I know this comes up on every longform Twitterstorm or whatever it's called - but I really wish people would stop posting otherwise interesting and insightful anecdotes to Twitter.
I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”
61–70 of 137 posts
Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dude he didn’t literally mean they were better. He gave a sincere compliment to Viaweb (an exaggerated one) as a compelling counterpoint to shift the other’s view. I dunno, the Yahoo guy seemed a little sociopathic for doing this. Reminds me of when Paul McCartney told Michael Jackson he wanted to buy The Beetles catalog, only to have MJ go ahead and buy it instead. Douchey to say the least.
>I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest” >“They are hands down better than us." Uh, I'm pretty sure he meant what he said, with the second being a solid assertion. He didn't dance around it, he literally meant they were better.
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Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”
#63Ok, my take away: if I ever want to merge my team with another team, I'll avoid "but that team is better than us" (not that I'll ever be in that situation in the foreseeable future anyway) (pg's answer in this thread: "Whoah, I had no idea about any of this till now...")
“X is better than Y” is subjective, so kind of a silly position to debate in the first place.
It would be interesting for me to know what he meant by “better”. More efficient? More prestigious? More collaborative? More visionary?
Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you have integrity when you throw your own engineers under the bus?
Integrity is about telling the truth (as you see it), not about doing stuff for the benefit of "your own". In fact the latter can lead to exactly the opposite of integrity.
Integrity involves placing our duties to others in the proper order.
Sometimes that means doing stuff to benefit "your own." sometimes that means blowing the whistle on something. It really depends on the context.
Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Makes you wonder if behind the scenes, someone at Microsoft checked with someone at Yahoo and heard the story, and then Microsoft did the deal.
If that were true, they wouldn't have paid more than Yahoo offered.
I read it as they sold later (amount of time unspecified), so presumably they continued to grow before the Microsoft offer.
Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”
#66In sales there is a term "know when to stop selling", this story is kind of a variant of that. If you have acceptable terms worked out, stop "selling", stop trying to show or add more value to the deal. Close the deal you have, and then work on any new or additional things.
> "know when to stop selling"
I disagree. Stop over-selling, maybe, but at the end of a sale, there's a buyers remorse window. And you need to make sure you're communicating with the "buyer" and strengthening their resolve so they don't get cold feet. This applies with selling, hiring (esp after the candidate signs), etc.
A good way to do this is to make sure to remind them of why they bought in the first place.
Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”
#67Ok, my take away: if I ever want to merge my team with another team, I'll avoid "but that team is better than us" (not that I'll ever be in that situation in the foreseeable future anyway) (pg's answer in this thread: "Whoah, I had no idea about any of this till now...")
That’s not the takeaway. One of the classic rules of selling is “shut up and leave as soon as you have the order.” It’s not just literal sales call. If your meeting is to get the signed contract, run out the door once it’s in your hand. Don’t push for the P.O. in that moment. If you have a call with a prospect to set up a meeting, you’ve got that scheduled hang up and prepare for the in person meeting. Etc etc.
Also applicable to interviews.
> run out the door once it’s in your hand
Resisting the urge to add something at the door is crucial, more than one good meeting was ruined there (at least for me).
Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s something I’ve been always struggling to accept. Be it sales, academic debates, court cases, or just dinner table conversations. Why does the outcome depend on the timing and specific choice of words used? Isn’t it a proof or irrationality of it all? Shouldn’t the outcome converge to the "best" one (optimal, true) the longer the process takes?
Yes, of course it's irrational. People are not machinelike optimizers of information accuracy. If that's your mental model of people, you're going to have a bad time.
The explanation is perfectly rational.
Once the buyer has been convinced, his worldview is dependent upon a number of assumptions he's made by extrapolating limited information. He makes a number of those assumptions on the basis of trusting the seller. If that trust wavers, the assumptions crumble and the worldview collapses.
The buyer's trust in the seller is fragile because the buyer doesn't really know the seller. His image of the seller is based on an internal model that the seller has triggered by being similar on a few heuristic markers.
The buyer jumps to the conclusion that the seller is that good guy he's been waiting for, on the strength of a few matching signals.
But the more the seller says after that point to demonstrate defining characteristics of his knowledge, personality, or character, the more he risks varying from the buyer's internal model. Less is more, because by increasing the number of points of comparison, the more the seller risks spoiling the match.
Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”
#69"When you're young, the temptation is maybe to think, 'More is more.' But a lot of the time less is more."
-- Daniel Ricciardo
Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”
#70I am sorry he lost the money, but this quote:
> My intentions were good, if naive. I helped both Yahoo and Viaweb. Business isn’t just about winning; it’s about helping others.
Tells me that he's a decent chap.
I mentioned in another post, that today's culture doesn't reward "decent chaps."
In my own case, I don't care. I do my best to be a "decent chap," even though I'll never get rich that way.
I'm clean-shaven, and it's important to be able to look myself in the eye every morning, or I'd cut myself to ribbons.