Part 1
The Discipline of
Problem Solving
Thereâs Always a No 1
Tell him to live by yes and noâ
yes to everything good, no to everything bad.
William James
Turn no into yes. Sounds too good to be true, doesnât it? I bet it reminds you of a pitch made by a former game show host during one of those Saturday morning infomercials. But believe me, this is no empty promise; itâs real. You can turn a loan rejection into an acceptance, and a raise rebuff into an income increase. You can conquer your fear of starting your own business or shifting careers. You can solve every single one of your business or financial problemsâand almost all your nonmoney problems tooâusing a simple checklist. And you can trust me. Iâm not a former game show host; Iâm a financial and legal consultant who spends his time helping people like you solve all their money problems and turn the nos in their lives into yes.
I believe a problem is anything that keeps you from being successful or that could keep you from being successful. Iâm not looking to evaluate your problems or psyche any more than I judge my clientsâ problems or psyches. It doesnât matter to me whether they are real or imagined, or whether they are caused by you or someone else; they are still problems. I simply look at them as extant or expectant problems, equally worthy of treatment.
The checklist Iâll be outlining in this book really does work with all business and financial problems. (It also works with most, though not all, personal problems.) Thatâs because all those problems are fundamentally the same. Donât get me wrong: every single problem that every individual person has is, in some ways, unique. After all, every person and situation is unique; your career or business is different from everyone elseâs; your perceptions are different from everyone elseâs. But underlying the unique specifics of your business or financial problem is a sameness: thereâs always a no.
I believe every business and financial problem has, at its core, some form of no. It could be an outright rejection: âWe wonât loan you the money.â It could be a stall: âIâd love to give you the raise but the company just doesnât have the money.â It could be a rationalization: âYouâre more valuable to the company where you are right now.â It could be a set of outrageous conditions tacked on to a maybe: âIâd be happy to loan you the start-up funds if you give me thirty percent interest and pay it back in two months.â It could even be a selfâgenerated roadblock: âIâm afraid to give up my job and start my own business.â In effect, no is any roadblock or obstacle blocking you from getting what you want. Turning no into yes is the process of overcoming or hurdling lifeâs roadblocks and obstacles.
Whatever kind of no youâre facing, the very fact that itâs there also means thereâs a possible yes: âYouâve qualified for the loan"; âWeâre giving you a ten percent raise"; âWeâre promoting you to district managerâ; âIâll loan you the seed capital for three years at two points above primeâ; or âI can succeed in business on my own!â In other words, I believe thereâs a solution (a yes) to every business or financial problem (the no). Thereâs a way to overcome every one of lifeâs hurdles.
NOS, OBVIOUS AND HIDDEN
Sometimes, the no inside a problem is conspicuous, as in the case of Mitchell and Beth Lewis.* They saw me as their last hope. Mitchell, thirty-two, had spent ten years managing a liquor store owned by his family. After the store had been sold, he stayed on at the suburban New York store, managing it for the new owners. Beth was a stayâatâhome mom, who took care of their two children, Marcia, age six, and Nick, age three. Mitchell and Beth had been looking to buy a home for more than six months. They had finally found the house of their dreams, a Cape Cod that was close to Mitchellâs store as well as being in one of the areaâs finer school districts. They and the sellers had agreed on a price and had signed a contract. But their hopes were dashed when they were rejected for a mortgage ⌠twice. In desperation they came to me because theyâd heard I could help people turn a no into a yes. Within two weeks we were able to do just that. We uncovered that Mitchell and Beth were rejected because they didnât show sufficient income on their tax returns for the size mortgage they were seeking. We, however, knew they could afford it. Mitchell and Beth turned a noâmortgage rejectionâinto a yesâmortgage acceptanceâby explaining to the banker that they received a regular annual gift from Mitchellâs mother of $10,000. Including that as income in their application allowed them to fit the bankâs lending ratios.
The no was painfully obvious for Kenny Donovan, since it came directly from the mouth of his boss. Kenny, a forty-two-year-old managing editor of a well-known entertainment magazine, hadnât gotten a raise in three years. Like clockwork, every April he would go in to ask his boss, the magazineâs publisher, for an increase. And also like clockwork, heâd come out of the office with a rejection. He came to see me on the advice of his brother-in-law, a client of mine who worked as an editor for a different magazine in the same company; him Iâd helped land a raise. After doing some digging we discovered Kennyâs publisher simply didnât value the kind of administrative work Kenny was doing, since he didnât see it as contributing to the bottom line. We developed a memo outlining how Kennyâs efforts had, in fact, saved tens of thousands of dollars in the past two years. The memo also proposed new administrative efforts that could cut a significant amount of time from the production process, giving the magazine the chance to sell more ads and make even more money. By reframing his raise request in a manner his boss could readily understand, and refocusing it so it pushed his bossâs âhot button,â Kenny was able to turn a noâraise refusalâinto a yesâten percent salary increase.
