From $325,000 Debt to TOP M&A Deal Maker Attorney

Summary

In this conversation, Corey Kupfer shares his personal journey of overcoming a significant financial crisis during the Great Recession, where he found himself deeply in debt. He discusses the importance of clarity in negotiations, maintaining emotional equilibrium, and the CPR framework (Context, Purpose, Results) that guided him through tough negotiations with creditors. Corey emphasizes the need for self-reflection and understanding one's true desires to navigate challenging situations effectively. In this conversation, Jon Stoddard discusses the importance of taking ownership of one's experiences and responsibilities, emphasizing the law of attraction and the significance of maintaining a positive vibration. He shares insights on clarity and commitment in business, the necessity of hustling to regain success, and the power of authority marketing through content creation and podcasting. Stoddard highlights the shift from active networking to an attraction strategy, establishing authority in negotiation, and contrasting different negotiation styles for long-term success.

Takeaways

Corey faced a financial crisis during the Great Recession, ending up $325K in debt.
He emphasizes the importance of clarity in negotiations, both externally and internally.
Maintaining emotional equilibrium is crucial during tough negotiations.
Corey developed a commitment to return every creditor's phone call honestly.
He successfully paid back every dollar he owed over four years.
The CPR framework consists of Context, Purpose, and Results, which guides effective negotiation.
Understanding the 'why' behind a deal is essential for successful outcomes.
Self-reflection and inner work are vital for clarity in decision-making.
Corey's approach strengthened his relationships with creditors during his recovery.
He believes that being open and honest can lead to better negotiation outcomes. You have full control over your relationship to events.
The law of attraction is tied to your internal vibration.
Clarity and commitment are essential for progress.
Massive action is necessary to overcome challenges.
Starting from nothing requires hustle and determination.
Authority marketing can significantly enhance visibility.
Content creation helps maintain top-of-mind awareness.
Attraction strategies can replace traditional networking.
Establishing authority can lead to increased business opportunities.
Different negotiation styles can impact long-term relationships.

Watch the Interview

Transcript:

Jon Stoddard (00:00.258)
Well, welcome to Top &A Entrepreneurs. got Corey Kupfer here. Corey's got a book called Authentic Negotiating. And I got to read this part. It is, when the Great Recession hit, his revenue dropped 30K, 40K, 50K, and he ended up 325K in debt, not counting Lake House mortgages, and another 50K in the hole in terms of the value of the Lake House mortgage. And he worked himself back.

and we're gonna talk about that. Welcome Corey Kupfer from Authentic Negotiating. How you doing? I'm great, John. It's great to be with you and your audience. Yeah, so when I bought this book, we first, I didn't get the book yet and I read it and you got an intro from Mr. Warren Rustin, who lives in my town, who's all go to the same school we did and we know all the Rustins.

that's funny. That's funny. I didn't know that. Yeah. Amazing guy. Yeah. He's amazing guy. He's, got a big compound here over Tucson estates and bought it many, many, many years ago and built houses out there. So, yeah, welcome. So let's talk about this, how you worked yourself back from this negotiating, helping other people do negotiations and what that looked like. Yeah. You know, so

One of the things I say in the book, and when I talk to people about this is, I've been negotiating professionally for 25, 30 years at that point. And I had to handle some tough situations for other people and I negotiated very big deals for other people. And I negotiated some like house purchases, car purchase myself, but you really get tested when you're in a crucial situation that can affect your family on the verge of bankruptcy.

You know, we had, like you mentioned, revenue had gone down 30, 40, 50 grand a month. There were no deal, know, we're deal lawyers and corporate lawyers during the Great Recession, money dried up, there were no deals going on. My clients were going, know, there were a number of clients that going out of business or were in business, but couldn't afford to, you know, pay me what they owed me. New business was down. probably, like a lot of people during that time, didn't move as quickly as I could have to cut staff and things like that. So, you know, it was...

Jon Stoddard (02:20.558)
It was the ultimate test, right? It was significant, it affected me. And one of the things that I really talk about in the book and in the approach is to get clarity and not let your emotions impact your decision-making, right? To be able to stay in that place of CDE, which I can talk about in a moment. the real test came for me because it's easy to advise other people to do that when it's an emotional situation for them.

