The most amazing (bad!) thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I negotiated a great alliance on behalf of my client (a vendor) with one of their customers. It is a very collaborative discussion and we talked about all the ways my client would share marketing efforts and win referral fees from the joint marketing efforts with the customer. Then, . . . . I got the contract from the customer’s lawyer!

Contradictions

The contract completely contradicted all of our conversations.  What it gave with one hand it took away with the other. The contract made my client market on behalf of the customer for no financial gain. I was furious – literally. I sent an email that I could not look at the contract for a couple of days. It was a white lie to buy me some thinking space.

First: Know your BATNA

Before I talked with my contact at the customer’s company, I brainstormed alternatives with my client. We talked about all the ways she could get her business goals accomplished without this customer. We had a back-up plan if the negotiations broke down.

This Was Intentional?!

When I was ready to talk to my contact at the customer’s business, I started by talking about how this agreement appeared to contradict our previous conversations. My contact said, “I was wondering if you would catch that.”  WHAT?!!? You didn’t just say that, did you???

My contact and I quickly negotiated an agreement that was aligned with our previous conversations. AND, my client is looking for a replacement customer. The ink is not even dry and my client is looking to get away from this relationship. WOW. She simply doesn’t trust them anymore and would rather find a customer that she trusts for the joint marketing efforts.

Say What You Mean ~ Do What You Say

Don’t blame your attorney when the negotiations go south. In the end, it reflects badly on you and your company. This customer will not have a provider at the end of this agreement and will have to look for another vendor. Maybe, the customer doesn’t care, but it should.

The whole point of the alliance was for both the customer and the vendor to make more money by working together to market the customer’s services to its customers. If the customer was willing to take advantage of my client, it will certainly do it to another vendor too. Maybe one that doesn’t have an attorney negotiating the deal.

Lost Opportunities

In the end, it is the customer that loses! It loses a valuable opportunity to make more money through a joint effort in a tough economy. Too bad they had to sabotage the effort by being greedy.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Creating Value. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.