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Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
00:07:19
In this episode, Scott Becker examines the challenges of doing business with people who are either overly difficult or lack honesty.
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This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. Today is discussion is can you do a great deal with bad people? And again, I have to broadly define and distract what is bad people versus good people. There are plenty of difficult people to do business with that are very good people that I still wouldn't want to be a business with. So you have people. I am by nature not wired to go for every last nickel or last penny. I'm one who's a believer. You build businesses, you get wealthy, others get wealthy. We all do well in that it doesn't work well when you're back and forth fighting on every little piece of everything. It's bad karma for business that doesn't work out well. I once had a partner that we used to joke if he ever flew over New York, because he flew over New York once, he had ownership of any client that was ever out of New York. And that was obviously hyperbole, but it was that kind of feeling that a dollar for me was less important than a penny or a half penny for him. But just very difficult to do business like that in the long run. Temporarily, yes. In the long run, no. So there's some people that are. That are difficult. They just feel like they are just, you know, they're out for every nickel. They are very. You can't really communicate and talk with them normally. And I'll talk about those people first, because even though those people are honest people and you know what you're getting, I find that a very hard way to live one's life and to do business. And so that's sort of one set of things. The other thing with all these business relationships. Business relationships are exactly that. Over the long run, they're a business relationship. And it's almost like when you're working with a partner, a staff member, an employee of yours, a vendor of yours, who are. Whoever you're working with. One of the tests of great relationships is those people periodically make a mistake, and you have to decide at that point, how are you treating those people. Good partners treat those people well when they make mistakes and realize it's a mistake, it's not part of the entire ecosystem. Similarly, when somebody thoughts they were getting paid something and they might have misunderstood, so they're getting paid a little bit less. If they've been doing a great job and they are great performers and great employees or great partners, you try and make sure that they're made whole one way or another. And you certainly get that comfort in certain. In certain partnerships that. That is how people are going to behave and you'll be able to work with them. And I think that is, at the end of the day, the kinds of people you want to do business with. And for a variety of reasons, you could have the very best lawyers and spend incredible amounts of dollars on lawyers, but those lawyers, you can't legislate every situation that happens. You just can't do it. And so what you really want is people that through good or bad, that you could work with, because you're never going to be able to legislate or regulate or write down a contract. Every single thing that happens in the, in the best of businesses, the contracts go away and you're only looking at them every once in a great, great while. I always remembered when a client says we need to look at that provision, this is always a bad sign. That means that somebody's having a tiff with somebody or some conflict over something. Never a good sign. And it's similar. You're far better off doing business with people that you could trust that you like, that you versus that you can't. Because even with the best lawyers, it's going to be a constant evolution of what you're doing and what's happening. So to take it a step further, so once in a category is people that are just difficult, tough, smart people that just you might choose not to work with, no matter how smart and talented they are. The second type of people are people that are slightly dishonest or that are dishonest, that tell you one thing and are telling principals the other thing, you know, or telling you, oh, I don't want to do this, but I'm told I have to do this. I need to find out that's not the case. And this happens in business so often that I can't even tell you. And again, the first quarter category of people, people that want an ad, they're difficult, that are sort of buy the book when the book goes in their favor by not not might not be when the book's not in going in the favor. You could find ways to do business. I mean, it might not prefer it, but you could find ways to do it the second time of people. And I go back to 100 years ago. I was working side by side with a consulting firm on a huge project for years. And the consulting firm always said we always have to wait on our bills. You know, we're all waiting on our bills. Not just you, the law firm, but USA consulting firm too. And when that, when that consulting firm finally got terminated from that client. What I found was that the law firm, me, we were nine months behind in our bills. The consulting firm, regardless what they had told me was getting paid every week and guaranteed that they got paid every week. And this would be closer to the set of sort of like not really honest dealing versus you just can't. Versus just can't contract around it. So it's like when I, when I look at this, I'm at the end of the day again. And one of the great steps in my business career was the period of time when I had enough clients that I didn't have to take on any clients regardless of how they behaved. That's a great sort of point in anybody's professional career in development. Similarly, as you're looking at doing deals, you have different types of people. You have people that just are really good people. And one of the reasons back in the day we ended up with one of the partners that I have is because a close, close colleague had worked really closely with them and vouch for them as being straightforward, good people. And at the end of the day, very smart people. They may not be the smartest, the toughest this, the that, but they're honest, good people to deal with. And so when you go through your different differences over the years, you work through them. In contrast, if you're dealing with people that are either of two flavors of difficult is they're so hard edged that you really feel like if there's a challenge or a problem, you can't really work through it. Or, or two, they're overly greedy in certain spots and it doesn't leave room for you to take care of the rest of your people and team, that's no good. Or if you feel like you can't trust them on that. Or third, if you hear one thing but they're really doing something else, that also is a signal that you really can't do business with those people. Again, you can't contract past difficult people. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and business podcast again. As always, if this resonates with you, your thoughts on it. 773-766-5322 thank you very, very much for listening.