The Problem With Giving In by Brian Buck
You‘ve worked your butt off to get this deal done and you’re at the finish line. The contract has cleared legal and both sides have agreed to all of the terms. It literally just needs signatures. Then you get a phone call. It’s the other side, and they’re telling you that there’s one more small adjustment that needs to be made, and if you can do that, then they can get the contract done. What do you do? Give in or push back? All negotiators will face this dilemma at some point. When you ask most of them what to do, they typically reply, “It depends.” They tell you that it depends on the size of the ask, the significance of the deal, and even how badly you want it. All of those considerations are supposed to inform your decision. The problem is, they’re all opinion-based, emotionally driven criteria — two things on which I don’t want to base a strategic move. Many buyers are taught to ask for closing concessions. Just as the deal is about to wrap up, they’re instructed to request one more thing. (It used to be called The Columbo Ask, which is a very dated TV reference.) They’re taught to do this because it works on unsuspecting dealmakers. The reason why it works is because the other side is dealing with last-minute demands not strategically, but emotionally.
otherwise good contract into a bad one. Let’s assume that it’s a minor ask: If you give in, you’re conditioning the other side to continue to ask for more. And you’ll never be able to get back whatever you gave, as it will become an expectation in all future negotiations. I was in a similar situation years ago. We had just won one of the biggest deals in my agency’s history, and we were all very excited about working with the other party. The details had been finalized and all we
There’s nothing wrong with late demands. In fact, you should expect them, so that when you get them you know what to do. That’s precisely where most dealmakers fall down: They don’t prepare for late demands. Instead, they hope that they won’t come up. Hope is not a reliable strategy. Let’s assume that you choose to just give in to the demand. If the give is too big, you could completely disrupt the value of a deal and turn an
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