A long-time B2B client called me yesterday.  He is a successful entrepreneur.  Bought out his boss years ago and now runs the company.  We have been working together for about four years now and whenever we discuss a new challenge that his company is facing, the conversation seems to go the same way.  He describes the challenge, we strategize the solution, he tells me why it won’t work and that he thinks it’s too expensive.  He’s just not sure how he can get a return on that investment.  Every time.  Same conversation.  I’m used to it. Part of his resistance is that what we want to do is so different than what he has always done.  Also, when we talk about ‘building his brand’, ‘changing the conversation’ and ‘making an emotional connection’ he feels the need to roll his eyes - says it sounds too new age-y.

So when he called yesterday, I was expecting more of the same and not at all prepared for what he said.

Knowing that his company was really struggling when we last spoke and his industry had been particularly hard hit during the recession, I asked how his year ended.   When we last spoke, he was facing the most challenging time in the thirty year history of his company and when I didn’t hear back from him for a while I had begun to assume the worst.

He apologized for not calling me back sooner and told me that he had been really busy with new projects and that he actually grew last year.  He went on to say:

“It got really bad for a while.  So bad that I was going to have to lay off 40 people.  I had decided which ones were going to have to go and even drafted the paperwork.  These are people with families.  Some of them have been with the company for almost the whole thirty plus years we have been around.  I held on as long as I could but just couldn’t do it any more.  Right before I pulled the trigger and fired them, I got a call from a new customer with a really big new project.  He said that he saw the marketing materials that you created and hired us.  Then I got a call from another one.  In all it was $9 million in new business from that campaign.”

I thought about how much he had fought me when we shared the concept with him.

I thought about how much he complained about the price tag, which was .002 of the new business he had secured.

I thought about all of the times he told me that he had ‘done it all before and it didn’t work then so why would it work now’.

I thought about reminding him of that but instead I said, “that is great news.  Congratulations. What’s next?”

We started talking about a new market that we thought he should go after.  I explained the strategy behind the idea and he told me that he didn’t think it would work.  And I was comforted to know that our relationship would continue on as it always has and those 40 people still have jobs.

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