Ep603: Mihir Koltharkar – Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They’re Hatched

Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello, fellow risk takers and welcome to My Worst Investment Ever, stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community, we know that to win in investing, you must take risks but to win big, you've got to reduce it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. And that mission has led me to create the Become a Better Investor Community. In the community, you get access to our global asset allocation strategies and stock portfolios and our investment research, weekly live sessions and the risk reduction lessons I've learned from more than 500 guests just go to my worst investment ever.com Right now, to learn more fellow risk takers, this is your worst podcast hosts Andrew Stotz, from A. Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guests. The here called sitar car. How are you? Are you ready to join the mission?

Mihir Koltharkar 00:58
Yes, I am.

Andrew Stotz 01:00
I botched up your last name. Can you say a property? Sure. Goldberger called the car? That's correct. There we go. I'm working on it. So tell me, I want to introduce you to the audience. And I also, I want to learn from you. There's some things that I think are interesting about what you're doing, particularly as a finance guy, I'm not good at sales and understanding that type of stuff. So I'm interested to learn more about you. But before we get into that little brief discussion, I want to just introduce you to the audience. So here is a highly accomplished and global award-winning trainer, Ted X and keynote speaker, and an author with a rich experience spanning 22 years. He delivers sessions in his unique and engaging way and has a proven track record of enhancing performance and growing revenues spanning sectors and industries. In the past two decades, he has conducted more than 2000 Live sessions in 12 countries and inspired hundreds of 1000s of people. He has life purpose is to add value to people's lives. And he is featured among the top 20 global traders trainers in sales in 2021. And was recently awarded Master Trainer pride of India negotiation skills. People and media call him Smiling Buddha, have sales and Mr. Sales for his wisdom and knowledge in the domain my contents, why don't you take a minute me here and tell us about the unique value that you bring to this wonderful world.

Mihir Koltharkar 02:37
So thank you very much for that introduction, Andrew. What I feel is that when I was in school, and when I was in college, I never used to attend these lectures. And the reason for that was the professor's they had immense knowledge. But they were not able to share that knowledge and make us understand the value of that knowledge or make us feel excited about learning new things. And that somehow became a very a trigger point for me. And I said, I need to do something about it. physics, chemistry, math, all the subjects history, geography, whichever subjects that you look into whatever we have learned in school, whatever we have learned in college, most of us do not use it in the practical life, currently. And that got me thinking, what are the what are the things which people should actually know. And if you look at it, sales and negotiation, that is something that we should be aware of right at the early stage of our career, because sales is not just about business, sales is not just about making money. Sales is about convincing sales is about influencing it is how you put forward your point across. And that requires these skills. So selling and negotiation, I believe is something which everyone should be aware of. If you go for interviews you're selling, if you even while proposing someone, you are still selling your personality. So it is not just a skill, which is for business, but it is also a skill for your personal life. And that's what I have been doing. I add value to people's lives. And I share with them the kind of fundamentals which are there for sales, and which are the advanced methods which people can use, which are tried, tested and proven. If they are into business, how can they just implement that particular model and increase their sales?

Andrew Stotz 04:35
And out of all of your knowledge on this topic and all the discussions that you've had and the teaching you've done, what would be you know, I don't know one or two little tidbits that could help our audience. Let's think about people like myself, you know, we're good, we're good. We're technically good. Well, maybe engineer could be a financial guy, man or woman. But you know, sales isn't our strong suit. What would be one or two things that you could help us to improve ourselves in that area. Sure.

Mihir Koltharkar 05:04
So there is a golden rule of sales and it's the golden rule is 3070. So, whenever you are putting across your point, whenever you would want to convince someone of something, you should be speaking only 30% of the time 70% of the time the other person should be speaking. Now, this is something which, which is very unorthodox today, if you go to buy, you go to a store, maybe and to buy maybe a TV, you go in over there, and you say that, okay, I'm looking out for a TV, what would the person say the salesperson would go ahead and say that, okay, this is the TV bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla. And then this is the TV this has got this feature this feature bla bla bla bla bla, who talks more it is a salesperson. And what should ideally happen is that the salesperson should be asking a lot of questions. And those questions should be appropriately positioned to gain insights and answers as to what exactly am I looking out for? When, when the other person would do that? I would feel saying, okay, this person is really interested in knowing about what my likes, what my dislikes are. And this person will then help me to make the right decision. So that's a consultative approach. And most salespeople lack this. They think that okay, this is the knowledge I have gained. I have gone through the product training, I've gone through a process training, I know about all the features. So I'm going to go ahead and share everything that I know. And that's, I think that's where people fail.

