Zig Ziglar: Never Do a Good Deal with a Bad Guy!

In life and particularly in business we have many opportunities to do deals with others, whether it’s a collaboration, joint ventures or even a partnership.

In my line of work I’ve done many, especially with my history of being a speakers/authors agent, as well as being a seminar promoter and having owned Messages From the Masters and YourSuccessStore where I worked with hundreds of authors, speakers, etc.

So with that in mind people are often shocked to know I have never once sued anyone nor have I been sued. I’ve had people I worked with sued, but not me or my business.

Why? In addition to some very good fortune, plus always doing things in an ethical manner, I would say in large part it came from some great advice I received from Zig Ziglar.

Zig said, “Never do a good deal with a bad guy”.

I’ve been wowed off my feet, blown away by the opportunities, amazed at the incredible offers, but at the end of the day if I think it has any chance of ending up in a “divorce” or I don’t fully trust the person, I walk away. Now I’ve not been perfect in this. I’ve been blindsided as well as just plain dumb on some deals. And because of that I’ve had to own up to it many times and take the high road when things went sour.

But Zig’s advice has served me so well so many times.

I do tend to be a bit on the trusting side. In fact, Jim Rohn and I had a hand shake agreement for the first 10 years of Jim Rohn International. And for all the obvious reasons we did finally button it all up (and of course I always do that now). But we both had the same values as well as a history together.

But what is interesting for all the opportunities I had to promote others exclusively (like I did with Jim), I usually declined.

Now many of those were great people who I did trust. But if I sensed it would not last the test of time or would be full of conflicts I would usually walk away. And in my mind that would save both parties huge time and effort.

Follow your heart and instincts, do you due diligence and heed Zig’s sage advice “Don’t do a good deal with a bad guy”…And I might add no matter how GOOD the deal looks.

Thanks again Zig for your words of wisdom!

To Your Better Future,

Kyle Wilson

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Kyle Wilson is the founder of Jim Rohn International and YourSuccessStore, he also is the co-author of Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur’s Soul. To learn more about Kyle go here.

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