Reputation is something you want to protect at all costs. Therefore pursuing deals that you are serious about will payoff in the long run. I’ve seen too many head scratching LOI’s which made no sense for the buyer or from the seller or there was no value proposition or alignment with why were you pursuing this business.

Additionally, keeping a poker face throughout the process whereby you don’t tip your hand on your heavy interest. We had a seller willing to concede some major yet fair concessions only to have one of the syndication partners from the buyer’s team send a letter to the seller telling them how much they loved the business and how afraid of the seller’s legal team they were in the negotiations. Needless to say, the seller dug their heels and rescinded their consideration of any concessions.