

How keeping quiet saved our startup $225K - SteliE
http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/28/how-shutting-up-saved-our-startup-225k/

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annand_virk
Really interesting post. I actually worked with a guy that would just get
really quiet when someone wasn't saying what he wanted them to say, or would
throw in short questions like "why?" or "how's that?" to incite some sort of
need for approval in the other person.

I gotta say, it's manipulation at its finest.

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pas
The real protip here is to know a board member with enough pull so somehow a
clear cut contract can be magically renegotiated. The price is just a matter
of chit-chat afterwards.

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brudgers
Knowing the name of a board member is probably all the knowing that's
required. Then a phone call to do the work. The board member is in a position
to acknowledge that there's little to be gained by trying to enforce the sales
contract in such circumstances...and that the sales representative can easily
waste enough time and energy on trying to enforce it to more than offset any
possible gain.

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greenyoda
John, the guy at the other end of the negotiation, probably got a pretty good
deal too. He got $25000, which was probably more than it cost his company to
provide the service. His alternatives would have been to either (1) walk away
from the contract and get nothing or (2) sue a startup company that had
negligible assets and get almost nothing (or even lose money on the legal
fees).

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cpncrunch
Sounds like it was a bad decision to get into this contract in the first
place.

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EugeneOZ
Glad for you, but 1 case is not enough for statistics :)

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PhantomGremlin
Isn't this just good advice overall? The key insight in the article is in the
title and repeated toward the end:

    
    
       All I did was shut the fuck up
       and let it play out in front of me.
    

Aren't many of us often a little too eager to jump in to add our two cents,
even when speaking is redundant or unnecessary? I know that it's a foible of
mine!

PS I hope this post itself isn't "redundant". :) I'm trying to make the larger
point that the article's advice should be viewed more generally than just for
sales negotiations.

