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SELLING TO THEBIG FISH

J A M E S S K I N N E RM A R K V I C T O R H A N S E N

R O I C E K R U E G E R

How to Conduct Business at Levels that Matter

© 2007, James Skinner, Mark Victor Hansen, and Roice Krueger, All rights reserved. 1

Ideas That Can Change Your Life™ in Business

Selling to the Big Fish How to Conduct Business at Levels that Matter

James Skinner, Mark Victor Hansen, and Roice Krueger

“Selling to the Big Fish” tells you how to sell your

products, services, or company to the Big Fish, the

big company or big decision maker who can finish

the deal.

___________________________________________



Selling to the Big Fish

The Authors

JAMES SKINNER is the founder of two global financial

groups that manage billions of dollars of assets. He is

also recognized as one of the world’s foremost business

thinkers and appears regularly on Japanese television.

MARK VICTOR HANSEN is the co-creator of the Chicken

Soup for the Soul empire and is the best-selling nonfiction

author of all time. His goal is to make the planet work

for all humanity!

ROICE KRUEGER co-founded Franklin Covey, the

world’s largest training company, and has supervised

consulting projects for 80 percent of the Fortune 500.

NOTE: Ideas That Can Change Your Life™ is a

collaboration of three of the world’s most amazing

authors, speakers, and thinkers. The first person “I” may

refer to any of the authors.




Foreword

So, you have successfully launched a business and you

are now interested in partnering with Big Fish or maybe

even selling your company to a Big Fish.

Excellent! Congratulations!

This book is for you.

This book is about selling to the “Big Fish,” the big

players in the pond who have the scale and resources

available to really make a big splash.

And we know that is the kind of splash you would

like to make!

James Skinner, Mark Victor Hansen, Roice Krueger




Look at Your Value

Every Big Fish needs more—because they’re

omnivorous.

It’s the same as when the three of us were diving the

other day; you’d see the big fish eat the little fish.

The big companies (like Google) buy little guys (like

YouTube) because they want to be bigger and they want

to serve better.

If you bring them something that they consider an

irresistible offer, some piece of the value equation that

they don’t have yet, they are going to be interested

because they need to eat and partner to grow.

It may be that you’re just the conduit to put it

together and you take a broker’s fee for life.

There are many ways to swim with the big fish.

There are many ways to play with the big fish!




You need to understand that if the other party is a

BIG party (everyone is going to want to read The Big in

this series) and you bring only a “dot,” are you going to

have their attention? No.

You need to bring something that matters in the

context of their organization.

You need to bring something that is big enough

to matter in the context of their organization!

So there’s a couple of ways you can do this that

might be useful to think about.

Say you want the attention of a giant whale, and the

opportunity you have in mind is not giant-size. It might

be kind of hard to get the whale interested in this.

The first thing I recommend you do is take your

thing whatever it is and make it bigger!

Think about what you would have to do, what

vision you would have to have, what market segment




you would have to be working on for your company and

your project to matter to a Big Fish.

If it’s not big enough, make it bigger!

You may be thinking you’re too small to play with

the big fish. “I’m thinking plankton!” And the great

white shark is not interested either. But you’ll notice

something about great white sharks—they have other

fish that swim with them—and they just might be

interested in the plankton.

They may have a subsidiary to which this matters.

For example, when we went into Japan in the

training business, there was a company we approached

called Recruit (a multi-billion dollar company) that has a

relationship with every human resources department in

the country. And when I say “every,” I am not kidding.

Is that a powerful relationship?

When we were just starting, we were invisible. We

were microscopic compared to their organization. So we




found a subsidiary of Recruit to whom we could mean

something.

Then when we started to mean something to that

subsidiary, the head office looked down and said,

“Hmm, minnows.”

Then they looked again about a year later and went,

“Hmm, that minnow is growing up.”

We got sucked up and they created a whole

department in the head office that did nothing but sell

us to their clients. They accounted for 80 percent of our

sales for the last 15 years. That was a very worthwhile

joint venture!

If you’re too small for the Big Fish, you may be

the right size for somebody swimming with the Big

Fish!

Pain or Gain




I’m going to give you two words: pain and gain. With the

big fish, you have to understand where their pain is and

what gain they want. It will be one or the other.

You’re not going to sell it to them unless they have

pain or gain. Or you can go for imagination. You’ve got

to find the pain that they have and solve that, or find the

gain they are going to have and present it with finesse

and imagination.

