5 crucial tips to managing con artists, opportunists and excessive noise in your first years as a business owner

The world wide web is an endless sea full of opportunists living from 'gig-to-gig' claiming to be experts having the answer to all your business needs. They come in the form of coaches, mentors, conference organisors, influencers, thought leaders, personal branders, marketing partners, networking organisations with the most frequented website in (insert your sector here), award winning authors, freelance programmers, designers, life coaches, and technology enthusiasts who love your story and can't wait to jump on board to 'offer a helping hand'.

You will also find that they come in the form of cowboy deal makers pretending to be able to bring you direct business and lots of it. These are the ones that hurt the most because before they leave you dried out and disoriented, they bring you and your team on an emotional roller coaster ride. They will introduce themselves as potential clients with some of the most delightful flattery your ears have ever heard. They are interested in you and interested in your beautiful product and push all the right buttons to convince you. They will claim to give you their direct business or will bring you new business quickly and easily and often attach orgasmic numbers to their promises (e.g. I can think of at least 15 of my clients who will love your product).

If you start a company, you will find that one of the biggest disappointments you can experience is dedicating time and effort and the associated excitement that accompanies it to what you believe is a client acquisition opportunity only to discover after countless hours into the relationship that not only is your prospect not planning on buying your product, but the real reason for which they have been engaging with you is because they are trying to sell you theirs. You will be amazed how often this will happen and you need to learn to identify when it does to cut your losses short.

As Steve Jobs said, you are naked and fully exposed. Furthermore, in those first years everyone and their mother knows that not only are you quite naked and naive in this intense moment, but you also have cash in your bank account. The leeches will be all over you distracting you from doing what you are suppose to be doing; bringing your product to market successfully.

Our first two years were full of such noise and we learnt very quickly to not give our phone numbers and e-mail addresses out easily. We were engaged in partnerships that probably should have never been explored which ultimately led to product pivots which should have been postponed until we had better clarity into our target market. We were also misguided on several occasions making costly client pitches which were not well planned and consumed a great deal of time, energy and travel expenses.

That said, put your defenses up and keep your eyes open. What doesn't kill you will make you stronger and give you the street smarts you need to take your company to its next destination.

Warning n° 1 - Watch out for the little 'brain picker'

If you have a good product, a good team and successfully land clients, you will be bombarded by people willing to go great lengths just to get a closer look at what and who makes you shine.

Sometimes they are genuine. They see the value in your product and want to work with you getting to know you really quickly and calling you frequently on your mobile dedicating a lot of their time, while consuming a lot of yours. They are looking to get to that 'friend' status in the quickest time possible, often have little experience in technology but wanting to give it a go. It all seems good an then in one quick instance, they fall off of the radar and disappear after a few short months. This usually occurs when they find a new opportunity (e.g. job offer) and / or learn they can't get rich and cash out quickly with you like they had originally hoped.

Also to be cautious of is anyone approaching you in an unexpected and last-minute chat online with a 'lets jump in a call' or 'got time for a quick skype? (now also referred to as a 'virtual coffee)' You will find many of them lurking in discussion groups where you ask a simple question directed to the group and they will respond to you (usually in private) stating that the group forum is not adequate for which they will be glad to 'help' you offline.

Most of the time, these are people looking to better their business with your ideas or looking to sell you and your clients their consulting services and want to snoop under your cover to see what’s cooking.

You will be shocked with how bold freelancers and boutique consulting companies can be when they try to convince you to give them access to your client base that you have worked so hard to acquire. They will tell you that they like your product but prior to taking it to their clients, (whomever that may be), they first want to see it in action up close by getting direct 'hands-on' experience interacting with your clients. Furthermore, they often ask to be paid when doing so. This is obviously a 'bait-and-switch' - type trick where they are looking for a fixed paycheck without having to do any real entrepreneurial work but by having opened the door by telling you that they can bring you business. It is a huge disappointment when you see this unfold. Sniffing out these type of intentions early and sending these people on their merry way is your best bet.

We had one boutique ERP consulting firm sweet talk us into setting up a long-term partnership with the initial plan of installing our product at 25 potential clients who were already on their shortlist. It sounded great! Once all the paperwork went through however, they began to agressively introduce into our weekly discussions their proposal to incorporate their ERP consulting services into our value proposition and pitch it to our current clients . Taking us by even more surprise was when they started to complain about the time that they had dedicated learning to use our product (a key element if you plan on promoting it) and wanted the opportunity to facilitate training sessions to our other partners where they would be paid to give the training despite not having made one successful sale in their market.

The theme is quite reoccurring; people who present themselves as market makers and business developers who later change their tune to wanting to be given consulting work and be paid for it.

