by Oren Klaff
First, let the buyer fully object. Hear him out, then redirect firmly to stay within the boundaries you previously set. “People are always worried about that issue, and in the end, it’s never even an issue at all,” the bike mechanic would say. “There are twenty-five different things to worry about when you’re buying a bike, but there are really only five things that actually matter. Just focus on these five and everything will be perfect. Get distracted by the other twenty and you’ll waste time and money and end up with the wrong thing.”
With the formula, the bike shop mechanic has boiled down and shared with you ten years of bike-buying experience. But what if the buyer doesn’t want to follow the suggested formula? The answer is simple: He doesn’t want to follow an expert’s opinion; he’s a do-it-yourselfer and thinks he knows everything from a few internet searches, he will be a pain in the butt for the bike shop the whole time, and the shop is going to lose money dealing with him and all the nitpicking, time-wasting concerns, and eventual complaints.
I’ve seen this a thousand times too. If the buyer won’t respect your expert status and your Buyer’s Formula, he’s never going to be a good customer, partner, or investor. Start backing away from him.
But once your buyer has the Buyer’s Formula and does accept your expert status, you have laid an invisible fence. Now you can safely step back and provide autonomy.
As I’ve said previously, don’t beat down every objection or discourage pessimism. Entertain the objections. Welcome the pessimism. Acknowledge the downside of what you offer. Some valid objections will come up in any proposal, and telling your buyer otherwise and shooting down every one of his objections will signal to him that you are being less than authentic, or worse, needy (and difficult to work with).
It’s a good idea to bring to the surface the most obvious flaws in your plan before the buyer does, although most people try to avoid any mention of negatives. You should move in quickly and acknowledge the possibility of failure and the obvious negative features—or he will do so but at the most inconvenient time. Do all this and you will gain your buyer’s trust. When you embrace pessimism along with the buyer, he won’t feel pressured, and he will be the one to say, “Yes, I love it. What’s the best way to work together and get started?”
* * *
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THAT’S HOW THE Buyer’s Formula works. It’s what I was about to teach Bulletz4Breakfast, the top sniper in the world, in order to recruit him to Zero Gravity’s Counter-Strike team and carry our deal to its rightful conclusion.
A BUYER’S FORMULA FOR LATE-CAREER ATHLETES
Bulletz was curious about what I had to say. But he was already making a lot of money, was already a sought-after celebrity signature and playing on a good team. He was so good, in fact, he didn’t have to compete in the preliminary round because his team was already guaranteed a spot in the finals, which gave him some time to sneak away, meeting me in the hotel café as the first round of the tournament was starting. On our side, Anton was going to try and win the preliminary game without a sniper, keeping the slot open in hopes that we would find someone before the finals. Then we could register whoever we landed in the sniper position as a member of our team before game two.
When we sat down at the conference center Starbucks, Bulletz was barely paying attention, looking around at other small groups to see if there was a better meeting he could bounce out to. I needed a quick Status Tip-Off. “Listen,” I said, before he even uttered a word, “let’s give this situation a name: You’re a late-career athlete. Most late-career athletes melt down in the last year or two. It’s pretty sad because their last media appearance is not on ESPN celebrating a big win; it’s on TMZ revealing divorce, drugs, and disaster. I’ve helped late-career athletes avoid the dustbin of history in professional basketball, football, NASCAR, UFC, even surfing. What do you think I’m doing for Anton? How do you think a retired eSports athlete is still making millions of dollars? I put together the business model, tax strategy, marketing funnel, intellectual property licensing, financial controls, balance sheet, and investor base. I’m going to take his company public in the spring and he’ll make at least ten million. That situation has a name too—it’s called set for life.”
“How’d he do all that?” Bulletz asked. He was intrigued. These were the exact things he was starting to care about in his own life.
