A reporters twist

Wow be careful what you say and whom you say it to! Yesterday I had a very important business meeting with a client of whom I have been working on a deal with for 6-9 months or however long it has been. Unfortunately, my father is in hospice and is in his last days so I could not attend the meeting.

However, the other party I am working with on the deal attempted to attend the meeting himself. In reality, the other party is a VIP Executive and very important to the deal. It was more pertinent that he attended the meeting than me.

So what happens is ten-minutes before the meeting time – I get an email/text I forget which type of message that says meeting is cancelled and no reason was given. Or at least a clear reason. So I call the executive I am working with and he says, “yeah I am here and so are the police” The place of business was closed down by the police and we did not know why.

Now the deal at hand is a sizable deal that I have worked non-stop on for months. I made numerous trips from my home state to the clients. The deal at hand was very very difficult, information was impossible to get and useless when I got it. Finally, we did a report we could make some sense out of so it was up to the top person from each company to work out the details on the offer.

My point, we being blown away that this could happen with such an important client and my associations – I wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on. I called around anyone I could think of since this was a public act I thought maybe I could see what was going on and why are we shut out.

Well I call an industry specific website of the industry and the person I spoke to did not know anything about the current police situation. I did give them some details as in name and address thinking maybe they would find something out. Then a conversation begins and I am clearly frustrated that my deal is going down the tubes and I cannot find out why.

Several calls to the client and the clients office with no response then I get a text from another client saying my name is in an article and the article slams the client. Not only is the client’s name sensationalized but the executive of my very important business alliance is mentioned.

The article was not written well or even investigated the best I can tell. I did not give my permission to be interviewed nor did I think I was talking to a reporter.

I will go on record saying that I did call the party that published the story. I did not know I was speaking with someone who was actually interviewing me. I was honest and straight forward in my conversation in regards to some of the specifics I am upset about, but I was somewhat misquoted on one item but I think that was more of an understanding issue than anything

The twist on her story had nothing to do with my deal at hand, but man she sure did make it look like it!

Bob Nokley Entrepreneur

It’s finally here. After a long cold winter, one of my favorite times of the year is here. Spring and Baseball season.

I am often asked, how unsettling is branding oneself as an Entrepreneur? My direct answer is, “it’s an acquired taste.” The real bottom line is, if you are not a good listener and if you take everything personal – my suggestion is don’t move into the mainstream Entrepreneur lifestyle. The best example I can give is to compare being an entrepreneur to baseball. In the life of an Entrepreneur, life is only measured as homeruns. Listening is the singles. A lifetime batting average in comparison to actual opportunities, can be pretty low for an Entrepreneur. Can be that is. Not a certain. You most defiantly can find yourself in slumps. In baseball, the homerun hitters are more remembered for the clutch homeruns that the strikeouts! Another major comparison to baseball or any type of profession is that no one can do it for you and it can get pretty lonely pretty quick when something does not work.

You must listen, being a good listener is your time in the batters box. If you don’t listen, your gotta strike out. If you don’t have thick skin, your going to spend all of your time on the injured reserve list and become someone that went down injured not swinging…

The biggest difference in an Entrepreneurs life is, the audience is much smaller and your opportunity for swings and misses are measured one at a time. Not thousands. Take care of your opportunities. Listen for what the opportunities are telling you. It’s your pitch to miss.

“It’s not about what you can get, it’s about what you can give.” Bob Nokley CEO/Founder Nokley Group, LLC