When You Swim With Sharks, Take Your Calculator

You ought to have your calculator handy when you watch ABC’s Shark Tank, the TV show where wealthy angel investors make on-the-spot investments into small businesses.

Recently a middle-aged business owner was offered 3 deals in rapid succession.  For me, this was a simple math problem: Which offer gave the owner the best valuation?

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The Power of “No”

I’ve been doing a lot of negotiating lately: Contracts, pricing, sales. And I’ve discovered a super-power that I did not know that I had… the power to say NO.

NO has saved me from making huge mistakes and has earned me countless thousands of dollars. When a prospect asked me to reduce my bid price by half, I said no. When another wanted twice the service for the same price, I said no.

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