“First thing is, you can’t be seen as flipping from being the best sniper in the world to being a nobody. I don’t ever want to read how the great Bulletz faded away, lost his touch, and imploded. Think about Michael Jordan. Only thing people can remember about his retirement is that he switched to baseball but wasn’t very good, then went back to basketball but wasn’t very good there either. Or Brett Favre, the superstar Green Bay Packers quarterback, who moved to the Jets and then the Vikings in his last few seasons. Megastar to benchwarmer—it’s the wrong way to end an incredible career.
“Right now you have to focus on just a few things that really matter, and ignore everything else,” I continued, jumping straight to my Buyer’s Formula. “Most important: You don’t ever want fans to feel sorry for you, or to pity you. Your name should inspire generations of athletes in every sport to play hard, play fair, and behave like a champion whether winning or losing. Inspiration, not pity—got it?” He nodded. I glanced down at my phone under the table to see how Zero Gravity and the team were doing. Things were absolutely not looking good. His men were easy targets without a sniper to provide cover fire.
What I saw on my phone was not making me feel like much of a champion. The mobile app was incredible, and I could see live video of the game play and all the battle specs as easily as I could watch the evening news. Just three minutes into the main battle, our boys were already banged up. They were all low on health and losing ground fast.
I tore myself away from the action and back to the conversation with Bulletz. He looked up from whatever he was doing on his phone to listen for a moment.
“A lot of retired athletes try to reinvent themselves, and switch to a totally new industry, like restaurants, car dealerships, home building, financial services,” I continued, “but it almost never works out. What does a retired basketball player, hockey player . . . or sniper . . . know about running a car dealership? Nothing. Which is my point. So it begs the question—where do old athletes get work? Yeah, you guessed it. Joe Namath put his name on Beautymist Pantyhose. That’s a true story. A better example, John Madden, video games; Tony Hawk, toy skateboards. But those are the lucky ones. Because if we’re being frank with each other, you aren’t John Madden or Tony Hawk. Most retired athletes end up doing color commentary for the local news on high school football or endorsing some shady bail bond company. So the rule here is, stick with what you know—no reinventing yourself; that is too risky. For you, it means you’re in eSports for the rest of your life. And why not? You love the game and you would be miserable selling salad dressing.”
“Yeah, I love the game. But how can I do that?” he asked. His body language was open and he had a thoughtful expression on his face, so I decided to stop focusing on the list of don’ts and instead push forward and reveal the positives, the things he could actually do.
“Well, obviously you want to announce your retirement in advance, so it doesn’t look like you’re desperate. It’s a planned retirement. You are going out on top, on your own terms. And you also want to announce your new position in the eSports industry. But here’s the important piece: In what capacity? Announcer? Coach? Those jobs are second-string and pay next to nothing. You want to become a team owner. This lets you own something that will grow in value. This way you’ll have leverage in the future. That’s why I was so excited to share this deal with you. Because Anton wants you as a sniper now, but he also sees you as a partner and on the team for years and years. This is the only chance to negotiate hard. Come back in a few years after you’ve washed out—you’ll find out there are
no offers out there for has-beens and bail bond salesmen.”
The boundaries were set. It was time to invite pessimism. Otherwise it would just creep in later when I wasn’t around to assist in the decision making.
“Anyway,” I said, shrugging, “that’s just what I would suggest after working with many other athletes in your position. But everyone’s career is different, and there are some very real risks to switching teams while you’re still active in the game. I absolutely understand that. I’m not the boss of you and can’t tell you what to do. Only you can decide what’s right.” And then I stopped talking.
For a few painful moments, neither of us said a word. Bulletz was deep in thought. He looked back at his phone and I thought to myself, “These darn millennials are always distracted by something!” Then suddenly he jumped up, excusing himself for a moment to use the restroom. They also have small bladders.
While he was gone, I pulled out my phone again to check on the raging battle between Anton and the insurgents. The situation was worse than before. The video feed showed our machine gunner, Smith, lying prone in the courtyard, totally exposed to whoever was shooting at him. Bullets sparked all around him. But the kid was an iceberg. Ignoring the incoming 9 mm rounds, he shouldered his M249 squad automatic weapon (SAW) and tore off a blistering burst of return fire.