But what about when it's really, you know, significantly affecting you and your life and your family and where you're living or sleeping or, know, whether you can put money on the, you know, put on the table, not to mention pay your employees. Or if there's a negative in that bank account versus a positive, like a big positive. Yeah. You know, and I, credit is calling me every day and, you know, and, and, and I had a fundamental, the first thing is I had a fundamental decision to make, right? Cause many of my friends were saying, listen,

know, declare bankruptcy or short sale the house or, you know, at least half of the debts were corporate debt, you know, we weren't. So at least put the firm into bankruptcy, even if you don't do it personally. And I remember I went away to my lake house that was underwater financially and took a weekend and just stepped back from it. Cause I was so in the weeds, just reacting, you know? And I said to myself, okay,

like what is consistent with me? Cause I, you know, I preach a lot about doing the inner work and making sure that, you know, we're in alignment, right? With our inner truth and getting clarity on that. And, and, and I said, listen, I don't judge anybody else who's made the decision to declare bankruptcy or short sale a house or whatever, you know, cause I think that's best for their life and their family. have no judgment on that. It just didn't align for me. You know, these were, these were obligations that I made, whether it was through my company or personally. I'm a big believer in

honoring my word and I said, listen, I'm gonna figure out a way to pay every single one of these creditors back. But of course, when they're all calling you for money now, it takes significant negotiation to tell them, trust me, you will get your money eventually, but I only have X amount to pay. it was fractions of what they were looking for. Yeah, yeah. But.

Jon Stoddard (04:40.174)
I do have to tell you story that I kind of was in the same situation where my e-commerce business and it was entirely my fault because I wasn't paying attention. Google moved from desktop to mobile and there's 14 spots where you can bid on selling like PPC to four. My cost per click went up 4X and I just couldn't, my cost of acquisition went crazy.

I had to call my creditors. I had to call my manufacturers, my suppliers. Everybody's like, look, here's where I'm at. They came out, flew out and visited me and I told the story and they spent 48 hours with me just like, hey, here's how we get out of it. Yep. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing about it. So many people, and I was having this at the other side at that time, you know, when those kinds of tough situations come up, they avoid, they run, they hide, they're embarrassed, they're, you know, and that's the worst thing that you can do, right? Because.

You know, I made, you know, so I made a commitment and I could talk a little bit about the whole process I went through, you know, on my CD process and the CPR that I created. But the bottom line is I made a commitment that I was gonna return every credit or phone call. I was gonna be open and honest with them. I was gonna reiterate my commitment that they would get paid. I looked at where I was and I said, hey, this is the total I could pay every month. Like that's all I can do and still be able to, you know, eat, you know, and.

and live what became a more simple life. Did anybody question you? like, well, man, you're still living in a 10 bedroom house and three Porsches. And you go, no, that's the minimum I need, right? Yeah, well, mean, part of the thing was I wasn't living in a 10 bedroom house and had three Porsches. it wasn't, I mean, but listen, I did have this lake house, I explained to them that it was.

that I owed more on it than it was worth, it had dropped significantly. I was trying to sell it. And one of the biggest things I did is not just talk to them, is even the ones who were claiming they wouldn't accept, they was somebody who wanted, I remember $18,000 the next day and I said, I'll pay you 50 bucks a month. I feel like they're gonna get their 18 grand back, but I'll up it as I can. So they were like, that's not acceptable. I started sending them the $50 a month, the action to show that I was backing up my words.

Jon Stoddard (07:04.59)
And listen, there were many other people who were running from them at that time and they're gonna focus on those folks and at least they get money from comfort, right? So, and it worked out. ended up, mean, to jump to the end of the story, I ended up paying back every dollar I owed. It took me four years to do it. And I was able to do that and come back and putting actually money in my retirement account. And we came back stronger than ever and thank God now, whatever it is, 12 years later.

You know, since 2009, 10 when it really hit me, you know, 13 years later, you know, we're, you know, way beyond where we were back then. And the biggest thing is that I kept my reputation. I kept my relationships. In fact, they even strengthened those because of the way that I chose to handle it versus the way some other people chose to handle it. And again, I'm not judging others. I'm just saying this is what was right for me. So what was this plan? Tell us about this, the CD is like,

Here's where we're at and here's where we can do, can't do, here's where we're gonna go and we're making adjustments on the way if it doesn't work out, right? Yeah. Yeah, so the first thing I did was I did what I trained my clients to do is I focused on my fundamental framework which I talk about in the Authentic Deo Shading book which is CDE and the C stands for clarity.

And the first thing in any negotiation, whether it's a tough situation like that, whether it's a multimillion dollar deal, whether it's whatever, you name the negotiation. The first body of work, and it's amazing how often people skip on this, even people doing big deals, is getting clarity. And there's two pieces of clarity. One piece is getting the external, doing the research, right? What is the market? What is the people on the other side of the deal? What are they interested in?

What what evaluations, you know, if it's it's an &A deal, for example. But then what people really scump on is the internal body work. Like, what is it that I really want? What, like, you know, I talked a little bit about in that situation about looking at, okay, I have a number of options. What is in alignment for me at a very deep personal internal level? And for me, it was to pay things back, not to declare bankruptcy, not to short sell the house. Getting that clarity.

