When interacting with angels lead with your ears and do your homework. Listening is even more important than homework because it shows that you are polite, attentive, and care what they have to say. As the Earl of Chesterfield once said, "Many a man would rather you heard his story than granted their request." The world is full of people who want to talk about how great they are. It is rare for someone to listen attentively. It is a subtle but flattering compliment.
I have faced many an angel whom I can now call friend simply because I listened to them. The first angel was the founder of a co-working space I worked out of in Hong Kong. Mr. Gem had made his millions selling diamonds, and has spent the last 20 years improving his business as well as giving back to the community. One of his contributions was several thousand square feet of prime real estate attached as the co-working space. His second contribution was the insanely low price tag of 1000 HKD per month, about 120 USD, for 9 a.m.-2 a.m. access, meeting rooms and mentorship programs.
I had met Mr. Gem via his mentorship program. Ironically I was paired with him for my 30-minute entrepreneur in residence. I introduced myself and the product for five minutes, and immediately opened it up for him to talk. I was careful to listen to every detail, and ask questions that would allow him to naturally continue. The result was that he talked for 45 minutes straight. During this time I learnt about his entire business, how he had built it from the ground up, how he helped found a local hospital, and about his trip to the most exotic places in the world. He even showed me pictures of the various locations on his iPad. Next he went on to teach me about business. He taught me two key principles when entering into a new business or market. Both are wisdom taught by the former third-richest man in the world, Li Ka Shing, a Hong Kong native.
Lesson 1: for all major purchases/investment, get three quotes from three different companies. The idea behind this wisdom is that it is easy for two people to agree to cheat you, but to get three people to agree to anything is basically impossible. Some bonus thoughts on this, if all the three quotes are about the same price, it is likely the price for this purchase/investment, check the service records before deciding. If one of them is really low, this means you need to do more homework and get a few more quotes if necessary. If the guy is the still the lowest after a few more quotes, try to find a past client referral. He could just be a scam. If one of the quotes is too high, figure out why he is out of alignment, even bring it up to him that he's too high, see what he says, evaluate the extra information he gives. If the other guys do bad work, or they don't do xyz, get confirmation. Time is on your side, as is the money.
Lesson 2: if you can't innovate, imitate later. The lesson is to learn from those that are already succeeding in the field. One of my favourite quotes for this is "A smart man learns from his mistakes, but a wise man learns from the mistakes of others." This advice isn't a simple, copy and paste of what your competition is doing. It is study them carefully, pick what is good, and innovate on what is bad. That way you can be ahead of the competition the moment you start.
Finally, once he was done talking about the lessons, he shifted the topic back to my big data company. I tried pitching it to him two different ways. I pitched it to him the way it was originally, followed by pitching it to him catered to how it would work with his jewellery company. The result was that he didn't feel the first business was worth 100K, my investment asking price, but he did agree to try us out in the second model of the business, to learn more about some emerging online competition in his field. Win.
When you listen, people are inclined to give you as much as they can. At the end of a long listening session, you may know this person better than most people in their world, and to most this is considered a true service. As a result, they often will want to give you back something in return, resulting in business, investment, or contacts. You can't go wrong with this technique.
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Swimming with Asian Sharks - Business Secrets from the Pacific Rim
Non-FictionEver wonder what it takes to do business in Asia? How do Asian business executives behave and think? Do you want to create a business from scratch in under 24 hours? If so, this is your guide. This book is a compilation of over one hundred business...