I could see on the screen that Anton peeked around the wall into the courtyard where the main fighting was taking place. “Give me another weapon system!” he screamed in frustration. “I need another 240 SAW!” Unable to see the enemy, Anton was going to die if he stayed in that doorway.
Outside, in the courtyard, Smith was hit and he did die. Dammit, he hadn’t taken down a single enemy! His screen turned to digital snow and he was out. It was the same story for Brown, Davis, and Miller, all out of the fight.
This was the end of the road for our squad. We were pinned down, surrounded, and left with no other option than to jump into the narrow courtyard and face the firepower of their enemy’s tripod-mounted PKM and AK-47s head-on. We wouldn’t have much of a chance to survive that kind of firepower, but it was the only move we had.
A full five minutes had passed in game time. Anton “Zero Gravity” was out front, taking fire and low on health. Cooper, Murphy, and Jenkins were low on ammo. Just then, a string of 7.62 x 54 mm tracer rounds were blasting from above into the already chaotic firefight, blowing out the glass; someone was pouring high-caliber suppressing fire straight onto the other team’s position. Suppressing fire is the good kind of shooting that goes past you, straight into the enemy, pinning them down, and gives you a chance to move around. Suddenly, it was the other side, the red team, who was in trouble. Whoever was shooting from behind us had our enemies scrambling, abandoning their positions, ducking for cover. Two red team members went down in a splatter, and now . . . four were down. What the . . . ? For the moment, our enemies stopped firing at us. This was our chance to get out of the kill zone. Anton and team made a break into the courtyard and started unloading everything we had in the enemy’s direction. Now five of red team were down. Another one killed by our team made six. On our side, Anton was hit as he scrambled through the courtyard, but still alive.
A blizzard of metal and glass fragments exploded next to the last red team insurgent, who was running for cover, and I followed the red tracer fire backward to its point of origin on the screen. Behind Anton, about two hundred feet back, up on a neighboring rooftop, I could now make out the form of a sniper barrel clicking off high-impact 7.62 rounds and taking out the red team insurgents methodically, accurately, with one impossible shot after the next.
At that moment I knew we were going to make it to the next round in the tournament and probably win the whole thing—Bulletz had joined the fight, and the team.
CHAPTER 7
How to Be Compelling
I love speed. Speed is a lifestyle. Cars, trucks, motorcycles, you name it—there’s something profound and thrilling about being so close to a road, pushing the man-machine limit. I’ve blazed through back roads and open roads, fast lanes and country lanes, lonesome roads, happy trails, and highways to hell. By the time I was in my late twenties, I’d stockpiled Porsches, muscle cars, and about fifty motorcycles. Cars are good. Motorcycles are better.
Nearly all my motorcycles came from the same dealer—Elias, the coolest ride captain who ever carved a canyon. Elias didn’t just sell motorcycles, he was motorcycles. From his all-Japan racing jacket to his series of smoking hot girlfriends covered in anime tattoos to his twenty-mile stare that pierced through any roadblock, Elias screamed speed. He graduated from the University of Motorcycles and he just looks fast, even when he’s standing still. But more than being good-looking and popular, below the surface he’s imaginative, perceptive, and two steps ahead of everyone else. A guy like this was irresistible to an axle addict like me.
Elias had a hardscrabble upbringing in San Jose, California. He owed his mastery of motorcycles to an errant childhood and an insightful cop who urged him to ease his adolescent angst on the racetrack. He was fast and when it came to winning a race, he was the real deal.
