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Ken Forrest
about me and liked what he saw in our company, I don’t know if he would have handed over a check for $300,000 if I had picked him up in some run-of-the-mill car. He might have needed time to do his due diligence. He might have had a lot more questions. He may still have put his money into Solution X eventually, but it might have been with a lot more work on my part. If you’ve ever raised money, you can fully appreciate this story. If you haven’t, I’m sure you still get the picture. So why can one very successful businessman feel the car is a curse while another sees it as a plus? Obviously someone who is handing me a check for $300,000 isn’t hoping for my failure. My take is this: Both views are correct, just in different situations. A car like the Lamborghini will, in fact, send the message to some people just as my partner’s father-in-law said, and they will hope for your failure. They’re jealous, petty people who live in the narrow trench of the scarcity mentality. On the other hand, it will send the very right message to people like the gentleman who put $300,000 into Solution X. You need to know who you are, who your audience is, and what message you are trying to send. If you’re in the high-end sales business or the motivation business, as I am, it’s helpful to have the kinds of things your audience wants to have. They need to know you’ve already made it. Having truly made it is better than pretending to be conservative. We live in a shallow, materialistic world, and people look at what you have. First impressions matter! As a final note, I might point out that my fundraising story isn’t an isolated event. The Lamborghini has helped me with many more deals than this one. It’s a tool that makes money and helps put deals together. Fight that notion if you want, but it’s simply true.