Use the Force

You're not the hero; your job is to help someone else be the hero.

Star Wars can teach you a lot about pitching and sales; I’ve been using the series to talk about startups and strategy since at least 2017. I’m not talking about Jedi mind tricks; no Force sensitivity required. A New Hope in particular has become a touchstone for winning someone over, and it’s actually the most violent scene in the entire movie. SPOILERS for a 50 year old movie to follow; I’m going to reference the scene heavily, so if you don’t want to be SPOILED, then give it a watch (or a rewatch) here:

In the climactic scene, when the planet-destroying Death Star is about to annihilate the hidden base of the Rebel Alliance, farmboy-turned-Rebel-hero Luke Skywalker bypasses laser turrets and Darth Vader to destroy the battle station, winning the day for the good guys and inspiring a new hope. It’s an iconic scene, from Vader’s “I have you now” to Han Solo’s last minute assist. But my favorite part is when Luke’s recently-deceased mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, speaks from beyond the grave. Luke has just switched on his targeting computer, to help him hit the tiny exhaust vent that leads directly to the Death Star reactor, when Obi-Wan says “Use the Force, Luke.” It happens around the 20 second mark in the video above. Luke relies on the Force, makes the shot, and the rest is history. So many of us want to see ourselves as Luke Skywalker, flying in to save the day, but Obi-Wan is the real example here. You don’t win when you play the hero; you win when you enable someone else to be the hero, to save the day.

I advise a lot of startups, and I always encourage the founders to think about the psychology and incentives of whomever they may be pitching. What will make your prospective client look good to their boss? What are their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), the way they track success? How can you make it so they can rack up a win and look good in the eyes of those they care about? If you do all those things, that person will be much more likely to help you out, to do you a favor, to sign on the dotted line. Part of this is about psychology, understanding what your counterpart wants and needs. You can discover this by asking questions and really listening, but a lot of it depends on the right framing too.

I recently spoke to a young founder who was debating between doubling down on the sales and marketing strategy that had recently grown his revenue by 10x, and joining a program that would make him a much stronger and well-rounded founder, at the expense of less attention on the business. The program offered money for him to join, but he was worried that by deferring to focus on his momentum, he would forfeit the money. I advised the following approach: ask to take a year to focus on his business, to focus on himself, with the understanding that he would be a much greater asset to the program’s community in a year than he was now (and the value he brought to the program now already merited the money they were offering). I emphasized that he framed everything in terms of what he brought to the community, NOT in terms of how much money they were giving him, and when. The person in charge of recruitment had a mission to bring in the best and the brightest; my founder was making their work look more impressive by waiting the year and building up his skills, I argued. He shouldn’t make the experience about him; instead, he was setting up the recruiter for success, and if they happened to let him have his cake and eat it too (by still getting the money and being able to focus on his business for a year) so much the better.

I’ve found this approach to be both good and useful. The Obi-Wan strategy, for lack of a better name, works if you’re a cynic. The more the people around you succeed, the more they’ll be indebted to you, and the more successful they are, the more ability they’ll have to help. You’ll also gain a good reputation as a partner, so more people will want to work with you. More importantly, the Obi-Wan strategy is the right thing to do. I’m a big believer in giving first, and if I have the ability to help someone, I don’t worry about what I’m going to get out of it, or how they are going to pay me back. By positioning yourself as Obi-Wan, by helping others destroy their Death Stars and be the hero, you are creating a wider impact than just focusing on yourself.

In the interest of full disclosure, I got the idea of enabling others from Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture. If you aren’t familiar with it, I strongly recommend watching. Dr. Pausch was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and decided to dedicate the remainder of his life to enabling others. My ideas here are heavily influenced by that talk, and you should do yourself a favor and watch it. It’s both highly inspiring and deeply emotional.

Finally, if you want to discuss the Obi-Wan strategy, or talk about Star Wars, feel free to find some time on my calendar >> https://calendly.com/connor-17_b/30min

Photo by Logan Voss on Unsplash. Star Wars, the Star Wars logo, character names, and all related items are registered trademarks and/or copyrights of Lucasfilm Ltd. or their respective trademark and copyright holders. This article is not endorsed, sponsored, or affiliated with Lucasfilm Ltd. or Disney.