“Humour is the number one way to disarm someone, and get them to let you in to their lovely little world.” I love being in Zimbabwe because every day I get a chance to interact with all of the “serious” businessmen doing “serious” things.
Drinks are on you; jokes are on me.
Sitting with investor worth a few million dollars can be awkward; especially the first time. You are telling him what you think he wants to hear and your sweat beads tell him you are as nervous as a family of worms paddling over a bream pond. The first time I started down the entrepreneur lane I memorized my pitch and nothing else for my first presentation. I desperately stuck to the speech I had rehearsed a hundred times in front of a mirror. In fact, it was so bad that I did not even wait to hear how everyone’s weekend was (after all mine had been spent in front of the mirror). I aggressively pulled out my laptop and started rushing helter-skelter through my slideshow as if I was talking to a bunch of machines that were going to make a decision right after I was finished. I had to learn to relax and have fun with my presentation.
Relax. Get your target to relax and enjoy the show, after all you are not the first person looking for his money and there is little worse for a prospective investor than spending thirty minutes sitting through a presentation that can put the dead to sleep. You could buy him a great glass of wine, take on the bullet of the bill and pay for his truffle covered fillet and his Dom Pedro. Tell a few great stories. Entertain him. Tell a joke. The tears drizzling from his eyes as he is banging the table is the sound of money splashing into your account.
You, my friend, have just entered the realm where “there are numbers in laughter.” Think about a first date with a beautiful girl. On your first date you may not impress a high-class socialite with your clean looks or the extent of your vocabulary, but if you can make her laugh you win. Laughter is where the gold is and laughter is where the next date awaits. You spill your salad onto your lap in a fit of nerves; make a joke out of it. Humour is like a rubber sword, you can make a poke without drawing blood.
A lunch time sales pitch is no different. Create a memory without that thick, heavy, sad smoke of a serious offer lingering around causing your tie and his to feel very tight and uncomfortable. You are trying to sell the best thing since sliced bread; so are a thousand other people. I have said many times that a relationship is more important than quick buck. A strong business partner or serious financial partner is looking for more than just a plan. It’s about class, it’s about humour, and it’s about “can you be someone that I’d like to invest my time in or will all of our meetings just be boring as high school.” Begin to build that relationship in that first meeting.
Two years back I had my first dinner with a billionaire. He was from the US and was sniffing out the prospects of putting down some finance for various projects. He started off very reserved. My brother and I took our seats. He was very reclusive in his posture. My brother and I took the “All or nothing approach” and directed him through the African Based Menu. There were two ways we could leave this dinner-crying or laughing. We could have become quickly overwhelmed by the facade of this heavy weight. It was him in one corner, my brother and I in another. The score was 1 to 1 billion in dollars. We used the only weapon in our arsenal, humour.
We took the view that he was probably very bored with talking business and wanted a little a bit escape – that’s what we ended up giving him. You know that it’s going well when he begins to try and throw back the fruit. He ended up giving my brother “high fives”. High Fives at a business dinner? You better believe you do not leave a billionaire hanging when he puts his hand up for a connection. My hand was sore from the high fives he was giving me in response to perfectly executed jokes. The roar of laughter was almost embarrassing for us (not that we let that show however). At the end of the dinner we did not gain a business partner. We gained a friend. He invited us to his hotel and personal telephone numbers started coming out. Pictures of his single daughter (and no I did not take her for a date) and even if we only saw him again in 5 years he will never forget that night. It was priceless, and better still he paid for our dinner.
Ninety percent of your best memories lie in the area of humour. That is why people go the pub and grab a drink and laugh off all the serious number-crunching meetings they have had during the day. This does not give one the license to be a total clown or to show you as unserious or unreliable. The humour only works when you can deliver it well and your reputation is solid. In humour, timing is everything. If they are not laughing, then it probably was not funny.
Don’t take everything so seriously. Enjoy business, enjoy food, enjoy life and make the billionaires laugh.
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