We Can Be of the Most Help to the Smartest People

Know More: Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, Investment Banking, Selling a Business 2.0, Investment Banking

Over the years that we have been in business, I have learned that we, meaning my firm, can be of the most help to the smartest people.

You would think that it would be otherwise. Wouldn't someone who doesn't have a clue benefit more from our help? Clearly someone who is at "level one" has more room for improvement than someone who is already at level ten, right?

Nope. It doesn't work that way. The smarter people are, the more likely they are to listen to everything you say and extract all the value from it--and ignore the balderdash. At the other end of the spectrum, folks tend to ignore everything we say, rejecting golden nuggets right along with the balderdash.

Recently, I contacted a CEO offering to help him sell his business--if the time were right. He took the time to send me an e-mail telling me he didn't need my help and never would, after all, he'd been offered a buyout by a private equity group already and had passed it up.

I responded that we'd gladly take him off our list and I invited him to get back in touch if he ever decided he needed our help. Before you conclude that he was wise to blow us off, especially since he already had an offer from a private equity firm, consider that if he had one offer, he could likely get ten with our help. What are the odds that the first offer he received would be the best offer? Nil.

If he ever sells to a private equity firm who calls to offer him money without getting help from an investment banker, he'll likely leave five or ten times the value of the fee he would have paid to the banker on the table for the private equity investor. I'm sorry. That is not smart.

Devin,

Great post. I completely agree with your points and believe that the smartest people are those that are the most teachable. The smartest people are those that recognize their own strengths and weaknesses, and find others to complement.

Brock

Posted by: Brock Blake | July 28, 2006 10:27 AM | Permalink to Comment

It is a sad irony that are intelligent people who become arrogant, which, in my short experience, breeds ignorance. Arrogance prevents them from extracting value from conversations with other bright people (as you mentioned). Of course this is not always the case, and I don’t know that this is the case with the CEO in question. It could very well be that he/she was never all that intelligent to begin with. Neither case contradicts your point that when bright entrepreneurs and business owners engage bright investment bankers to do what they do best, good things happen. Period.

Great post.

Posted by: Matt | July 28, 2006 10:43 AM | Permalink to Comment

Middle Market Deals and how to buy, sell and raise capital from $5 to $500 million

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