Dana Oshiro has another great post on negotiating on ReadWrite Start. This time the topic is deal timing.
As Dana puts it – “deals can go up in smoke if given too much time.” Do not drag out a deal.
I’ve seen many deals blow up from both sides because one side or the other took too much time. Sometimes one party changes direction and decides that they no longer want the deal. Other times, someone decides that the deal was too generous/not generous enough and wants to renegotiate terms. Why it happens doesn’t really matter. The point is that if you screw around and don’t get the deal done in a timely matter, you may end up with no deal at all. You have to stay focused and keep things moving. This isn’t always easy to do.
This wouldn’t have been a good post without some concrete suggestions on how to avoid blowing a deal. The suggestions provided by Dana come from Mark Suster. My favorites are:
Don’t Grind Every Detail: Know the important points that you want to negotiate and stick to them. [Suster] writes that you shouldn’t get caught up in inconsequential details as they’ll potentially add weeks to the legal process and you’ll risk creating ill will with your newfound partners.
Get People In Person: Put yourself, your negotiating partner, both sides of lawyers and the other party in a room to hash out the details. Suster stresses that it’s important to create goals for what you want to accomplish and take breaks to gain consent from any higher authorities.
Getting together in person is a particularly good technique to grind through a deal that has bogged down. I was once working on a deal with a major search provider that got bogged down. We had come to terms really quickly but spent almost 9 months trying to get through a contract. Everyone was frustrated and on the verge of giving up. I hopped on a plane with my boss, our president, and 2 attorneys to visit our would-be partner. Two days later we had a deal.
These are great tips that work. Good luck in your future negotiations.