Also to keep an eye out for are the curious 9-to-5ers willing to say a few white lies to warm you up in exchange for your hacks learnt living the experience. Sometimes they present themselves stating that they are looking to launch a business in their free time and think you will be a perfect fit for collaboration. Other times, they present themselves as a door opener hiding behind their employer's big-brand name and stating that they want to sponsor the introduction of your product within their company. They do so citing names of big executives who they 'know' personally and who they would like to introduce you to giving you the false impression that eventually there will be an official product pitch. They spend a lot of time with you in one-on-one calls looking to 'brainstorm'. All of this in their evening hours or on the weekends and never once exchanging a professional e-mail address or company phone number.

And why not? You are online, you are available, you are learning daily and actively looking for collaboration opportunities. They have nothing to lose and you seem glad to be available to enrich them with your knowledge.

Warning n° 2 - Watch out for the big 'brain picker'

This subject in itself merits its own article. It touches upon topics such as corporate ethics and integrity and how there still seems to be many gaps in the rules of engagement between big companies and start-ups like ours. Although we have experienced some disturbing moments, living through these have played an enourmous role in our continuous learning process and have enhanced the way we present our product and service offering.

To make a long story short, in 4 separate occasions since our start in 2015 we have been engaged in full-on proof-of-concept product test pilots launched within big brand multinational organisations (I won't mention any names). You will be surprised to learn that in every occasion, for one reason or another, the key business lead at the prospect convinced us to bi-pass the NDA signing to fast-track their product test pilot and furthermore requested free access to our product and our team.

No legal protection in place and free access to our product.

Being naive, trusting the integrity of the big brand and in the spirit of collaboration to keep things going forward, we gave into each request creating one bad experience after another. Each experience finished with our activity plan fizzling out to the tune of 'there was a last minute emergency, lets catch up next month' leaving me and my team in a confusing holding pattern trying to understand how such a big prestigious brand name could be so disorganised, inconsiderate and even cowardly in their lack of transparency to such a small company who is putting their best effort forward and an enourmous quantity of their cash flow to make the collaboration a success.

Looking back, we learnt that most big companies are digitally lost and bogged down in their archaic processes. They are seeking a jump start and use companies like mine to collect ideas. When they reach out to start-ups like us who are young and naive, I believe that the majority of the time it is a small group of people internally who have little intentions of buying your product and even lesser decision-making power in the first place but want to hear your ideas and kick-start their own innovation program which is probably in the dumps.

They will turn to leveraging you, your product, and the robust support material you are willing to provide. In other words, high quality consultation supported by the thousands of hours of R&D that you and your team put in for absolutely no cost to the client but an immense financial and psychological cost for the little guy trying to catch a break.

Am I being a bit pessimistic? This is the reality. If you don't have the stomach for this, I would suggest you keep your 9-5 job.

Learning from our mistakes here are some tips I would offer to any aspiring innovator looking to bring a new product to market and who is about to enter the rough uncharted waters of entrepreneurship in 2019.

Get comfortable out of your comfort zone

TIP #1- Get comfortable telling vendors that you don't have the resources

Vendors are everywhere and they will waste enourmous amounts of your time if you let them drag on with their sales pitches. When you find that you are spending more than just a few minutes per week interacting with someone who wants to be your coach, teach you office meditation techniques or sell you a ticket to the Digital Transformation business conference of the century, you are most likely losing focus to what you should be doing.

Be weary of marketers, this is the biggest group and have interesting and convincing techniques to hook you and make you think you should sack your current provider and go with them. Don't be ashamed to say that there are no funds available at the moment for such investments. As soon as they realise that you are not dipping into the piggy bank, they will leave you alone. If you are truly curious about the service offering and see value in it but know instinctively that it is not the right moment, kick the can forward and tell them to call you back next quarter.

Tip #2 - Get comfortable telling client prospects that you are new and inexperienced

You may think that it is embarrassing telling a big prospect that you still haven't a lot of experience in the market as a solution provider but it is much more embarrassing being halfway through a big pitch and watching your prospect client discover that you are a lot smaller and less experienced than you originally made yourself out to be.

We were in our 2nd year with only 1 active client with a small user base and doing a pitch to a major auto manufacturer where the enthusiasm on both sides had arrived to the highest levels to which we began speaking about contracts, pricing, and next steps. Our egos were instantly deflated the moment that their key sponsor wrote me in private asking if I could put him in contact with our IT partner at machinery production giant Caterpillar to ask how they like using our software. I still don't understand how our Sales team oversold us to the extent that we gave the impression that we were already working with such a big client but the error was quite embarrassing and forced us to revisit our sales pitch and the messaging contained within it. We didn't get the deal to say the least and most likely had something to do with this blunder.