You go in and you solve that issue or problem, but

you do your research first! Find out who they are and

whom you’re going to be talking to, and then find out

who the decision makers are.

Then you go in (you have one chance and one

chance only) and you make an effective presentation.

By the way, you’ll probably have to do it in three

minutes or less.




If you do not capture their imagination in three

minutes or less, they have mentally checked out and

you’re out of there.

Refine your presentation until you can capture

their imagination in three minutes or less!

The Three-Minute Presentation

The top venture capitalist in the world, a guy who

funded a little company called AOL and, most recently,

Google, is a friend of mine.

He wants to take our book publishing company

public, because he heard we’ve got all the best-selling

authors in the world coming to us.

He said, “I want to take it public now.” I said, “I’m

not going to take it public until 2014. Then we’ll go for a

hundred-times multiple.”

He said, “When we go to Wall Street with this,

you’re allowed ten PowerPoint slides, you’ve got to be in




and out in three minutes, and they’ve got to understand

the value proposition the first time.”

Value Example

As a hedge fund, our value proposition is very simple:

we became the first funds-to-funds company to make

money only when our clients make money by

eliminating the fixed management fee. End of story.

That description didn’t even take 30 seconds.

Remember, your presentation must be imaginative

and full of excitement.

Give Them the Value Proposition

Ramp them up in the next 30 seconds: If you’re the

customer, and two companies come to you and one

says, “We’ll make money whether you make money or

not” and the other one says, “We’ll make money only

when you make money,” which would you like to invest

with?

Then, when nobody has stood up and left the room

yet, I can hit them with the next piece: Start to do the




math. If you give us $100 million and we make

10 percent return, which is $10 million, we get to keep

25 percent of that, which is $2.5 million. Now ramp that

up over a couple billion.

Now they still haven’t left the room, and I hit them

with the next part of the value proposition: We run this

entire business, our back office, out of the New Zealand

office, which means we have all the best people but we

are not paying the best rates.

So I hit them with our cost structure, and they fall

out of their chairs.

Normally, in his industry, the cost structure is

extremely high because they are in New York and other

places like that, and the hedge fund wants to collect the

fixed fee.

We dropped both the fixed fee and the operational

cost. In other words, the ability to buy dramatically

increased for the investor.




When you present yourself, present yourself very,

very well. Dress like they dress. When I go to a financial

meeting, it is in a tailored three-button blue wool suit,

white shirt, cuffs, and a dark red tie. End of story.

Walk in as if you have already made the sale. Not

cocky—you need to have some humility in there!—but

you see yourself walking out with it sold.

I just assume they’re going to want it because the

value proposition is so good.

Fairness

How do you know when the value proposition is fair?

The only thing that is fair is when both parties win.

That’s what fairness is. When one party wins, the other

party wins: You both win.

Never go for lose-lose or win-lose. It’s stupid.

The best way to negotiate a win-win is to listen. Shut

your mouth and listen. Most people only think of their




win; they think that “fair” is giving less of what they

want. They don’t realize that what they need to do is

listen deeply to the other party and achieve everything

that party wants. You have to think “and.” Don’t think,

“I win or you win.” Think, “I win and you win.”

Think “and” not “or.”

Always go for win-win!

Toolbox Full of Questions

You need to learn some questions in your toolbox.

Ask the other party this: “What about this

transaction is most important to you?” It’s not always

what you think.

You’re only thinking about what is most important

to you, and you think they want exactly the same thing.

That’s why you think there’s only a limited pie we can

split, and somebody is going to lose. Does that make

sense?




They may be interested in something completely

different from what you are interested in.

We had this problem in one of our relationships in

Japan. It was like standing on opposite sides of the

Grand Canyon, because we just couldn’t get into their

paradigm.

We were a private company, and a private company

only cares about how much money they actually make.

They were a public company and were saying, “We need

to record a larger sale even if the profitability isn’t

there.”

We couldn’t understand what that was all about. It

just did not compute. We just couldn’t get it. Finally, we

got it. It took (and I’m being conservative) about six

months because we were so stupid—we didn’t know

how to listen.

Finally the guy managed to explain to us that they

needed for us to be a line item on their budget. Their

company couldn’t make anything a line item that didn’t




have anything under $10 million of sales regardless of

what the profit margin was.

