Warnings Before Your Close Your 1st 8-Figure Raise
A true banker’s mantra: the deal is not done until it is done. Counting your transactions before they are wired sets you up for disappointments, nothing is done until it is done. You have to just stay focused, be analytical, be skeptical of everything and be extremely cautious when things get near the finish line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ucddv7Unyt0
Natu Myers & the team at Raises.com
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Transcript
Hi everyone. Natu Myers here again, back with another video. And in this video, I’m going to talk about why it’s important to not get too emotional when deals are about to get done.
And so this is really important for people who are working on capital raising for the first time, deals above 10 million and they see all these numbers in terms, and I see all this. So number one, the deal is not done until it is done, until the money has been wired to all the bank accounts of all the recipients in the deal, to all the consulting, the lawyers and everything, the deal is not done until it is done. So that’s number one and it’s pretty simple, but people, grown professionals, they always forget the simple fact. People who have done all kinds of things, done all kinds of amazing things, they act as if things have been complete and they get emotionally attached to things before they’ve gotten complete. And that’s just setting yourself up for disappointments, nothing is done until it is done. You have to just stay focused, be analytical, be skeptical of everything and be extremely cautious when things get near the finish line.
So especially with people who aren’t in it, they understand everyone’s motivation behind why that would motivate you to be emotional about the deal getting done, because that can take your eye off the prize and it can take your eye off different things. And so just be really cautious before you get too emotional about anything, broadly speaking. So that’s really number one.
Number two understand as well that in closing the transaction, closing the deal and so on, raising capital and all this, remember that even after the deal closes problems can still happen. For example, in mergers and acquisitions deal there’re instances where you can have the seller change their mind last minute because they don’t agree to the price. They don’t agree to the price that they’re being bought at, which messes up the buyer even after the transaction, and so you have all kinds of things like double closings, all kinds of things. And this can happen literally on the same aid that the money gets wired to all the funders or even after on subsequent transactions.
So one thing that helps you not get too emotional and tied up on this is just having multiple revenue sources and revenue streams, not depending on only one deal and if you haven’t consummated a deal before just not depending on deals in general, maybe have another way of generating revenue, besides just depending on deals closing, if you haven’t closed a deal in years or ever. Because I know some people, they sit down on their computer following motivational speakers and expecting to close a deal as if it was easy without understanding the nuances of the securities landscape, the capital markets landscape and the investment banking landscape. And it gets them into trouble because they don’t understand the legal side of things. And by the time the first deals closed, honestly, many people give up after a year.
And so just managing your expectations by building something from people who were pretty young, looking at models of people who are pretty young and successful looking at how they built their businesses by building steady cash flow. Understand these models as well, because depending on the money from a deal closing and that being your only hope, that means that you can’t be too dependent on one thing ever. So that’s number two.
Number three is making sure that you remain analytical and non-attached because sometimes if you want to perform the best, you have to reduce the attachment you have to it. If you’re selling somebody something, you have to remember it that you need to detach from the outcome. If you’re raising capital for a deal and you have a big payday, you have to detach from the outcome. So you have to do all these things, detach from the outcome, look at all the things that can go wrong, make realistic pragmatic plans around things that can go wrong and make fixes against those things that could go wrong. So that you’re prepared because when things are in high stress, understand that. Understand too that sometimes people who act nice at some part in the deal may turn around and stab you in the back. Lawyers, sometimes last minutes of a deal they’ll increase their prices. Broker dealers can do this, they’ve done this to. Because no matter how grown and professional these people are, who are working on transactions, sometimes sadly people can act like children when it comes to them getting what they want and people getting what they want. And so just be really careful.
Remember all these things and understand that really the deal is not done until it’s done, just to recap, that’s number one. Number two make sure that you don’t depend only on… I guess that’s number three, don’t depend only on these transactions, consummating have other sources of revenue or depending other deals as well. And mainly be a problem solver, so the main point be a problem solver. Be cognizant of things that can go wrong before they go wrong, understand everyone’s motivational for trying to get you emotional. Be careful when you get drawn on emotion and people just drag you on saying, oh, this deal will close in this many months, keep working with me. This deal will close in this many months, keep working with me. And then you realize that you wasted a couple of years of your life. So just be really cognizant of people’s motivations for leading you on and just look at things analytically make sure that you have core competencies in the types of deals that you’re closing, that you understand the financials, you understand the cause effect relationships. You’re not just a broker that doesn’t know anything about it, like PPE or BTC, OTC and all these nonsense. But make sure that you work with people who have in depth industry experience with the sector. And that’s a really good sign.
Look at people’s track record. If somebody was working at Morgan Stanley as the head of trading, for example, that doesn’t mean they’ve done investment banking. So understand that just the company name doesn’t really mean enough if it’s not relevant to what the person’s actually doing. But if somebody’s like, oh, they worked at Chase or whatever, they worked at Morgan Stanley, but then they’re head of investment banking and they actually close deals. Then you want to model and then look at the cause effect relationships behind why people close deals. And if you understand these cause effect relationships, then you’re not depending on emotion and people hiding behind Microsoft Outlook emails being forwarded and engagement letters being forwarded with you having no idea of what’s going on. So do these things.
And with that, you should be a detached unemotional person that is analytical, looks at problems, solves them before they happen, works on looking at the cause effect relationships behind why deals fail and why deals don’t, making sure that all parties are at a table as long as possible, make sure that deal moves as quickly as possible. And if you do that and you do your parts, then you’re playing of power. But if you follow your emotions and then you get all woozy and stuff like that this isn’t for the faint of hearts. This for people that know when to go in and know when to step out and detach. And so with this, thank you for watching this video. If you curious about what exactly raises.com does and how raises.com helps people raise 10 million plus. Head to raises.com and will make it happen. So with this, thank you for watching this video and we’ll see you in the next one.