Since then, when going forward we made it a point to put all of our cards on the table in the initial get-to-know you phase highlighting our newness in the market as software producers but emphasising the vast experience and deep know-how matured throughout our corporate careers and our strong leadership characheristics which drove us to taking the bold step of entrepreneurship in the first place.

Tip #3 - Get comfortable telling your collaborators to know their place

Collaborators come in all types and can often be aggressive thinking nothing to ask a bunch of intimate questions to get to the bottom of your company as quick as possible. These questions although legit, have their time and their place. If someone who still hasn't proven to you exactly what their true value is to your company starts getting nosy about your trade secrets and balance sheet, tell them to back off. If you can find the words to do it politely do so but make sure you are firm and make it a point to highlight that you don't appreciate that they are putting you in such a position and it is your responsibility to your shareholders to ensure information is managed within the company appropriately. You will be surprised how often they will then come back to you with an apology.

Tip # 4 - Get comfortable charging those wanting to 'pick your brain'

Remember that many freelancers presenting themselves as professionals are often looking for work and have excessive free time to cruise around latching onto you and your team with the hopes to get that kick-start they need. They will often make themselves out to be much more accomplished, much more active, and much more important than the reality just to get a spot at your management table or worse, direct access to the few clients you are currently working with. To weed them out early, charge them for your time so they either respect it or move on. After all you are a consultant and nothing degrades your value proposition more than when you answer unexpected calls and stay on the line 'brainstorming' for excessive amounts of time with someone you barely know and is not contributing to your revenue stream.

In our first years we spent hundreds of hours training sales partners who slowly but surely proved to us that they didn't know how to sell. By installing a simple entrance and training fee to our partner program we immediately saw an increase in the quality in applications and were delighted to see the less-than-promising applicants magically disappear when they learnt they would have to put some skin in the game.

Tip #5 - Get comfortable saying no to free product trials

As a software producer promoting a never-seen-before product, this can seem to be a tough ask but it is absolutely doable. Exceptions can be made but as I eluded to above, free trials lead to lose-lose scenarios because your prospect will not respect your time and treat your pilot project as a 'nice to have'. As soon as an operational emergency presents itself, you and your team are the first thing that gets put on hold.

Avoid this by ensuring that a signed document is present prior to any test pilot or proof-of-concept commencement. This will force their Procurement team to acknowledge you. Without this, your team, your product, and your entire existence may never go beyond the realm of the few people you are engaging with making it difficult for you to escalate an unfortunate situation. Big companies love their hierarchy and no-one wants to create an unnecessary disturbance for someone sitting above them. In short, your go-to-person needs to be someone of importance otherwise any escalation you need to initiate resulting from an unfortunate situation will go nowhere along with the entire initiative.

Identify the scope of your collaboration in a document with a confidentiality clause and put a price on the enourmous amounts of time that you and your team are about to dedicate to make sure the user experience is a success. Highlight in screaming bold letters that you are offering a deep discount on your consulting fee but make sure that a financial gesture is present in the agreement. It doesn't have to be that significant, it just has to be there. Big companies have the budget for these type of things and when they tell you they don't, then they most likely also don't have an appetite for doing long term business with you in the first place.

BONUS - SPECIAL TIP -- With all confusion mentioned above, one of the best things you can do save yourself time is to be well organised in your documentation., By having client policy documentation ready to deliver for every situation we reduced long continuous discussions with curious partners and shortened our sales and partner onboarding cycle considerably. The attached Partnership Program Presentation explains in detail our expectations from our partners and service providers for which we require they read prior to engaging with us ensuring that the FAQs on page 19-20 are completely understood.

Summing it up

Most of us come from a culture where we have been trained to always make a great 1st impression following Richard Branson's logic to aggressively seek opportunity by 'faking it until we make it'. This logic works very well in big companies and allows individuals to amaze themselves while learning their true potential climbing the corporate ladder.

For small business owners however, this mentality can be deadly for your time is limited and your funds are limited making it super important that you make wise decisions investing in the people that present themselves to you. They will all promise to you that they will be high performers but it is your duty to your company to be able to screen them accordingly and get through any 'fluff'. We lost count of how many hours we spent bringing on board people promising to fill our sales pipeline with business that in reality would have difficulty giving away fresh water in the middle of the Sahara. By putting simple controls in place and asking the right questions during the interview process, you can increase your chances of identifying who has a history of performing successfully and can bring you immediate value, who has genuine intentions to learn alongside your team and grow together with you, and who is looking for a quick buck and willing to say whatever it takes to get you to give them your time, energy and resources.

Bringing a business to life is an extraordinary experience but you need thick skin. It is not for everyone. Good luck!