Jon Stoddard (09:22.273)
put me on a particular path that would have been very different if the clarity came up that I should just file bankruptcy, right? I would have gone to a bankruptcy lawyer and I would have done that. So getting that clarity is the first piece. And you can't design an effective negotiating strategy. I say this to my clients all the time, unless we're really clear on what are our objectives, right? What's acceptable, what's not acceptable? What are you willing to do in a given situation? And that takes, listen, it's easy, especially, you know, I work with lot of entrepreneurs and business owners that busy, it's easy.

to skip on that. But if it's an important negotiation, digging down deep and getting that level of authority is the first crucial step. Yeah, I ask you about that because of clarity, a lot of my audience is buying businesses, acquiring business, acquisition, entrepreneurs. So finding out what the guy on the other side or girl on the other, lady on the other side wants. Do they want to leave a legacy? They want to take care of their family? Do they want to take care of their partners, suppliers, employees?

What is that? Yeah. It's a giant. It's so crucial. mean, listen, I've, I've worked on multimillion dollar and A deals that, that, not, you know, that I've, I've, I'm one in particular, I'm actually two like this, but I remember one in particular where everything seemed great to sell. wanted to sell a buyer. I wanted to buy the great on price and terms and all this kind of stuff or whatever. And then for some, you know, due and due diligence, everything was going smoothly until some, at some point, the deal started going sideways and it wasn't logical. It was the, it was the seller was getting

cold feet, right? And that happens sometimes, right? It was his baby, he had built this up over years, logically it made sense for him to sell, he was starting to have some health issues, he wanted to spend more time traveling and all that kind of stuff, but when push came to shove, he just started getting contracted, he didn't wanna give up his baby. And by going through a process to try to really, really, really figure out in that what was important to him, the bottom line is that by figuring that out,

and leaving an office for him in the company space that he can come to at any time, right? And giving him a title of chairman emeritus, that's what saved the deal. Who came up with the idea? What kind of questions did you ask? Like, what do you want? I somebody's not gonna say, well, I just want a fake office, fake title. How do you ask that? Yeah, I mean, it really was so that there was...

Jon Stoddard (11:48.183)
Two phases, mean, one, as the attorney for the buyer, I try to get some of that information from the attorney for the seller. Like, hey, listen, you know your client better than I do. What's really important to him? What does he want? What's coming up for him? And this person didn't say he wants an office or whatever, he said to me, he's having trouble just letting go. This was his baby, his company, just to be totally out of it.

really the truth is he doesn't, said, does he want like a job? Well, no, not really. He just wants to not have it be totally cut off, right? You so I got that kind of information. And then, you know, I spoke to my client and then we were on an all parties call and, and I had, know, I recommended to my client cause I had a sense, you know, we'd fill it out. I recommended to my client to say, you know, Joe making up a name, you know, I've been thinking about it a lot.

And I've been thinking about the fact that you have such historic knowledge of the company and that's so valuable to us. And I'd love not to, and it's your legacy and we're gonna, first of all, to emphasize that they're gonna bring it to the next level and not gonna destroy it, right? So psychologically he felt he wasn't. And then also, they said, listen, I'd like you to, no obligation.

you know, cause I know you want to move on, but, but I'd love to have you be able to be around, you know, because maybe I'll some questions for you or things like that. you know, we were thinking that, you know, maybe we'd, you know, we'd say, Hey, why don't like, I would feel weird to me for me to be in your office. You know, I'm going to take this other office. Why don't we leave that office for you? And, know, maybe I can call upon you from time to time, you know, and, the guy just lit up, right. He just lit up, you know, and, and, and then she said, you know, I was, my client was a woman. She said,

And listen, if you're interested, why don't we, I'd love you to be chairman of emeritus. And I mean, it shifted everything. And it was all just from, a lot of times they won't tell you what they want, but they will, you can get to the pain point. Like what is it that, so the knowledge that he was having trouble letting go and then he was a little afraid about the legacy. But at the same time, you really didn't want to work. That's what shaped the recommendation I gave.

Jon Stoddard (14:12.985)
That's interesting. I actually had that scenario, not with a business, but with a family friend who owned a bottling company and he just didn't want to leave it. He was like 81 years old. So they gave him an office. He'd drive in. He shouldn't have been driving. And when he got there, he was pretty cantankerous because he was just having onset signs of age. And it's just like, hey, man, you just can't drive anymore. So how did you

You're in this hole. What was like, like, like I got to get this next deal and this kind of helped me, you know, put a solid foot on the first negotiation or deal that I helped with and the next one and the next one and how you finally figured out, man, I'm out of it. I got a clear path. Yeah. So, so, you know, I went through that process. I got my clarity, the devious detachment, right? To stay, you know, detached to the outcome. Like, you know, I'm going to put this out there and, you know, but

And then, know, and the big thing, the E is maintain your equilibrium, right? It's so easy to get thrown off in a negotiation, especially you got a creditor yelling at you, you know, or in an &A deal, the other side of the table, they say your company's not worth half of what you're asking or whatever it is that could trigger you, right? Certainly, you know, creditors telling me they're gonna put a lien on my assets or, know, sue me at the bankruptcy or whatever they say. You know, it's easy to get triggered, but the comma you can say the equilibrium. So clarity, detachment, equilibrium.

