Most of the “random” (meaning from people who ended up on my website by… googling for corporate finance services) project inquiries that I receive, never go anywhere beyond that stage. This is a choice. My choice.
The reason is because most of those people are not serious. And I am not saying this because of the way they ended up on my website.
Rather, I am saying this because this is what I get understand during our opening discussion.
For beginners, most of them think they know what they need (as most clients do, to be honest). The problem with this particular bunch of people, is that they are not susceptible to pushback, even when you have used a range of different arguments to show them that what they are asking for, is either not feasible, or will not help them.
The most common of these requests, is for valuation services. And the most common kind of companies that ask for it, are not even companies, but are rather, people with (precious?) ideas that tend to erupt when they are being told that it’s not possible to reasonably estimate a value for their idea.
Of course, I always propose an alternative route based on my extensive experience on the subject, or (if they really insist) to do my best at valuing their idea, but letting them know that I won’t be having a lot of comfort with this kind of valuation and that I will not sign this work, because I believe it’s fundamentally wrong.
As mentioned in the intro of this post though, most of these people want neither and so they just walk away. That’s my choice. I let them leave effectively. And I like this because not serious people are lousy prospects. And lousy prospects rarely turn into good clients. Credibility is a choice. An expensive choice. A good choice. The alternative is to scrape the bottom of the barrel, because loss of credibility creates a downward spiral, out of which you will always come out for the worst, even if you make some extra cash in the beginning. What’s your choice?