Andrew Stotz 06:35
You know, that's interesting, because recently, I mean, I've read all kinds of sales books and marketing books and I have one of my one of my products is a course called the valuation masterclass boot camp. Now, the boot camp is tough, very, very tough. In fact, it's so tough that for the listeners out there, they don't see that I'm wearing a drill instructors hat. Because in the Boot Camp, it's tough. But one of the things that I realized early on is that I wanted to tell the students where I could take them. So I, I had a visual of a mountain top, and I was voted a number one analyst, and I started at zero. So I explained like, this is my journey, and I went up this mountain, and I got to here and I've designed the valuation masterclass, to make to help you get there faster. And I think, you know, that was step number one is that I needed to kind of explain what you're gonna get from this. But what I realized recently is there's something missing. And what's missing is I visualized like a mountain, a mountain that that's surrounded by lots of different topography. So people at the bottom of the mountain want to get to the top. But some of them are down in a valley really, really low. And they see a huge challenge. Right? There's other people that are on another part of the mountain or a side of the mountain where they're up pretty close, they're not too far, there's another people that there's a river they gotta cross before they reach the mountain. And what I realized is that, you know, I wasn't connecting with people where they were. And so therefore, if my, if their story didn't match my story, like I had a good education, and I had a good upbringing, or whatever that was, and, you know, and I love studying, and I love reading. And so I just, if their story isn't that, then it's hard for them to visualize how I'm going to help them get up to the top of the mountain. So I've spent some time recently identifying, let's say, four types of people like a recent student, a recent grad, from university, a financial professional, who's struggling to really make an impact and an engineer or an accountant that wants to switch from their current industry, to start to work in finance, you know, these types of things. And now I've realized I have to kind of have a listen to what my prior students in that group where I may have 10 students that are in that group, listen to what they're saying, What were their fears, what were their challenges, and then I need to not tell my story, but tell their story of let me tell you about a few people who were in your same situation, they're engineer and they want to become a financial person. Well, let me introduce you to so and so, who felt the exact same way they took the course and now they work in finance,

Mihir Koltharkar 09:20
true soju because they also say that no, that is one radio channel that everyone listens to, and the radio channel is wi I fm. So it's vi FM. That is what's in it for me and every single person is tuned into that channel. So people do not care how much you know, what do you know, but they care when you talk to them about themselves. And when you do that, they automatically tune into that channel and they are much more receptive towards listening to what you have to say.

Andrew Stotz 09:53
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to wi I fm. Our station specifically for you The station you never leave, you're always here because what you care about is what is in it for me love it. Great, great stuff. Okay, well, I like that. So we've learned the 37 D, that we should be talking 30% And, and letting the client or the potential customer talk 17. And then you also talk talked about consultative, where you're asking questions, and I think that's also thing. And then finally, what you've told us is that people care about what's in it for me, they don't care about your knowledge, they don't care about that they care about what am I going to gain from this? So I think those are some great tidbits and nuggets. And now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one goes into their worst investment thinking it will be tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to then tell us your story.

Mihir Koltharkar 10:59
Absolutely, I will tell you, Andrew, first of all, you know, this has been when that when this particular question came in? It's very difficult to go ahead and answer that question right away. The reason being is that I have made so many mistakes in my life, it was very hard to single out which one should I go for?

Andrew Stotz 11:17
I know the feeling.

