🌀Au Contraire: The big swinging dicks

It feels good being a big swinging dick. Who doesn’t want to take a piss on their bosses desk?

I know, I used to love being a big swinging dick.

It feels good to say “fuck you.”

But there is a cost to being a big swinging dick. Every time your ego cashes in, your goodwill bank gets dinged.

You see all the brash business people on Youtube swinging it around, but in the undigital world there are costs to this.

Being a big swinging dick isn’t the long game.

I sold a small part of my business this week to a big swinging dick and he won. He pulled a slick negotiating move at the end and  “got me” for a few thousand dollars. On paper it was a smart move, but he lost goodwill. It saved him some money right now, but it will cost him 10x that amount over the next 12 months. That is the price of goodwill. He made it transactional. He knocked some money off the purchase price, but he murdered the future goodwill.

It reminds me of when I bought a small business a few years ago. I paid full price. I didn’t negotiate. The only condition was that the former owner stay on and help me grow the business. I bought a shit ton of goodwill. And this goodwill became valuable. It turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. It is now a multi-million dollar company.

Losing sucks, I am glad I got a taste of that dogshit this week because it reminded me how it feels. You never want anybody you are negotiating with to feel like they lost. They need to win too.

I mean do you ever really want to win an argument with your wife???

Is that even a fucking win?!?!

Same goes for employees… even your children.

It is much harder to make everyone win. It takes more strategy. More thought. More effort.

But this is how you win exponentially.

~Blue

P.S. How can you make the people around you win?