And then, I talked about it in the book, did this tool that I train people to do, which is called content, purpose and results. So a lot of people, the results are the objectives, right? So I got clear on my results on that. said, hey, I'm gonna pay back all the debt. I'm going to, this is how much I can pay per month. I'm gonna divide it up by the creditors in relative proportion to what I owe them, right? So there's a logic to it. I can tell them, hey, I owe you,

8 % of my total debts, you're gonna get 8 % of what I can afford to pay, right? So I got clear on all these results, all these objectives, all these things that I was gonna do in terms of how I was gonna structure the deal and how, and part of it was staying in the communication with them and being honest and open and all this kind of stuff. And also I had results around being able to continue my business and pay the employees I still needed, right? Because if I wasn't in business, I wouldn't be able to pay anything back. So I get all the results clear.

Jon Stoddard (16:37.101)
but then you've got to get to a purpose. And this is the why for me. And even in an &A deal, for example, you know, it's very unusual. lawyers, first of all, I get involved much earlier in the process than a lot of lawyers because, know, a lot of lawyers just document deals and frankly, a lot of business folks, investment bankers and others often try to keep lawyers out of the process till later because unfortunately too many of my colleagues can be deal killers. But...

because I operate very differently, I get involved much, much earlier. So when people come to me and they're thinking about doing a deal, they have an LOI on the table or it's even before an LOI and they're just looking to tie the buy or prepare themselves to sell, my first question to them is always why, which is an unusual question for a lawyer, right? But I need to know the why behind why you're doing this deal to be able to...

advise you, right? To be able to, you know, because it's different, right? If you're, you mentioned before, if your purpose is, you know, to preserve your legacy, or you want to make sure your employees are taken care of, or you want to maximize value no matter what, or whatever, you know, these are all different things. So similarly, in my personal case, I needed to get down to, you know, my purpose that was underlying the results that, you know, that I wanted, right? And for me, it was all around honoring my word, right? Meaning paying everybody back, being able to take care of my family and my employees.

And that's what drove me, right? So any deal that I was gonna negotiate, I knew I had to go to petty employees. wanted to obviously need to provide my family and it needed to include me honoring my word 100%, which means paying back every penny. So I did that. And then I talk about context, CPR, the C is context. This is the area where most of us skimp, right? And this is true even in business deals.

there's a being conversation. I was just talking to somebody about this. We had a body language expert present at one of my entrepreneurial organization events. I was in Annapolis and they talk all about reading body language and things like that. And I think it's useful to be able to read other people's body language. I talk about the fact that the energy you come in with, like if you're at a place of desperation or scarcity or fear or ego or upset or whatever, that's gonna come across, right? No matter what you do. Yeah, you can read that. You can read that.

Jon Stoddard (18:55.789)
Exactly, any good negotiator is gonna be able to read it. Even just people see, you know, you're in a discussion or a negotiation, any situation with somebody and you just get this gut feeling that something is, know, like, you know, we know, right? know, so- It's like a deal. It feels like, my God, this deal's dead because of something's going on. you can- Yeah, something's off, something's wrong, something's whatever. So the context in the CPR process that I talked about in the book, let's do chapter two the book, we're all about this.

is really who do need to be, right? How do you need to come into the negotiation such that you don't come in with that energy of scarcity or fear or desperation or even over-bloated ego. And so, I give an example of a deal for a client and I give an example of my CPR in the last two chapters of the book, but.

I did that work. I did that work to create the context, to get clear on my purpose and get the results. And I believe that's a big part of what got it out for me because, also, so there's the other key thing. It totally shifted. mean, before I had done the work that I tell everybody else to do, I was in reaction mode, right? I was just dealing with the credit phone calls coming in, trying to figure out how I'm gonna make payroll the next week. It was just, and-

I was so far from being in any kind of clear space to be able to design a strategy. And it was only when I went away that weekend and just stepped back from it and then did this work, did this process that I was like, okay, I'm really clear on the results. I got it. I got my context, I got my purpose, right? And then now I just have to go and execute. And I'm not underestimating the, you know, the journey of executing it, but at least at every point, my decision-making process is clear because I'm really clear upon

what I'm trying to achieve and what my purpose here is and exactly the results I want to achieve. And that's what helped me get out of it. And it's the same thing that helps me negotiate clients out of tough situations and or having them get good deals done. Yeah. So what kind of questions did you ask yourself to center yourself when you went away? mean, you mentioned some people that you follow. Bob Proctor, definitely listen to his videos. Wallace Waddles.