Mihir Koltharkar 11:20
So this is one particular story, which I would share. Very interesting story. Now, I have been in training domain for a very long time, 22 years. But I used to head training departments of organizations earlier, I used to increase like I used to train the employees in the organization, and now grow their sales. It was six years ago, I decided to start off on my own. So I was working for a company, which was a luxury real estate company headquartered in Dubai. And they had more than 800 sales professionals. I was with them for one year. And I managed to increase their turnover by 4.5 billion dirhams. In just one year. When that happened in I said, This is it. My knowledge should not be restricted just to one organization. It is it belongs to the world. And that's when I took the risk. And I said, Okay, let me start on my own. So from Dubai, I used to stay in Dubai for almost about seven years. From Dubai, I came down to India, and I said let me register the company over here. I registered the company. And that time, I was full of hope, saying that, okay, I'm going to give myself six months to set up the organization to start no doing the groundwork and everything. And in probably six months time, I would have gained some X number of clients, at least, to fund my organization. So I started from zero without any investment. Okay. I did my websites, I did social media, I did outlines, I used to go for client meetings, I used to do marketing, I used to do every single thing, one man show now, slowly and gradually, things started kind of moving. And I was saying that, okay, at least some kind of business is coming in. And when the business started coming in, I invested all the money back into the business for marketing purposes. I got ahold of a partner in Mauritius. So there was this guy who I know of, I knew him since 2001. And this guy sent me here, you're doing some great work. We would love to have you in Mauritius. And I'm sure that organizations in Mauritius would be greatly benefited by what you have to offer. And I said fantastic. That's a great opportunity. So I said, let me go to Mauritius, we arranged for some training sessions, the training sessions went on very well. And he said me, I have a potential client. This client is a huge client. It's a government company. So you come down over there, you meet them. So I went over there met and they had amazing requirements. So they said we want this, we want this, we want this, we want this. And I was like wow. I kind of mentally calculated the profits. It would have been in millions. And that is in a span of maybe about 45 days, right? I was like wow, I am on track. So just started off a company. A company is just heading somewhere. I'm barely managing my expenses and and all of that, and then suddenly, this big, huge opportunity that too in Mauritius. So my mind started going crazy. I was thinking like okay, Mauritius, I have been there once. It's a beautiful place. I would love to settle over there. Okay. And then I'm now getting a call contract from a government company. And that is I'm going to make profits in millions right now. So now, the my way of thinking changed, I used to dream about it all the time. Once that meeting happened in, I gave them a proposal after the proposal they sent me here, come down, let's meet again. I went again, met them. Then they said, Okay, this everything sounds great. Right now, some modifications to the proposal. I did that as well. And they said, Maybe we are looking out for the session to start another two months time. So said, Great, this. Everything sounds great. That final part, let's go ahead with the negotiations. We went ahead with the negotiations as well. I had all I had obviously kept my margins over there. And I knew that there would be some negotiations because it was a huge contract. So I said, Okay, negotiations also done, they were okay with the negotiated price as well. And I was super happy. Yep. So I'm already building castles in my head. My partner was super excited to. So my partner was working for an organization. And he said, we're now I see a great potential over here. I'm also going to quit, and we are going to go full time into it. And I said, sure, but I think we should we should look at that. Because there is great potential, I see that now this kind of interest, which is coming in. So severe, I think we should already we should start looking at setting up an office building over here. We should I have a training room, and everything. I said, Okay, should we take it slow? said no. Right now the contract is almost on the verge of finalizing. So let's go ahead and do that. We started looking out for properties. We said we want to hire, or we want to lease a one entire building, not an office building. Think big, think big. And he said, Mayor, I'm getting a great deal. If we sign a lease for two years, we are going to get a great deal. So great, let's do that. And then he said me, we do not have any furniture because it's going to be an unfurnished place. So let's start looking out for furniture. And we started looking for furniture from China, we placed an order over there. And now things are kind of you know, they're moving forward, we are super excited super positive things are looking great. And then suddenly, the company declares bankruptcy. A government company declares bankruptcy, the politics. So, the company was such that it was a loss making company it was not a profit making company. But the government was funding that company for a long time. But because of some change in political scenario, the government said that we are not going to invest anything in this organization now. And guess what happened? Obviously, the contract just flows finished, gone. Just a piece of paper? Yes, absolutely. It's just gone finish. And we have no clue what to do. One thing which happened during that particular point of time is that when we got to know that this contract is of such huge amount, the kind of efforts that I was putting in for marketing, those efforts had also kind of stopped because I said now we are going to get that money. And once that money comes in, we will invest this part into into the marketing we will hire an agency let the agency do all that stuff. We are we are not going to get into all of the nitty gritties and our dreams crashed in the business idea crashed. Everything just know crashed. I was super I wouldn't use the word demotivated because I was still hoping that probably the political scenario will change and the contract will come back again

Andrew Stotz 19:06
you're praying you became more religious? And what happened to the building and the furniture from China?

Mihir Koltharkar 19:16
So building part of it fortunately, we were able to close that particular lease and we did not have to pay a lot over there. canceling the furniture part of it we sold our furniture but those were the dreams. I think that that was one of the worst investments ever.

Andrew Stotz 19:36
What was the time period of all this happened?

Mihir Koltharkar 19:40
About eight months? Okay, right from the beginning till the end.

Andrew Stotz 19:45
And when was the like the worst day the worst time was it? When you How did you find out that the company was bankrupt or when was the worst time that you realize? Okay, this is a serious problem now.