Sometimes, however, the no isnât as apparent as it was with the Lewis familyâs mortgage rejection or with Kenny Donovanâs failed raise request. Perhaps the no is hidden because it comes from inside another party. Thatâs what happened when Grant Turcotte approached his uncle for a business loan.
Grant, twenty-eight, started an Internet consulting firm right after graduating from Cornell Universityâs School of Engineering. Actually, he started it while still a student, by convincing his academic advisor to count his initial business efforts as an independent study project. Impressed with Grantâs ideas, skill, and immediate success, two entrepreneurial engineering professors provided him with some start-up capital. That enabled Grant to seamlessly move his business from his college dorm room to an office off campus. But after two years in upstate New York, Grant realized he needed to move his operations down to New York Cityâs âSilicon Alley.â To do that, heâd need more money. The first person he turned to was his late fatherâs brother Max, a retired IBMer who had always encouraged Grantâs technology and business interests. Max Turcotte had more than enough money and knowledge to make the loan: since retirement heâd made a bundle on Internet stocks. Grant knew his business plan was sound, since it had already garnered him funds from other savvy individuals. Yet his normally empathetic Uncle Max turned to stone when approached for the money. Thatâs when Grant came to me.
Rather than immediately trying to find other investors, Grant and I first worked on turning Uncle Maxâs no into a yes. Grant started asking other relatives about the situation. He learned that back in the early 1970s, Max had loaned money to bail another nephew, Cousin Edward, out of some personal trouble. Edward never paid back the loan and subsequently fell deeper into trouble. Since then, Max had sworn off lending money to relatives. Once we learned where Maxâs no really came from, we could work on turning it around. Grant and I developed a script for him to use with Max, to ask for a reconsideration based on new facts, and for permission to speak with his accountant. When an objective person, whose judgment wasnât clouded by family history, and who was also trusted by Max, supported the idea, Grant was able to turn the hidden no into a very clear yes.
Even harder to see right away are the nos hidden within ourselves. Jeanine Taylor came to me, saying her business was a failure, and looking for help in starting a new one. She described her wedding planning business to me. Jeanine was working three days a week, yet was making $75,000 a year ⌠in profit. Her client base had expanded every year for the past five, and she projected further expansion for the next five. Her overhead was minuscule. She was up-to-date in collecting her receivables. Why, I asked, did she think the business was a failure? It wasnât exciting, Jeanine explained. After a few minutes of discussion it became clear that the no in this problem was inside Jeanine, not in her business. She simply wasnât getting the emotional gratification she wanted from her business. Jeanine loved the handful of media appearances she had made in conjunction with her wedding planning ⌠in fact, she loved them more than the wedding planning. Together, Jeanine and I were able to turn her internal no into a yes by adding new services to her existing business. Today sheâs offering counseling on personal appearance and fitness for brides and their mothers. Sheâs also now appearing regularly on a local news magazine, doing on-air makeovers for audience members.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE NO
All this talk of yes and no is more than semantics. When you view all business and financial problems, whether theyâre obvious rejections or not, as nos, you set the stage for your being able to solve them.
Rather than focusing on all business obstacles this way, most people reflexively focus on their own situationâs uniqueness and complexity. While Iâm not a psychotherapist, I think thatâs probably so we can proclaim our âspecialness,â our individuality. âSure,â we think, âother people have been turned down for a raise. But my situation is different. No one elseâs rejection was ever so unjust or complicated as mine.â Focusing on each of our business and financial problems as a singular, unique, discrete event may, in the short term, help assuage our egos. But, in the long term, it hurts us.
If you view problems as being unique, discrete, complex events, then solutions must be unique as well. That means we need to learn a whole new set of skills and acquire an entirely new fount of information to solve each and every problem. In effect, we need to start from square one with every single obstacle we face.
On the other hand, if you view obstacles as all being the same, as all being based around a no, you can apply the same approach to each and every one of them. If there is a sameness to problems, then there also has to be sameness to solutions. Remember, if thereâs a no, visible or lurking, behind every problem, there also must be a yes, apparent or yet to be discerned. Rather than starting from square one with each problem, we can learn from our past experiences, we can build on our victories. In this way, problem solving itself becomes a separate skill, or a discipline: the ability to turn no into yes.
In fact, I think problem solving, or turning no into yes, is the single most important discipline for any businessperson to master. Forget about becoming a financial expert, a marketing virtuoso, or a management guru. Become an expert problem solver instead and youâll instantly be master of all the other disciplines. You will be able to overcome all your business and financial obstacles. That will smooth your path to success. And nothing will do more to boost your confidence than repeated successes.
How can I be so sure of all this? Because itâs exactly what Iâve been doing for the past twenty years.
