Understanding business owner key to striking deal

Communication in the family business; be careful before getting into business commitments “You know Winston, when Franklin [Roosevelt] says ‘yes, yes, yes,’ it doesn’t mean he agrees with you. It means he’s listening.”

Eleanor Roosevelt to Winston Churchill during World War II

“Do not wash this car now. There’s a lot of dust where I’m going.” These were my words as I locked my car outside the T Tot Hotel in Machakos town.

The “parking attendant” nodded as I repeated the instructions for good measure. With my mouth watering, I went into the restaurant to enjoy a delicious meal.

An hour later, I emerged to find the same gentlemen waiting expectantly. Granted, the car had been washed (to what degree I could not ascertain since it was quite dark).

He now wanted (actually demanded) to be compensated. When I attempted to give him a small tip, he went ahead to recount the inconvenience to which he had gone to clean my car, including the two buckets of water he bought for this purpose.

My reminder that I had explicitly told him not to wash the car fell on deaf ears. “I have worked very hard, add something,” he said. The discussion went on until I left him standing in the parking lot glaring at me menacingly.

I could tell that he felt betrayed and that he did not wish me well.

Like Franklin Roosevelt, many leaders of family businesses have been called a variety of names; shifty or deceptive while others have been referred to using more explicit unsavory terms.

Given that many family businesses do not operate with formal written contracts, the genesis of conflict may be a misunderstanding by a vendor about the level of commitment the leader has to a business opportunity.

They may, upon getting what they believe is approval from the leader of a family business, go ahead to supply goods / services only to be rebuffed when they present an invoice for their effort.

While a number of family business leaders are less than honest, a greater number are genuinely misunderstood by people who do business with them.

So, how then are you to deal with the leader of a family business with which you are about to make a deal? How do you make sure that you emerge unscathed after the transaction?

First, as my friend engineer Andrew “Andy” Wahome told me, ensure that you break up any proposal into small steps, each requiring a deliverable from both parties starting with the vendor.

When that is done, approach the leader with this proposal (which is, in itself, work done) and let them know what they are obligated to do for the process to move forward , for example, to make a deposit.