Mihir Koltharkar 20:00
So at that particular point of time, I was back in India. So after finishing the meetings and everything I was back in India, and my partner, he's a local mortician. Over there in Mauritius, such kind of news. So this is a government company going bankrupt. So such kind of news is announced on the radio, and it keeps on playing over there. And then people have their opinions about it, and other politicians will jump in, and they will talk about it. So it was a big deal. It was a very big deal. And it was going on on radio and TV for almost about like three or four days. So this partner of mine, he called me and said, Me guess what happened? He said, what happened? I thought that we won the contract, and we are going out with it. Like the dates are finalized, and said the company went bankrupt. I said, Come on, you're joking. Like, no, this is serious. And I had no, I had no answer to it. I had no answer. It took time for things to sink in, and realize that, oh, this has happened. So how would you is devastating?

Andrew Stotz 21:05
Yeah. How would you summarize the lessons that you learned from this experience?

Mihir Koltharkar 21:11
I would feel it. Don't count your chickens before they're hatched?

Andrew Stotz 21:17
Yes. That's gotta be the biggest lesson. Or I guess the other one we say is a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Mihir Koltharkar 21:27
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, even today, so I've learned that lesson. And that I think, was a huge learning. For me, even today, wherever I get any kind of requirements from an organization, or any kind of contracts or any of that sort. I always think through saying that till the time, the money does not hit the account. Till that time, it is still not closed.

Andrew Stotz 21:54
That's a good lesson for everybody. Yeah. Until the money is in the account.

Mihir Koltharkar 21:59
Absolutely. So even if they sign the contract, or even if they give a verbal approval, or even if the approval is on mail, and email saying that, okay, this is finalized and everything, till the time the money is not in the account, it is not a close.

Andrew Stotz 22:15
What a lesson. And I think that's a lesson for everyone, maybe I'll share some of my takeaways from the story. The I'm reminded of the book, the E Myth by Michael Gerber, who's now 84 years old, and has written you know, such a great book, and he talks about the entrepreneurial seizure, when you just it's uncontrollable, when you get so excited about your idea, you'll do anything, because it's all going to be amazing. And so the challenge is, is to, you know, how do you deal with that, when you're in that seizure? You people don't listen. And I think for all of us, you know, a big lesson is is that to know when us, when a business idea sweeps into your mind, it can take you over, and you don't listen to people and you know, you think you know, what's what's right. And, you know, you think you know what customers want, but the reality is, is that it's brutally hard out there. And it's just, it's just hard, and so many things can fail. So be careful not to get in the entrepreneurial seizure. But I think another lesson I want to share is a story of mine. And this is to tell the audience and yourself. It's not even when the money's in the bank. When I was a young guy, I was about 17, turning 18 I bought a motorcycle off of another guy. And his name was Tim Hutchison. And we both grew up in a town called Hudson, Ohio. And he had a motorcycle and I finally had saved up enough cash that I could buy it. And so it was a lot of money from me, I don't know, probably $400 or $600, or whatever. And basically, I didn't trust him and I didn't know who to trust. So I just said, look, he said, my mom's gonna write a check. And I said, Good, let's go down to the bank will cash that check. Once the checks cashed, and the cash will go into my account, and then I'll sign the title and then you can take the motorcycle, great. Done, went to the bank, everything was fine. The check came, he brought it with him said ready bank said this check is good. They deposited the cash into my bank account. I signed over the bike. He left. I was sorry. He left with the tie. So he gave me the title. And I had the motorcycle. And basically, I'm sorry, I'm getting confused. I was selling my motorcycle so he was giving me cash. Okay, so then I signed over the title to him, as I originally said, and then he left with the motorcycle done. The next day, I got a phone call from In the bank, and they said, you know, that $700 That you deposit in deposit in your account, you need to come back today. And you know, you need to give it because I took it out of the bank, you know, pretty quickly. They said, You need to bring that back and give it to us. I was like, what, how Wait, everything was cashed. They said, Nope, his mother put a stamp on that check. And she has three days to get her cash back. Wow. So I went down to the bank with the $700. And I gave the money back to them. And then I went to him and said, Hey, give me the bike back. And he said, No, oh, you've already signed it over to me, it's mine now. And I had to take him to court, eventually, I won. And then but getting getting the motorcycle or getting anything from him was, you know, it's one thing to have a judgment. But I just learned a lesson that you know, really, you got to focus on the cash. And sometimes can take a couple of days that you got to wait with that cash in there to make sure that the deals done. So that's my little crazy story about, it's not even always safe when the cash is in the bank. So. So let me ask you based upon what you learned from this story, and I want you to think about listeners out there that do have their great business idea and your business idea wasn't bad. You know, I don't think it was a bad idea. But you got caught up in a very shiny headlight, you know, like it was. And so think about the people that are out there in that position. What, what one action would you recommend that they take to avoid suffering the same fate.