Jon Stoddard (21:14.765)
is not mentioned very often, but I have his book. It's a great book. Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer, he's great, and Jack Canfield. So all of those people. I feel fortunate in that even up until that time coming into the 2008, nine and 10 recession, I had done a lot of work on myself. had done a lot of, Bob Proctor's definitely a big mentor of mine, obviously he's passed recently. But just the one,

the conversation of owning my own experience, taking responsibility for my own actions, doing the, you I believe that fundamentally the world is manifest from within. not that you can, know, things happen, but like Stephen Covey, you know, says, and others have said, think, you know, you are 100 % control of your relationship to what happens. You don't have 100 % control over what happens, but you have 100 % control of your relationship to what happens. So yeah, I mean, when I was up, you know, that weekend,

at the Lake House doing this visioning work. And subsequent to that, I was definitely calling upon all of these things that I believe in, including, and I know that it's been much maligned because it's often oversimplified, the conversation is the law of attraction. But I love the way Bob Proctor always put it, is that the law of attraction is based upon the law of vibration. In other words, the vibration you're in, and this relates to the conversation that I bring up in terms of context, the being conversation of

affects what happens in the outside world. And it does because people sense that being and also because it shifts you internally. So for me, when I got reconnected to who I needed to be to work myself out of this, right? Somebody who's honorable and honest at work, somebody who keeps in communication with people, somebody who takes care of their family and their employees, right? All of that stuff, right? Those are all commitments at a very deep being level like.

at the level of my character, on who I am at a very deep level. Once I got clear on all that, that's what allowed me to move forward. And then I'm coming in with not only a clarity, but a certain beingness, a certain vibration, so to speak, that I'm interacting with people about. And they see that, the creditors see that clarity and they see that commitment, which is very different from dealing with somebody who's avoiding them and they're trying to chase them down. They're like, well, this guy, wait, he...

Jon Stoddard (23:40.513)
We don't like what he's proposing to us, but he sounds credible. He's not avoiding us. He's actually, anytime he said it, what he's going send us, he sent it to us. Like, you know, we got other people to chase, you know, let's, this guy seems like, you know, it's like sign this guy off and say, Hey, we, we, we can count on this commitment. Let's go get the guys that are not. Right. Exactly. And listen, you know, we may not be happy about the 50 bucks a month, but at least we met it is.

There's a hundred other folks that are sending us nothing, right? You know, so. And when that vibration, that's part of, I'd say, you know, you're the new Corey, the new law firm and the new way to get business and you're putting yourself out there. What were you doing to put yourself out there to get new deals, new contracts, clients? Like, you know, you have what Tony Robbins talks about. You've got to take massive action to get out of a hole. Yeah. What was that vibration?

Well, there's a few things that I did is that, I just sort of went back to, so let me start out this way. When I left big firm practice, when I was 30 years old, I had no clients. When I started my firm, I started from nothing, right? And I was actually paying my rent on credit cards. I was doing everything you weren't supposed to do to start up my firm, okay? And so, you I hustled, right? I mean, I really hustled. I was at our networking event. I was out back then, right?

And what happens over time is that when things are going well and is that you don't hustle as much often, right? And part of it is because you don't need to write the businesses coming or whatever. So part of what I did was just sort of draw back on what it took to build my firm for nothing and get back out hustling much more than I did. The other thing I did at that time, although in a long-term it was, didn't,

work out in terms of I made a different decision five years later, but I also had an opportunity at that time when somebody asked me whether I wanted to merge my firm with theirs because there were a bunch of synergies in a particular area. And I made that decision to do that, which was helpful at least in the first few years because the synergies did pay off. There were other reasons that business partnership didn't work out and I ended up basically unmerging and taking my team back out in five years.

Jon Stoddard (26:05.217)
But for the first couple of years, especially that was helpful because there was an opportunity to sort of fish in a stock pond. My ex-partner had clients in a particular area where he did compliance for them and I could do the corporate work. So that was helpful. So, know, I looked at opportunities where, you know, they were revenue generating opportunities. That was one of them. So yeah, I think it was a combination of that and a lot of, get back to hustling a lot more than I'm accustomed to.