As soon as we became a line item on their budget,

they were able to access all kinds of internal resources

within their organization that they couldn’t access until

we were a line item.

Find out what it takes for you to be a line item

on their budget!

We couldn’t get it! We didn’t work that way. “It’s

got to be a line item.” We’re saying, “We could record it

that way, but you’re going to be making the exact same

amount of money.” “It doesn’t matter.” Time and time

again, they will want something radically different from

what you want.

Listen to find out what they really want!

Gather Information

Go to the secretary of the company you’re interested in

and ask who the last three people were that they did




business with. Go talk to them and find out what

worked, what didn’t work, and what you could to do

make it 10 percent better.

One of the companies buying one of my 12

companies is going to give $8 million more to do some

media stuff that I can’t even believe I haven’t thought

about. That’s all they want us for: the media. I don’t care

why they want us; they want to give us a giant chunk of

change.

Manners Count

One more thing I’d like to emphasize: When you’re with

a truly Big Fish, use impeccable manners.

Write it down. Use impeccable manners, whatever

that means in their culture. The Big Fish of the world

have very little patience for the little fish of the world,

especially when the little fish has no manner.

Your manners must be impeccable!




I’m going to give you an example of how I used

impeccable manners to close a tremendous sale:

I was invited to meet with the president and founder

of McDonald’s Japan, Den Fujita, who is an incredible

businessman.

Can you imagine where he is sitting in his perception

of himself and his capabilities? Just grasp that for a

moment.

Is this a truly Big Fish?

This is the top-of-the-world kind of Big Bish

because he owned the whole thing there and he owned

the supply company for McDonald’s Japan. He owned

100 percent of the supply company that provided

McDonald’s Japan with all of its materials. So this is a

monster Big Fish.

I was called in to meet Den because I had done a

presentation to his executive team that excited them all,

and everyone had been there except for Den. The




executives went back to the office and were talking

about all the concepts I had shared, and Den said,

“What’s this all about?” Den wants to know who I am.

“Oh, it’s this strange foreigner, but he’s terrific.”

“Bring him here. I want to hear it from him

directly.”

Does he really want to hear it from me directly? No!

Forget it. He wants me to hear it from him, directly.

You’ve got to get the picture!

If you go in there thinking, “It’s my time to show

off,” you’re dead.

I went in there, and we had an hour meeting; I

talked for five minutes, and he talked for 55 minutes. I

kept track.

He’d say something, and I’d say, “That’s exactly

what I keep trying to tell people in my seminars.”




Impeccable manners. I sat there, I listened, I paid

attention. I said, “Wow! What a great idea,” and “Yes, I

think that’s right,” and “This is what we really need to

get out to all of your employees.”

We got to the end of the meeting, went to the door,

bowed politely—of course I put my briefcase down

first, because that’s how you bow correctly. That’s what

some people don’t realize—by not taking the time, they

are being impolite; they are thinking about the next

thing! Don’t go to the next thing until you are done with

the first thing. I put my briefcase down, and I bowed.

Then I turned to his secretaries and assistants who had

their office next to his; I bowed.

They panicked because it had never happened before.

They were out of their seats and jumping up!

The next morning the mandate came down from

heaven that every manager in the company must go

through my training. They built a training room. I’m not

kidding—they constructed a new training room in the




head office for only our training; even though I spoke

only five minutes in that meeting. I didn’t say one thing

about the product. When you’re with a Big Fish,

impeccable manners matter.

Summary

When you want to sell your business or do a joint

venture with a Big Fish, look carefully at your value

proposition. Look at it through the eyes of the Big Fish.

What do they want? What pain or gain are you solving?

Prepare to give your value proposition in a

presentation that is less than three minutes long. Do it

in 30 seconds if possible. Give it in practical terms that

have meaning to the Big Fish!

If you are not big enough, find a way to make

yourself big enough or approach a medium size fish that

is attached to the Big Fish and start there first.

Fill your toolbox with questions. Ask question of

different people in the Big-Fish company to find out




valuable information. Listen! Use the information to

help you fine-tune your value presentation.

Remember that manners count. How you present

yourself and how you treat the people in the Big-Fish

company really does matter.

We hope these ideas assist you in achieving your

goals with the Big Fish, and in making the splash in the

world that you deserve.

With best wishes,

James Skinner, Mark Victor Hansen, Roice Krueger

___________________________________________

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