Mihir Koltharkar 26:45
So I think when we start a business, we always think saying that it is going to be successful. And yes, it can be successful, provided you have a plan, you should not be just relying on hopes, there has to be a structured plan. And you say that, okay, let me take one step at a time, something great comes up in between, which is unexpected, great, it's wonderful, always have that room for miracles to happen, and miracles do happen. But when they do happen, don't deviate from your plan. So if miracles are happening, accept it, if it happens, well and good. But when that is happening, don't deviate from what you were doing. Because those were the pillars which have got you till that miracle. If you stop doing that, the miracles also are not going to happen. So keep doing your work. If the miracles are happening, hope for the best of it, be optimistic about it. But at the same time, be realistic also about it. Instead of getting just caught in that moment and saying that, okay, now what my life has now changed, like I've won a big lottery, and this is it finished, I don't have to work anymore,

Andrew Stotz 27:57
travel that.

Mihir Koltharkar 28:01
Continue doing your work. If you work for money, I think it's a big loss to your talent. If you work, to share knowledge, to inspire others, to do something good for the world, and your business model revolves around it to add more value to other people. I think that is a great successful model. Even if you do not make like a lot of money or if even if these miracles do not happen. You can sleep very peacefully, you can sleep very content saying that today I did my best to fulfill my life purpose, and I'm happy about it.

Andrew Stotz 28:38
Well, I think if we all feel that every day, we'd have an amazing life. So that's a real challenge, I think for the for everybody listening to try to figure out how you are living your best life every day. And that you can go to bed and sleep well. So what is a resource that you'd recommend for our listeners?

Mihir Koltharkar 28:58
So one thing which I would recommend for our listeners is invest a lot of time in learning about communication. This is one of the most underrated skill. We have not been taught how to communicate, we know how to speak, but we don't know how to communicate well. And if you're able to communicate well, all your problems in the life, they can be solved very easily. Whether it's business, whether it's personal. It is it is all about communication, and some of the resources so Alan Pease is one of the author of I would highly recommend, because he has got several books. He talks so much about how there is there has been a DNA based learning like today why people smile and there is a reason for that. People don't know why people smile and they say that okay, smile is positive. But why smile is positive, that answer is probably not known. And those kinds of answers you would get in that particular book and if you know the signs Hands behind it, then I believe that communication is much more easier. The rapport building is much faster, and people feel connected. So that's one resource which I would definitely share. It has been a life changing resource for me as well. So, yep.

Andrew Stotz 30:19
To Great one. Yeah, it wasn't his book was about body language. I can't remember what some of the Yep. Alan PS.

Mihir Koltharkar 30:28
Yes. So Alan v's and Barbara PS Barbara pieces why?

Andrew Stotz 30:33
And I'm looking at his website right now I'm seeing why men don't listen, and women can't

Mihir Koltharkar 30:38
go. This is another one why men lie and women cry.

Andrew Stotz 30:44
That's a good one. Well, that's great. Great idea. So last question. What is your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Mihir Koltharkar 30:53
So in the next 12 months, I have currently trained in 12 countries. And my goal for the next year is to make that number till 15. That's a very realistic goal. Yes, time getting into three new countries easily doable. Even if there are challenges that would come in, I think I would be able to hit that. So yep, that's, that's my goal. Getting revenue countries,

Andrew Stotz 31:16
beautiful. Well, listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. If you haven't yet joined the Become a Better Investor Community, just go to MyWorstInvestmentEver.com to learn more. As we conclude me here, I want to thank you again, for joining our mission. And on behalf of A. Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Mihir Koltharkar 31:48
So plan your work, and work your plan. Most people plan a lot, but they don't put in efforts to work on that particular plan. If there are challenges that will that that may happen. Those challenges should also be a part of your plan. And there has to be a way out. There has to be a Plan B to it. So always keep that in mind, whether it's business, whether it's your personal life.

Andrew Stotz 32:17
And here is a book Oh, wow. That I wrote called plan your work, and work your plan. Awesome on this. This is my calendar book that I created for myself based upon reading every book I could about time management and management. And I call it plan your work. Work your plan. There's probably no way you could have known that because I don't sell much of it. I just use it in my business and in my life. But yes, I totally agree with that. Advice. And that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our well fellow risk takers. Let's celebrate that. Today. We added one more person to our mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying, I'll see you on the upside.