Business Is Personal – Or Isn't It?

I had a conversation with a fellow entrepreneur friend of mine that I have had with him several times in the past. The conversation starts out talking about a deal one of us might be working on and it leads to a discussion about our viewpoints regarding peoples “feelings and emotions” when it comes to said business deals. I will be the first to admit that when things get heavy, I can blow my top and be as rough as the next guy/girl.  In fact, sometimes I get too emotional, perhaps even inappropriate, and that is a mistake.  As a mediocre athlete, there was a fire that burned inside that often burst out to help me perform better in the physical environment of sport.  There is little room for that in business.  Its something I have tried hard to improve upon and clearly I have more room left for additional improvement. It is a fine line though – I think there is a great place in business for emotion, feelings and taking business “personally” to some degree.  It can be a motivator and an effective driver for success when properly channeled.

Having said that, I think that there are really two ways to get personally involved in a business deal or not.  The first way is of course to not get involved at all on an emotional or personal level.  Some people just don’t ever get emotional when dealing with others in business.  Bless their passive, disciplined little hearts.  May they continue to keep everything bottled up inside and never let any type of emotion show.  These are the great poker players of business – however, they can be kind of boring and often times frustrating.  Work isn’t necessarily a poker table, I think it is okay to show your hand once in awhile.  Everyone else pretty much falls into the category I consider myself to be in (with varying degrees of course).  Some have an appropriate amount of chutzpah and passion, others cross the line occassionally, and still others are way over the top.  I think I am somewhere in beteween the first two.  Where are you?  If you are reading a blog about entrepreneurship, you probably don’t sit on your hands too often.

Now back to the conversation my friend and I were having.  We both have come across (and been ourselves) the type of person that can’t move forward from an argument without continually going back to an old point of contention.  All roads eventually lead back to it.  I am not talking about turning a blind eye to someone who screwed you over or was terribly unfair or dishonest – I am talking about arguments, disagreements – you know, the stuff everyday life is made of.  Disagreements, maybe even big ones, are not necessarily a personal attack.  Some of us hold grudges, harvest the anger and/or can’t effectively communicate moving forward and we are at a tremendous disadvantage due to the fact that often times the toughest negotiator can eventually become the best of partners. This has clearly been my experience. I have a partner and mentor that I often butt heads with.  However, in the end, he is my most trusted advisor and probably has helped me make more money than any other single individual in my career.  I would say this about him and I have heard it said about me, “he is someone everyone loves to have on their team but everyone hates to play against.”

If I were of the type that shrugged off difficult people and difficult situations (of which I both can be and have been a party to), I would have lost out on a lot of great opportunities!  If you are going to be a successful entrepreneur, you are likely going to be seen by some people as a person who “doesn’t take no for an answer” or is a “pusher and a driver”, perhaps even a bit over the top at times. There are ways to do this tactfully, but inevitably, you will rub some people the wrong way. The real entrepreneur, the successful entrepreneur, looks at how these situations come about and asks him or herself two questions:

1 – Am I out of line? Did I do something offensive or professionally inappropriate? I have done all of the above and hopefully have been man enough to step up to the plate and try and make amends when this was the case. I can think of a few times when my pride got in the way and I didn’t do that and I think that stinks.  I wish I could go back and apologize or clear things up for those times.  I think that the majority of times in my career that hasn’t been the case though, and that leads me to the second question a good entrepreneur should ask about the opposing parties in a difficult negotiation of any kind…

2 – Is this person working for someone else for a reason? Do they not own the company you are dealing with for a reason? The answer is most people that successful entrepreneurs deal with that aren’t the Founder/CEO/One’s With Their You-Know-What’s on the table don’t have any idea what it is like to truly be where the buck stops for the company.  If they lose, they don’t have 200 employees to worry about.  If they make a bad decision, payroll doesn’t come out of their pocket. They just think you are a jerk for being intense, or pushing for more, or whatever the case may be.  The funny thing is, whomever they work for is often out doing the exact same things with other companies that you are doing with them!

Ultimately, when question number 1 is cleared off the plate and question number 2 is answered in the affirmative, I don’t really put much concern into what they think of me, our deal or anything associated with our personal relationship. It isn’t personal at this point, at least not for me.  I simply now have the knowledge about where they are coming from and it makes it easy for me to move on – almost instantaneously sometimes. It makes it easy for me to continue to negotiate, continue to work with them and to continue to push for a deal that makes sense for my company. They operate at a disadvantage from this point on because they do not have this knowledge – they only see you as a jerk who won’t back down. Their vision is permanently clouded because of who THEY are not because of who YOU are. I do not know where this quote came from (and I am too lazy to Google it), but it is absolutely true about entrepreneurship:

“You can please some of the people some of the time, and none of the people all of the time, but you cant please all of the people all of the time.”

The sooner you can understand that as an entrepreneur, the easier your life will be.  There is just no way to go thru business ownership unscathed.  Someone will not like you, your approach, your deal terms or your personality.  You should accept that now – unless of course world peace, true love and international harmony are your primary entrepreneurial goals – in which case you won’t be reading my blog again anyway.

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