Business Blog 2.0

I have known Sandy Van Pelt for years. She came to work for me right after graduating from New York University with a bachelor’s degree in communications. Sandy was an excellent aide, with terrific interpersonal skills, and a real flair for working with the media people I dealt with when appearing regularly on CNBC television and CBS radio. Her clean-scrubbed, all-American girl looks, and her outgoing personality, made her an exuberant presence in my office. Clients loved her. After two years with me, she left to take a position in the marketing department of a major media company, best known for its family-oriented programming. Sandy’s skill and personality served her well there too. She was making a name for herself in New York. So much so that she received a telephone call offering what seemed to be a fabulous job opportunity.

The call came from the owner of a small but very well known television production company. The owner was the widow of the founder of the firm, a much beloved creative genius who unfortunately died quite young. She and her family were continuing the business, and actually doing quite well. Her late husband had successfully institutionalized the creativity that originally came solely from him. A score of talented young people were now continuing his work. The company was using the licensing fees from their early successes as a foundation for new ventures. Sandy had been targeted as just the sort of fresh young person who could fit in with the company. She was offered the spot as director of publicity. Ecstatic, Sandy then telephoned to let me know what was going on and to ask my help in negotiating her salary.

After congratulating her, the first thing I did was get Sandy to slow down. After just a couple of minutes it was clear to me she needed to become much more of an expert on the company that was now pursuing her. Sandy and everyone else knew a great deal about the company’s products, it was true. But its inner workings weren’t as well known.

Sandy began by going to the New York Public Library’s primary business branch and scouring the periodical indexes for mentions of the firm. She spent her next three lunch hours compiling a list of references. At home in the evening she went online and searched the Web for references to the firm. She printed out the results of searches using four different search engines. On Saturday, she went back to the library, pulled the relevant microfiches and bound copies from the stacks, and photocopied them. Returning home, she went back online, downloaded, and then printed the most potentially interesting sites.

On Sunday, rather than spending her day reading the New York Times, she dug through all her public research.

I was surprised when my office telephone rang at 7:30 a.m. on Monday. I was doubly surprised when I picked up and heard a glum Sandy. She told me her research had uncovered a problem. The firm that was courting her had been a recent acquisition target of Sandy’s current company. The details weren’t clear, but apparently the sale was all set to go until the founder suddenly died. At that point the larger corporation, depending on which story you read, either heartlessly backed out of a sealed deal, or wisely decided to renegotiate a still pending sale. Whatever the truth was, there was certainly bad blood between the two firms. That wouldn’t have been such a big deal if Sandy hadn’t also learned from a recent small item in the financial press that the acquisition talks were still going on, albeit with less fanfare. Sandy and I were both concerned that she could take the new job, earning the enmity of her current company, and then be faced with working for them again if the sale actually went through. It seemed like a recipe for getting dismissed in the near future. We agreed that Sandy would call the owner of the smaller firm and ask for a few more days to think about the offer, and then come to my office later in the day so we could strategies.

After going over Sandy’s goals as well as her understandable fears, she and I came up with a plan. She would meet with the president of the small firm, express her excitement about the opportunity, but also state her strong desire for an employment contract. There would be nothing to gain by getting into the details of the battle, so we decided Sandy shouldn’t be overt in demonstrating her information. Instead, we decided to present her contract request as a desire to protect herself in case there was a change in ownership that might not be advantageous to her position. This would make it clear that Sandy was astute enough to know of the struggle, but also politic enough not to raise the issue directly. Those traits, added to her already admired skills and abilities, would make her, we thought, an even more attractive candidate.

We were right. Despite her young age and relatively junior level, Sandy was able to negotiate a three-year contract. We both felt that would be long enough for either the deal to fall through, or for her former employer to get over any animosity. Luckily, we were right once again. After two years the acquisition efforts stopped and the outward acrimony came to an end when a quiet, out-of-court settlement was reached

The way to turn a no into a yes is to address the reason for the no. Be careful. I wrote address, not attack. If you attack the other party’s honesty, logic, judgment, intelligence, understanding, or analysis you will turn that “no” into a “no way in hell,” rather than a yes. Implying or suggesting the other party has made a mistake will only force him to dig in his heels to defend his position and insure he doesn’t lose face. Asking someone to change her mind is the equivalent of pouring concrete around her feet: she will never change her position.

Instead of asking for a change of mind, you need to ask for reconsideration, based on new facts, facts that just happen to address the very points cited as being behind the no. Blame yourself for not having understood the situation in the first place. Say you made a terrible error in failing to include certain information. Explain that you forgot to provide all the necessary information.

