Sealing the deal

• By David Snead on July 30, 2008

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Today’s HostingCon keynote was a fitting capstone to a very good conference.  Although a bit personal at times, it reinforced for me the high emotion that goes into transactions.  For all of the “be objective” talk – deals are emotional.  This is true both for buyers and sellers – though particularly true for sellers.  I don’t see how it is possible not to get emotionally invested in a deal.  From negotiating to money, everything about a deal involves emotional investment.  In my mind, not being emotionally invested in a deal is akin to dating and only looking for friendship – a bit of an oxymoron. Like dating, however, there are ways to participate in the process without getting completely heartbroken or frustrated.  From my experience the following points may help:

·  Don’t put all your eggs in the buy/sell basket.  Keep operating your business and innovating.

·  Know what your hard stops, or non-negotiables are, and realize that the deal will end if these are reached.  Only designate these as non-negotiables if you are willing to walk away.

·  Communicate with your advisors constantly.  Feel free to vent to us about your frustration – but try not to make it personal unless it really, truly, is deserved.

·  Hire people who have participated in deals before.

·  Don’t give yourself artificial deadlines.  If you want to take a day off to go see your kid’s swim meet, do it.  The deal will be there when you get back.

·  If the deal falls through, take time to deconstruct what happened, what you can learn, and try to reuse any documents that were created in the process.

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