How Saul Goodman Can Teach Businesses About the Value of Understanding Relationships
This week, TV viewers witnessed the return of Jimmy McGill, a scrappy and indefatigable attorney struggling for respect and reward. Spoiler alert: If you watched Breaking Bad, you know the upstart Albuquerque lawyer goes on to become Saul Goodman, the lawyer and adviser for eventual meth kingpin Walter White, or as he's known on the street, Heisenberg.
Now in its second season, AMC's hit show Better Call Saul shows the transformation of the naïve McGill into what would become one of the city's most notorious criminal defense attorneys. But it doesn't happen by chance. His ability to understand and manipulate relationships plays a huge role, something many businesses can learn a thing or two about. But before I proceed, if you have not not watched Breaking Bad, I implore you do so immediately. Go on, watch it now, and then come back and read this article, otherwise you're going to be a bit lost.
In Breaking Bad we learn that Saul Goodman is a key player in Walter White's evolution from everyday chemistry teacher to criminal mastermind, constantly getting him out of several sticky situations over the course of his drug business operations. Goodman is effective in helping Walt stay one step ahead of the police and competing drug czars because of his extensive connections within the criminal underworld, as well as serving as a go-between connecting drug distributors, evidence removers, impersonators, and other criminals-for-hire.
What makes Goodman so successful is his network of relationships. He knows all the players and how they are connected to others and uses that knowledge to his advantage. Ultimately, it's what probably keeps him and his clients alive for so long. Other entities in the Breaking Bad world are not so lucky. Shotgun blasts and burning faces aside, I'm talking about the businesses that were ultimately crippled by the chain of events that were set off by Walter White's maniacal obsession for power.
The Breaking Bad series finale shows us the fate of all the major characters, but what about everyone else that has some underlying connection to what went down?
We learned that Walt's meth empire was funded by a multifaceted conglomerate headquartered in Germany called Madrigal Electromotive. According to Wikia, Madrigal is highly diversified in industrial equipment, manufacturing, global shipping, construction and fast food; the most notorious being the American fried chicken chain, Los Pollos Hermanos.
Founded by Gustavo Fring, the Los Pollos Hermanos restaurant chain had fourteen locations throughout the southwest and was a subsidiary of Madrigal. As we learned during the course of the show, the restaurant provided money-laundering and logistics for illegal activities. It's safe to assume that following the death of its founder and his reported connection to engineering a billion-dollar drug empire, business suffered. Every enterprise that was directly doing business with the fried chicken chain likely cut ties with them as soon as the news broke. From the factory providing the meat to the manufacturer supplying the utensils, these businesses were aware that Los Pollos Hermanos would suffer and were able to plan in advance for a revenue downfall.
But what about the other suppliers that did not realize they were working with entities that had connections to Los Pollos Hermanos' parent company? Madrigal is spread across 14 divisions, including a massive investment in fast food. The fast-food division, formerly run by Herr Peter Schuler, encompasses a stable of 7 fast-food eateries, including Whiskerstay's, Haau Chuen Wok, Burger Matic, and Polmieri Pizza. Following the breaking news of the drug ring, the resulting investigation likely sent shockwaves throughout the entire Madrigal enterprise and subsequently hurt all of its businesses in some shape or form. But let's look at the supplier of dough for Polmieri Pizza for example. Do you think they knew the pizza shop they do business with was a subsidiary of Madrigal and would be a casualty of the meth trade? Very unlikely.
Because Polmieri Pizza is a subsidiary of Madrigal, they will be at least indirectly effected. While its parent company will be in damage control - a change of management, a freeze on funds, etc. - the innocuous pizza shop will be impacted, even if it is only short term. During this time, the dough supplier has no clue to the grievous relationship the pizza shop has to Madrigal and that it should expect some change in how they work with the pizza eatery. If they had known there was any connection, they may have been able to plan ahead and cut down on production and accounted for less orders. Instead, they are caught by surprise and left overstocked and under water.
This could have been avoided if the dough manufacturer leveraged its relationship data. Every company has relationship data; they just need to know where to look for it, or who to partner with to obtain the right information.
Relationship data is information about two or more entities that are brought together along with their business activities to inform an implied business impact or outcome. Through a combination of interpreting the right signal data and implementing advanced analytics uncovered in this data, unmet needs arise, hidden dangers surface and new opportunities can be identified.
Of course, this is just an example of the importance of being able to recognize business relationships based on a fictional show. But not being able to do so could prove to be a grave reality for businesses of all shapes and form. If the companies with business connections to Madrigal's vast enterprise had had a sense of relationship data, what would they have seen?
If you can take anything away from the Saul Goodman's of the world, it is this: know how all your relationships are connected and you will know how to solve problems, manage revenue - and stay out of trouble.