When is it too late

When is it too late,,, Too late for what? At many business situations, we are asking ourselves: ?Is it too late to pull back, to resign from the deal??

But are we able to detect the threat, to listen to messages, verbal or non-verbal, particularly body language ones, send by our prospect partners?

 When should a business person be most careful to proceed with the activities in order to conclude the deal?

 1) When they ask you for a personal guarantee… such as a bill of exchange with which you should also put risk your own, family property. It is a call to alert…to evaluate pros and cons once again, for various perspective, to understand from all aspects. If someone is to put a mortgage on your home or garden, that is a serious warning. There could be at least two reasons for that. At a) the prospective partner is attempting to double-cross you - the dangers are in the contract you may not be able to detect them due to the language barrier even if there is an official translation attached in the language you are best in as the relevant one is in the language used at local courts in case of disputes or legal charges. At b) – maybe your business plan or business proposal is unrealistic, or full of the wrong assumption, that the prospective partner is doubting about it.

 2) When you are gently introduced to the family members of your business partners, among which you will meet back belt proud bearers, several cousins with about 2 meters of height, boxing champs, or others, well dressed in black and having light colour ties or who have problems to explain which business are they into.

3) When your co-owner is all the sudden changing passwords you were using as well?

4) Many others.

 A businessman has to develop the skills and detection of fraud, danger and wrong decisions to cope with them. The best is if one is suspicious enough – not to block the business attempts – to keep in control and balance the indices and actions of the opposite party. But many times it is impossible to conduct the business progress that way.

 A decade ago I was intermediate in a very big acquisition of a government-owned company somewhere in the Balkan region. Let’s call the country Balkania. I met and discuss the deal with local ministers and company’s managers in the role of representative of the buyer (who actually never showed up in the country) having and showing his letter of appointment. The buyer all the sudden decision to pull back from the deal and I was in the mud to my knees. I immediately formed a group of new investors, including myself, to take over the proposed deal. Very soon we were all together in Balkania, explaining the P.M. our entrepreneurs business idea. The next evening we were invited to the evening party by the present chairman of the target company at which the guest of honour was the most important and popular minister of the actual government. He arrived late with bodyguards carrying uzis. The peak of the evening or early morning was, when the minister, being in good mood, was simulating a stripper dance on my table (but of course, fully dresses and decent). At that very moment, I knew it was too late to pull back and say Balkania goodbye. We were in the inner circle, we saw things no foreigner did, actually, it was clear that we were accepted to proceed with the deal. No retreat...

The example is – of course – a bit on the extreme side. The messages one would receive will probably be of a more sophisticated manner. To a sensitive businessman, much less rough indices will ring the bell. But we, entrepreneurs, we have a problem with ourselves:

We become “obsessed” or “in love” with a project while trapped between logical, smart, nd reasonable decision making. If the feelings as such are prevailing and influencing your decisions in too high extent, we may go bust and do not recognize the last getaway taxi at the front door… so, learn to recognize the call to withdraw.front door…so, learn to recognize the call to withdraw.