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.