He owned a successful boutique motorcycle dealership in West Hollywood, which was, like him, the height of cool. You needed to be a millionaire to get in the door. To get back out, you’d leave with a lot less. I loved hanging out with Elias and his posse, drinking tequila and talking bikes. We’d go out for sushi, and except for me, everybody looked like the bass player from Scorpions—especially the actual Scorpions bass player, who would join us whenever he was in town. The guest roster included Gucci models, Nicolas Cage, and world champion racer John Kocinski, and I was the finance guy (read: the nerd who paid for everyone’s drinks). Just to fit in and hang out with these dudes, I bought the actual Camaro from the Metallica video for “I Disappear.” But still, they’d all shake their heads, point to me, and ask Elias, “Who’s the suit?” Even with ripped jeans and a 1968 Camaro, I looked corporate.
I may have been utterly uncool next to these guys but I didn’t mind. I was just happy and grateful to be invited into the real Hollywood Hills and its loud, exciting, reckless world of motorcycle racers, models, and rock stars. I was riding high. It was over one of these sushi dinners that Elias and I started talking about going into business together.
“I’d like to scale the business,” he said with his characteristic unaffected directness. “I was thinking about starting an apparel line. You know, Hollywood Hills meets Formula 1. Von Dutch for speed. A true speed lifestyle company. What do you say, Oren? Let’s do this together and have some fun.”
“Of course. I’d love to,” I said breathlessly, because that’s just what happens if you’re a guy like me being offered the opportunity to go into the speed business with a titanium piston god.
Elias ended up being a piston god who could sell like a demon. What a natural. Our company never had sales meetings or pipeline reports, and we never gave a thought to any kind of sales methods because, well, we had the Elias method. He knew everything about speed. Ferrari street special? Ducati race bike? Porsche Le Mans winner? He could tell you what it was worth and why, and follow up with two stories about it, one involving some wild engineering facts and the other involving two alcohol-fueled nights in the seedy part of Monte Carlo. Elias’s stories sold vehicles, and these sales were worth millions to our business.
As fantastic as the stories were, you never questioned them, because they were also grounded in fascinating facts. Elias had a vast working knowledge of his industry and his products, which he bought and sold like pieces of art. And he wouldn’t sell to just anybody. If you wanted to buy a motorcycle from him—or a motorcycle part, for that matter—you had to convince him to sell it to you.
But in order to generate the extra revenue we needed to get the apparel line off the ground, Elias and I determined that we’d have to dramatically ramp up the number of motorcycles we were selling. Until now, his bu
siness model had been simple: Import exotic motorcycles from Italy and Japan and sell them to rich guys in Beverly Hills. Through Elias’s reputation and personal magnetism, sales happened like magic.
Now that we were in business together, I had to figure out how to scale our operations to meet our new sales targets. We needed to sell our motorcycles to buyers beyond Beverly Hills, in a way that wasn’t dependent on Elias’s natural in-person sales talent. In order to ship faster to both coasts, we decided to open our next facility in Devils Lake, North Dakota. Elias had gotten a killer deal on this warehouse out there, but of course he couldn’t leave Beverly Hills because we needed him to sell the fancy bikes that supported the whole operation. And there was no way I was moving to North Dakota because, well, I was doing just fine, living on Sunset Boulevard, one block from the Whisky a Go Go.
So we had to hire a local North Dakota sales staff—and that’s where our problems started. We needed to figure out how to teach our people from North Dakota to sell like Elias. We had to make them compelling. This meant I was headed to Devil’s Lake to train the team.
My task? Turn this frozen warehouse in the middle of the country into a high-powered sales office for Italian auto parts. “No problem,” I thought to myself smugly. “What could possibly go wrong?” At that point in my career, I’d sold everything from accounting software to brain aneurysm coils. I’d launched a genetic data company, I could explain in detail how to inject your knee with ortho-guided synovial fluid, and I could chart the subdomains on the dark web where stolen financial data is stored.
So seriously, how hard could it possibly be to sell a few Ducati parts?
As I was about to discover, it was pretty damn hard, because, it turned out, if Elias was the living embodiment of sexiness and speed, this North Dakota sales team was the embodiment of . . . ice.