Americans revere justice and the appeals process. We love the notion that last-minute revelations of new information can keep an injustice from being committed. It’s so ingrained that it has become a recurrent motif in American literature, television, and film. Most people will be happy to play a part in such an exculpatory adventure. If you come to someone as a supplicant, offering new information, he will almost certainly agree to listen and see if the new facts could change his reaction.

And if the decision was actually originally based on emotion, rather than facts, he will be under tremendous emotional pressure to now make an objective decision. Having been forced to give a factual reason for his emotional decision, and then having been offered new exculpatory facts, it will be very hard for him to say no again. Being provided with new facts also makes available a face-saving way of reversing one’s emotion-based decision. But even if he does say no, he will now be forced to provide yet another factual reason, which can, of course, be appealed with new facts. Repeated emotional nos cloaked in fake objections can only go on so long before the charade becomes apparent . . . and legally actionable.

At first, my practice focused on credit problems, since that was what I was teaching and writing about. However, I knew that I couldn’t be a credit specialist and still pay my own mortgage. Credit was not only too small a market, but it also had inherent problems. With all due respect and compassion, let’s face it: people with credit problems are not ideal clients or customers.

Much of my business dealt with real estate transactions and investing. It seemed natural then that I add real estate problems to my practice. It was a serendipitous decision. It was the early 1980s and the real estate market in the metropolitan New York area was starting to boom, literally. Baby boomers, those seventy-six million kids for whom America built suburbs, swimming pools, and state universities, were coming of age.

I started soliciting real estate business at the same moment the leading edge of baby boomers was shopping for their first homes. Prices began soaring, since demand was far outstripping supply. Boomers who had been raised to expect that they would do as well as, or better than, their parents, were having a hard time affording the homes of their dreams. Knowing the lending business from the inside, and holding some unconventional views on home affordability and financing, my approach meshed well with the needs of these young people. And as the father of four baby boomers I also had a rapport with them and a respect for them that many other financial and legal advisors lacked. I was able to help my new clients solve their real estate and credit problems, and in the process, empower them.

In retrospect, it was this sense of empowerment I was giving them, the knowledge that they could turn no into yes, not the specific real estate advice, that was most valuable. That is what kept bringing these baby boomers back to my office for help with other matters. Some wanted advice on starting a business. Others asked for guidance on establishing a financial plan. A few wanted tips on asking for raises or hiring contractors to renovate their new homes. Today my practice involves all these matters and a few more. In the past few years I’ve been helping negotiate employment contracts and severance packages, setting up .personal estates, mediating divorces, restructuring businesses, and reviewing business plans.

Sure, the clients who come to my office are unique in all the ways that New Yorkers are different from other Americans. They may spend more time selecting coffee beans than cars, more time dining out than grocery shopping, and more time at the gym than at home. However, in all the important ways they’re just like all other successful baby boomers, like you. They own more and better stuff than their parents did at their age, even though they’re earning less in real terms. They work in decision-making, policy-setting positions in large companies, or are running their own small companies. They read the Wall Street Journal and watch CNN. They have accountants and baby-sitters; mortgages and 401(k)s. They carry cell phones, laptops, and Teletubbies.

Rather than being based on one type of problem faced by all sorts of people, my practice has been based on all sorts of problems faced by one type of person: the middle- to upper-middle-class baby boomer. The matters I deal with, the problems I help solve, are all those that are impacting the lives of this particular, demographic group.

Looking at my practice objectively, I think I’ve been able to successfully address so many different problems for a couple of reasons.

First, I had a very eclectic career prior to going into private practice. My background as an attorney, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and banker probably exposed me to many more different businesses and situations than most people face in their work lives. Having such a diverse background made it easy for me to see the similarities among different industries and businesses.

And second, my cancer scare enabled me to put problems in a different perspective. When you’re given a death sentence, other problems don’t look so bad. Death is a real problem; everything else is just an obstacle. I thank God every day that my death sentence was commuted. Most people who survive a death scare develop a new perspective on what really matters. Some retain it. Others lose it as the brush with mortality recedes into the background and they go on with their lives. I’ve been able to maintain my perspective on problems, not because I’m such a deep thinker, but because I spend all my working hours dealing with them.

I’ve been able to help my clients with all their varied difficulties because, thanks to my background and experiences, I’ve learned to focus on the sameness rather than on the uniqueness of their problems. I’ve learned to find the no in every situation, and use it to guide me to the yes. That knowledge has helped me come up with an approach that can solve all your business and financial problems.