THE EVOLUTION OF A PROBLEM SOLVER
Years ago, when I launched my personal consulting business, I had a hard time explaining exactly what it is I do. My kids used to come to me and ask what I did for a living. I resorted to my standard response to questions I didnât feel comfortable answering: âAsk your mother.â Today, after more than two decades in private practice, I have a better answer. Now, when my grandchildren ask me what I do, I tell them, âI help people solve their problems.â
Prior to launching my private practice twenty years ago, self-definitions came easy. When I was in my twenties and thirties I was a lawyer, practicing out of an office in Hicksville, a suburb of New York City. Next I became a venture capitalist, presiding over an American Stock Exchangeâlisted investment company called Royal Business Funds. After that I became a banker, working as the senior real estate consultant for National Westminster Bank. Then, I became a cancer patient.
Actually it turned out I didnât really have cancer, thank God. After receiving what I thought was a death sentence of advanced lung cancer, doctors eventually discovered I had tuberculosis instead. However, the miracle of my resurrection did not have a financial component. Luckily I had (and have) an incredible wife, four wonderful children, and a handful of good friends. My wife went back into the workforce to help supplement the disability insurance payments I was receiving. As my benefits and savings began to run out and our bills started to pile up, I started trying to figure out what I could do to make some money.
One of my closest friends, Gregor Roy, a college lecturer and struggling actor, was always stopping by to visit, trying to help boost my spirits. His good humor, thick Scottish burr, and joie de vivre always brought me out of the doldrums. But then one day, it was Gregor whose spirits were sagging. The telephone company had sent him a form letter threatening to cut off his service unless he paid an outstanding balance of $268. Gregor lived hand to mouth. Thanks to New Yorkâs rent control laws, he was able to get by on the small stipend he received for teaching a few classes and the occasional check he got for a part in a television commercial or an off-Broadway play. He simply didnât have the money to pay off the bill ⌠and at that point, neither did I. But instead of us both wallowing in misery, a providential role reversal took place. It was my turn to raise Gregorâs spirits.
I snatched the dunning letter from Gregorâs hand, picked up the telephone, and called the collections department. Pretending to be Gregor,* I explained why the bill was so high and in arrears. (Gregor had been forced to make numerous international calls and then unexpectedly fly home to Glasgow for a family emergency.) I pointed out that it was a unique situation and that it was the first time the bill hadnât been paid on time. I stressed that I (Gregor) was determined to pay the obligation, but could only pay fifty dollars a month. I said that I (Gregor) desperately needed telephone service for business purposes. Finally, I asked the collections agent for her help. She agreed to the fifty-dollars-a-month payment plan.
When I hung up the telephone and told Gregor, he was amazed. He couldnât believe I was able to solve his problem so easily. I told him creditors want to be paid back; they donât want to write off the whole debt. I said people in debt actually have lots more leverage than they realize, and that often it was sufficient to demonstrate the willingness and ability to pay something, even if it wasnât the full amount. Gregorâs normal enthusiasm returned. âMost people donât know about this,â he blurted out. I realized right then that there was a market for my problem-solving advice.
With Gregorâs help I developed an adult ed course (for an organization called The Learning Annex) on curing credit problems as a way to test the market. My wife had just begun working at New York magazine, and I suggested to her that I could write a short article that could help promote the course and my own services. A wonderful editor there, Debbie Harkins, helped me polish my article on getting a loan from a balky banker. My self-promoting efforts worked. Some of the people who took my course asked afterward if I could help them with their personal credit problems. A handful of readers of the magazine article contacted me at home and asked for help in preparing their own loan proposals. I was in the problem-solving business.
SOLVING ALL BOOMER MONEY PROBLEMS
At first, my practice focused on credit problems, since that was what I was teaching and writing about. However, I knew that I couldnât be a credit specialist and still pay my own mortgage. Credit was not only too small a market, but it also had inherent problems. With all due respect and compassion, letâs face it: people with credit problems are not ideal clients or customers.
Much of my business when I was a young lawyer on Long Island, and then again when I was with National Westminster Bank, dealt with real estate transactions and investing. It seemed natural then that I add real estate problems to my practice. It was a serendipitous decision. It was the early 1980s and the real estate market in the metropolitan New York area was starting to boom, literally. Baby boomers, those seventy-six million kids for whom America built suburbs, swimming pools, and state universities, were coming of age.
I started soliciting real estate business at the same moment the leading edge of baby boomers were shopping for their first homes. Prices began soaring, since demand was far outstripping supply. Boomers who had been raised to expect that they would do as well as, or better than, their parents, were having a hard time affording the homes of their dreams. Knowing the lending business from the inside, and holding some unconventional views on home affordability and financing,* my approach meshed well with the needs of these young people. And as the father of four baby boomers I also had a rapport with them and a respect for them that many other financial and legal advisors lacked. I was able to help my new clients solve their real estate and credit problems, and in the process, empower them.
In retrospect, it was this sense of empowerment I was giving themâthe knowledge that they could turn no into yesânot the specific real estate advice, that was most valuable. That is what kept bringing these baby boo...