So what's working for you today that brings in, you know, they find you Corey as the, we need to bring this guy as the negotiator, help us negotiate the best price possible. Yeah. So he is the big difference of what I've done over the last six, seven years, you know, that I hadn't been doing before. One of the things, you know, I had fortunately built, you know, even with that huge bump in the road, you know, the few years after that came back up, you know, I built a

pretty successful law firm and doing some of the negotiating training and that kind of stuff and doing deals with folks. And I did it the classic way, right? Networking, building relationships, doing great work with people, getting the first from clients and other senses of influence. But one of the things that always frustrated me was how to stay top of mind, right? When you're smaller and you have a lot fewer relationships and clients, okay, good. And when you're back at the time when people actually saw each other in person,

go out to lunch and play golf and do these, you know, all the traditional sort of kind of things. But as you grow, it becomes tougher and tougher to do that, you know, with all of your clients. And then, you know, they used to have these horrible snail mail newsletters that like some companies were produced for lawyers to try to, you know, and the content was terrible. I never did it. And, you know, and then even when the internet came in, in the beginning, I didn't really take advantage of it. You know, I had a LinkedIn account that was just a bunch of connections. So I had no idea what to do with them.

personal Facebook account and. Yeah, you're like, just click, click, click all your accept your connection. But like, why am I connected with you? What like, you know, he does LinkedIn, like what I'm okay, I'm not looking for a job. So that was a clear functionality. Otherwise, I got a bunch of people I'm connected with, we all have profiles and whatever. And nothing's really happening. But what what happened was subsequently is that, you I really looked at that. And then I started sort of study, you know, hear about it, seeing and studying what has become known.

Jon Stoddard (28:28.781)
as the authority marketing approach. And I said, okay, writing the book was part of that. mean, a lot of that was driven basically by a number of people, a bunch of people, including my wife saying, hey, you have a very unique, successful approach to negotiating. My wife literally said to me, you don't want this to die.

with you. like, do you have any plans that I don't know about? You know, like, I think I got a while to go. But, any case, know, but she meant, you know, get it out there. Right. So, so, you know, I was driven to write the book for that purpose and to really serve folks. But also I study models when I do stuff. And, and, and when I studied the book publishing model, I, I realized, I found out that something like, you know, 80 plus percent of the books sell under 300 copies. Yeah. I belong realize that.

And, you know, and that you're not gonna get rich, you know, unless you're a, you know, a celebrity or big politician or whatever, know, you're not gonna get rich off of publishing a book. So what's the model? So I started studying the authority marketing, you know, model and, you know, using it to establish credibility and to create this draw, this incoming. And same thing on my podcast, you know, the Dookbust podcast, right? So what's happened really interestingly over time over the last, you know, we started doing more on social media

in anticipation of the book coming out. And then I had a book PR company and then I had a marketing team that does all, helps me with my social and the content and the podcast and all that kind of stuff. And the whole approach was, yes, to keep me top of mind, to establish me as an authority, as an expert, as somebody who knows something in these areas, which was true before, but it's true for many, right? Attorneys are negotiating trainers or whatever, right?

a lot, you know, there are people who know this stuff out there, but how do you distinguish yourself from other people? So we started putting out a lot of content. You know, we did the thing with the book became an Amazon bestseller. The podcast is now, you know, ListenNotes has this top one and a half percent out of 2.8 million podcasts in the world. many downloads you have? So we were where so this is the interesting part, right? I watched this niche podcast. I figured if I get 50 people who listen to an episode, it's good because all I need is one or two of them, right?

Jon Stoddard (30:48.141)
Yeah. You know, to do a deal and it's tens of thousands of dollars to me. So, and in the beginning, that's what it was, you know, it was, was the first year we were getting 50, 65 people, 85 people, whatever, you know, now we're, up to, we're approaching. So, and so now we're pushing like 6,000 downloads a month. what you get is not millions, right? You know, but it's not a general podcast. It's a niche podcast on deals. It's better than zero. And it's like, it opens so many doors. can't, you can't understand until you get there.

Well, that's right. And here's the other thing about it. It's not just the downloads because we do, and it was mainly my team, frankly, do such a good job at repurposing that content into medium posts, into blog posts, into social posts, into all these other things that you'll listen to those measures reach, not just downloads, right? Because you know what you want, right? So we've gotten to the point where again, mean, one top one, I couldn't.

mean, imagine top one and a half percent of two by nine million podcasts, this little deals podcast I started. and he is, here's the more important thing from the authority marketing point of view. And for me, it's a lot of it's about impact at this point. So I love that we're impacting more people, but almost to a person, anybody who I haven't spoken to in a little while, right? When I get on the phone with them, they'll say to me, I read that LinkedIn thing you put out, or I listened to your podcast last week or.

