If There’s No Wellness Of Fit, Don’t Do The Deal

I have been working on developing a potentially significant partnership. There has been lots of preliminary communication, lots of foundation-building effort. All has progressed slowly, cautiously and with honesty and clear communications… or so I thought.

We reached the time when a term sheet was appropriate and we provided one. Not only did I get a huge rejection but I also got a reversal on most of the terms already agreed on.

I believe we could probably work our way back to common ground on the deal but what was revealed here was lack of trust. While I was building trust, or so I thought, apparently my “partner” in development was not sharing the same goal. He was not dealing openly and honestly. In fact, in the end he demonstrated an enormous lack of respect for our proprietary products, our intellectual property, etc.

I believe we could still put a deal together, but I am probably going to walk away instead.

I was unable to create a trusting relationship and, after so much effort, my belief is it will never happen and I prefer not to do business on such a high level without trust. In short, it will just be a matter of time before I am once again left out in the cold, so why engage?

There is more to a relationship than just the bottom line. I have long ago learned the lesson to walk away if there is no trust, required for “wellness of fit” as I call it. If trust is not there, don’t do it. Greed motivates many deals – totally controls some – and will eventually end in disaster because greed is destructive. There must be trust for a relationship to work.

There must be respect or the relationship will eventually fail – this is absolute. I am not talking about normal buying and selling, I am talking about business relationships based on mutual dependence. Trust and respect is critical and no matter how good the underlying business deal may be, if there is no trust or respect, there can be no relationship and thus the deal will fail. It’s better to walk away and not do it if there is no “wellness of fit”.