What To Tell A Friend Who Has A Bad Business Idea

When a friend asks for your opinion on a new idea, you want to be helpful, but how should you respond when you don’t think their idea will succeed? Dan Sullivan and Jeffrey Madoff discuss ways to be supportive and helpful without lying or making a commitment.  Show Notes: You can decide to help someone in a way that won’t involve you beyond a conversation. In the business of coaching small businesses, you discover quickly that there’s a reason why small businesses are small. People who can afford to make high investments usually know other people who can afford to make high investments. If you tell the truth, you don’t have to keep track of what lies you’ve told. The biggest factor in qualifying for The Strategic Coach® Program is being a growth-minded person instead of a status-minded person. The problem is never the problem. The problem is that people don’t know how to think about the problem. It’s a service to anybody who's had a new idea to get them thinking about their thinking about how they're going about it. When somebody comes to you with a new idea, they're locked into a context that this is going to be a real winner. If honesty ruptures a relationship, it wasn’t really a relationship to begin with. A lot of times, people are looking for reinforcement for what they’ve already done, and it’s too late for them to do anything different. Resources: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Christopher Voss and Tahl Raz Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam by Pope Brock Learn more about Jeffrey Madoff Dan Sullivan and Strategic Coach®