Hey, you know, I picked up the books, you know, been out four years now, so a little less of that. you know, but for a while it was, hey, you know, I read your book, you know. And what I know is that we've grown very significantly over the last five, six years. mean, significantly. I'm talking about, you know, like a slow growth year has been 20, 25%. There have been years where it's way more than that, right? I mean, we're on pace to be up 50 or 60 % this year. So now can I correlate 100 % that growth?

to all the stuff we're doing, only a small portion of it can I definitely say, yeah, that referral came from you. It's hard to measure top of mind, but I don't feel like I need to measure it. I know the kind of growth we've had, I know that's the biggest change that we've made in what we do. Yeah, I mean, the exercise is if you had a pyramid and it goes like, well, do I still need to keep doing that? I don't know, right? But if I did it, if you stopped doing the podcast, you would know.

Jon Stoddard (33:08.909)
yeah, yeah, yeah, no question. And here's the thing about it that's great for me. It's like, I love doing the podcast, because I love talking about deals. That's what, you know, it's my passion. love having, you you were a guy who I love having amazing guests on the podcast and we have great conversations and we provide value. So frankly, even if it didn't produce a piece of business, I love doing it anyway, right? that's a Yeah, I say the same thing. I mean, I get to talk to people that have purchased five, 10, 20,

know, numbers of businesses and how they did it, how they financed it, how they negotiated the clothes and et cetera. I love doing it. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a no-lose situation for me. And then on top of it, it's very clear that it's keeping me top of mind. And there is hundreds of thousands of dollars in business I can specifically trace to referrals from guests to listeners to, whatever, in addition. And then, you know, there's way beyond that that I know is coming because

So really what that creates going back to your initial premise is that we get a lot of incoming, right? It's an attraction strategy. It's not like in the beginning of my practice and then again, after the Great Recession, I did a lot of networking out there hustling and whatever, and it's a very active outgoing strategy. I don't really do any of that anymore, right? Because this has people come to me and it also

Even when I get, listen, a lot of my business still comes from referrals, but what people don't, sometimes this counts as the fact that even if you get a good referral, sometimes, know, an investment banker, for example, is gonna give three names, right, of three attorneys, because they don't wanna just give one name, right? They wanna give the client a choice and they wanna seem independent. So they're gonna Google you, they're gonna look you up. They're gonna see, you know, okay, who is this guy cut for, who's cut for law firm, know, cut for law, you know, all this stuff, right?

So when they see that, you wow, he's got a book out on the gosh. No, he's got a book out. He's got a podcast out. He's got a very active LinkedIn page and et cetera. Yeah. It makes a big difference. get, you get bumped up, you know, on the, I, I, don't know if you know this, but I have a little course, a deal flow system.net that I talk about all of this to do. said, even if this is your first deal, you need to be a celebrity authority in your market. What you're trying to do.

Jon Stoddard (35:30.573)
Because if somebody is going to look like, should I sell my business to you? If you don't have any LinkedIn page and it's blank, they're not going to sell your business. If you have a LinkedIn page, if you have a podcast, if you're doing this, it goes like, hey, he's a serious player. That's right. That's right. And listen, we've proven that out. And listen, it took me a little bit. mean, I'm not a shy guy, but still I remember back in the day, I had some friends who were way more active and I was like, you

What am I going to do videos on? am going to And of course you had all kinds of people doing stuff like showing their food and all, know, crazy like bad, I'm like, so one of the things you gotta really think about, and I don't really think about it. It's okay. What is it that I want to put out there? Right? You know, I didn't randomly pick doing a deals podcast. I'm like, okay. What is my brand? Who am I? What am I passionate about? What kind of clients do I want to attract? What kind of value do I want to provide?

okay, you know, I love doing deals, right? I love negotiating. I love doing &A deal. And not only &A, we talk about all kinds of deals, know, joint venture strategic alliances, licensing deals, real estate investment, any kind of non-organic growth, not sales. We don't do any sales stuff because that's what my passion is about. That's what I have where I think I could add value to folks. And that's where I have some connections. And of course, you know, as time goes on now, we get so many incoming requests. You want to talk about attraction.

for guests on the podcast. In the beginning, I was reaching out to my clients and friends and whatever, hey, would you be on this thing? Now it's like this, just this flow from all the podcast. All that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, same with me at this point now. I mean, I don't need to spend money to help me find podcast guests. mean, if I go, if I read about something on a press release and hey, would you like to be on my podcast? It's usually a yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Do you interview John Bly? I see that he wrote something on it. interviewed him twice because John and I have known each other for years from from entrepreneurs organization. I interviewed John very early on. He's one of those friends I called to say, I got this new podcast. you be honest? He's like, sure. And the first and that was we actually had different branding back in the very first year for the podcast. He was on that early. And he talked about like the 14 acquisitions he had done.

