When it's good to be bad
The following is based on one of The Covenant Group’s clients. All of the names and telling details have been changed.
The Rolex was what gave him away. It was too shiny, just like Kevin Poole himself.
Kevin started in the business nearly twenty years ago. He’d come from a hard background, his mother had died when he was young and his father, who had a drinking problem, had a tough time keeping a job. As a kid, Kevin swore that he would be a success. He wanted all the things he was deprived of as a child – stability, in all things – materially, emotionally, spiritually. Kevin worked three jobs as a teenager so he could put himself through university.
He earned a scholarship, got his law degree, and practiced for a couple of years. He soon realized law wasn’t for him, and went for a job he loved—he became a financial advisor. The first few years were a struggle as he built up his clientele. Money was a problem, but by his sixth year, his practice started to take off. He began earning a quarter of a million dollars a year. Confident that the business would keep growing, he started spending money. He bought a house, a luxury car, and started wearing tailored clothes. He got married, began a family and took a lot of the summer off to spend time with the kids. After a couple of years living like this, he came to see me.
“I want to take my business to the next level,” he said.
I asked him to give me background on his business and he delighted in telling me his history, but when I asked about his current situation, he gave me vague answers. As I probed, inquiring about his revenue, expenses, and the income he took from the practice, he continued to be evasive. It was strange to watch him, in his impeccably tailored suit and expensive accessories, to dance around uncomfortably while we talked about his business’s financials.
At that point, I changed the subject and began recounting the story of my own history in business, but unlike him, I went into a fairly personal account of the many struggles I’ve had over the years – the highs and the lows. As I told the story of how, over twenty years ago, I stood on the brink of a financial collapse, Kevin leaned forward. After I finished, Kevin opened up about how his business had begun to stagnate a few years ago, how his revenue had tailed off, and how, to maintain the lifestyle he and his family had become accustomed to, he had started borrowing money. He felt like he was holding up a house of cards that threatened to collapse and bury him.
I asked Kevin why it was so important for him to maintain the lifestyle. Why did he have to keep buying expensive suits and drive a luxury car?
He answered that his main target market had become wealthy business owners and he needed to look the part.
“There’s looking the part, and then there’s being the part,” I said.
When Kevin asked me what I meant, I said, “I know how to help you, Kevin, because you opened up to me. But you only did so after I opened up to you. And you opened up to me because you know that I know the challenges you face in growing your business, because I have faced them, and continue to face them. It’s the same with your clients. You are trying too hard to put on a face that says you are perfect, but that only prevents you from getting inside your clients and really learning how you can help them. By exposing yourself, by showing your own vulnerability, your clients will give you the key to their problems and that will give you what you need to help them.”
Kevin used this one simple concept – opening up to clients so they would open up to him – to transform his business. Within a year, he saw close to 50% growth.
________________________________
The Covenant Group is referred to by many as the place entrepreneurs go to become Business Builders. They are considered to be thought leaders and have authored the best-selling books, The 8 Best Practices of High-Performing Salespeople, The Entrepreneurial Journey, and The Business Builder.