favor of desperate sales pitches and their blind fumbling for a quick buck.
Which do YOU want to be?
Soldiers will grab a gun and rush out shooting. Generals plan before executing. They use:
- military intelligence,
- spies,
- reconnaissance,
- and input from other people.
They coordinate the activities of others.
Which do YOU want to be? Soldier or general?
To learn more about the Joint Venture Broker approach to wealth, which Shane understood so well, visit www.jvwisdom.com.
January 2nd, 2010 at 11:07 am
Is it self-centered greed or legitimate self-interest that is the main concern with those who do not understand Ayn Rand? Those who admire and criticize Ayn Rand’s beliefs about people who stand on their own feet often say she promoted selfishness, thereby greed, which is self-centered and anti-individual creativity. That is anti-Rand. Rand admired the creative individual, people like railroad builder James Jerome Hill, on whom she was reputed to have based her character Nathaniel Taggart in Atlas Shrugged. Independent “I’m OK, you’re OK” people are OK with Rand, not the criminal takers. If we look at Howard Roark’s summation to the jury, from Fountainhead, we do not see a self-centered individual destroying his work. If he was greedy he would have simply accepted his payment. We see an other- and outer-centered individual in love with his own dreams and creations, as one would love a spouse, child or family and refuse to allow them to be assaulted. That is the kind of self-interest that built America. Though love for anything spiritual may be missing, a great idea or vision also measures up to that which is spiritual, beyond self, and that view is not even inconsistent with Christianity. Claysamerica.com.