Jon Stoddard (37:49.761)
from day one, you know, to build his business. But then I had him back on a few months back when he sold, after he sold, emerged in with Appio to say, hey, okay, you were the acquirer, now you made a decision to sell, let's talk about that. So yeah, I've had him on a couple of times. Yeah, he was on my podcast. Jeez, I had him on my first, he was number five for me. wow, okay.

Now you have me curious. I got to look back because he was pretty early for me too. you know, well, I mean, I only started this about a year ago and I saw his book. had his book for a long time and I go, I got to get him on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's a great guy. He's, know, we got to know each other because we both active in entrepreneurial organization. I was president of the chapter. He eventually ended up being on the global board.

you know, for a number of years, great guy, you know, Yeah, and he talks about the accountant side of business, the numbers side of it. And he goes, it's not so important to have that numbers going, yeah. Yep. That's sweet. All right. You talked about one last, this subject, you talked about two really high profile negotiating styles, the one with the legal equilibrium and the other guy, the bully, right? And finding that style and how to deal with those two styles. I love it.

Yeah, so it's interesting, yeah. in the beginning of the book, I talk about a mentor of mine who, and it's interesting because he was a mentor by watching his actions. He wasn't the kind of guy who sat you down and said, you know, let me train you to do this, right? Yeah, He threw you into things. But watching him, and I talk about, you know, this is when I was a law student, actually, and I was working at a law firm over a summer. If you're fortunate enough that you get a summer job before they you permanently. In any case,

and we're negotiating a $150 million leverage buyout, which back in the eighties was not that it's not a big deal now, but it was a really big deal. That's on the low end of private equity firms and stuff like that. Yeah, now, yeah, exactly. So any case, and I just talk about, I won't go into super detail, but I talk about what I was amazed at is everybody else was flipping out in the room, right? This was a leverage buyout, the management team had.

Jon Stoddard (40:04.501)
mortgaged everything they had just to pay the expenses on the deal. And the deal was falling apart. And they were like, there was only half joking that they were glad the windows didn't open on the 32nd floor of the building in Manhattan because these guys were looking like they were gonna jump out. And the other, even the other lawyers were yelling at each other, whatever. And the only guy come to the room was this, this, you know, this guy, this partner at my law firm. And I was just, you know, I'm a young kid. I'm trying to just absorb everything, right? And I was just looking at them and I'm thinking to myself, so how does this guy,

you know, how does guy stay calm, right? You know, this is part of where I got this concept of the equilibrium from eventually, you know, in my format was, you know, was studying him. And I remember it was like two in the morning, the day before the deal was supposed to close, everybody else left, thought it was dead. And as, know, I walk out with him, puts his arm around me, says, don't worry kid, this deal will close. I know, that's a... And I'm like, looking at him, like, what are you talking about? Like, how can...

You know, this is disaster right now. Everybody else thinks it's dead. And of course he was right. know, the deal closed. He had, you know, put things together overnight between folks and whatever. And, you know, he had this way that he was just, you know, he saw the path, right? So I studied, you know, I studied him and then some, a few years later I left that law firm, went to another law firm. And this is what John was talking about. And the guy over, was a guy over there, a partner who had a reputation of being a great negotiator.

I, in hindsight, I don't actually think he was because he was a bang the table, tough guy, you know, kind of guy, right? So, you know, when, when he had leverage, maybe he was able to get what he wanted for the client. But even that only works in the short term, right? Cause here's the thing, if, if you, whether any kind of deal, right? If you crush somebody, then it's going to come back and hurt you somehow, right? Because usually there's sort of ongoing relationship in a deal.

And if there is that person's always gonna, if they feel like they've been screwed, they're always gonna look for ways to get it back. And even if there's not an ongoing relationship, you do, it's a small world out there, small community. So maybe you get away with it once, twice, three times, but eventually you get a reputation, right? And then who's gonna want to deal with you. So, and then the other problem is when you're a tough night negotiator is what happens when you don't have leverage? See the stuff that I teach in the authentic negotiating book will improve your chances of being a bit, you know, getting a better result.

Jon Stoddard (42:29.389)
whether you have leverage or know, any way you are on the leverage spectrum, right? Tough guy negotiators, you know, if you're representing the party that doesn't have leverage, you know, especially if they have any kind of good negotiating help on the other side or, know, they can all get you like, great, so you bang the table. We don't care. You know, we don't need to deal with you, we'll go. So it's, know, yeah, so I contrast those two styles that helped me, you know, develop my style and pick out, wow, that really works like really in the longterm.

not just, you all great, you force somebody into something, but that's, you know, that's not the way to do it. Yeah. Love it. Clarity, detachment, equilibrium. Corey Kupfer, great book. I jump on Amazon. I am not an affiliate, so, but just get it. Authentic negotiating. All right. Corey, thank you so much for the time today. John, great to be on the podcast with you. All right, man. Take care.