Stick To Your Guns
From good news to bad news, life seems to pack one next to the other, no matter how the world seems to be treating you. The multi-million dollar contract that we were working on has fallen through, but thank goodness it fell through in the manner that it did. I'll explain...
When we first started dealing with the bid we were a bit cautious as I stated in my earlier post regarding the bid (the post titled 'A Day Of Great Expectations'). I had asked a few friends to do some research on the company that we were dealing with in England to make sure that the offer was legitimate. The initial findings that we received weren't very promising, but we concluded that the best course of action would be to continue with the bidding process and see if our suspicions were disproven.
Up until the end of the process, we were happily disproven most times by the buyer. When we'd ask about something we were suspicious about, they'd answer in a way that gave us enough doubt in our suspicion to be comfortable with proceeding. As we got closer to the end however, they started making demands for product without payment, and finally for payment of a bogus registration fee to a government agency in Britain that didn't exist.
We finished up our research with our friends, and retracted our bid offer when they refused to take the £1,350 registration fee out of the several million Pound Sterling payment we were to receive on Monday (May 14th, 2007). We have contacted British and American Authorities and are working with both to try and track down the people we were dealing with so that they can't scam someone else.
Luckily, because of our suspicions and the title of this post, we didn't lose a penny on the scam. The phrase 'stick to your guns' is one of my favorite when it comes to business transcations. I know my company, I know what we're capable of and more importantly what we're comfortable with. I do not leave our 'guns' at any point during a negotiation, regardless of how large or small the transaction is.
In this case, our 'guns' were the facts that we would not begin working on building anything until we had received payment, and that we weren't going to pay for anything that we didn't know was necessary to pay for up front. We paid for things we needed, such as licenses with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, our distributors, etc.
We're all pretty upset about the loss of this 'contract', but we've already begun advertising all over the internet with our new website. If you search for the right terms, you might even see one of our links on the side of MSN Live Search or Google. ;)
- Andy
When we first started dealing with the bid we were a bit cautious as I stated in my earlier post regarding the bid (the post titled 'A Day Of Great Expectations'). I had asked a few friends to do some research on the company that we were dealing with in England to make sure that the offer was legitimate. The initial findings that we received weren't very promising, but we concluded that the best course of action would be to continue with the bidding process and see if our suspicions were disproven.
Up until the end of the process, we were happily disproven most times by the buyer. When we'd ask about something we were suspicious about, they'd answer in a way that gave us enough doubt in our suspicion to be comfortable with proceeding. As we got closer to the end however, they started making demands for product without payment, and finally for payment of a bogus registration fee to a government agency in Britain that didn't exist.
We finished up our research with our friends, and retracted our bid offer when they refused to take the £1,350 registration fee out of the several million Pound Sterling payment we were to receive on Monday (May 14th, 2007). We have contacted British and American Authorities and are working with both to try and track down the people we were dealing with so that they can't scam someone else.
Luckily, because of our suspicions and the title of this post, we didn't lose a penny on the scam. The phrase 'stick to your guns' is one of my favorite when it comes to business transcations. I know my company, I know what we're capable of and more importantly what we're comfortable with. I do not leave our 'guns' at any point during a negotiation, regardless of how large or small the transaction is.
In this case, our 'guns' were the facts that we would not begin working on building anything until we had received payment, and that we weren't going to pay for anything that we didn't know was necessary to pay for up front. We paid for things we needed, such as licenses with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, our distributors, etc.
We're all pretty upset about the loss of this 'contract', but we've already begun advertising all over the internet with our new website. If you search for the right terms, you might even see one of our links on the side of MSN Live Search or Google. ;)
- Andy
Labels: Zibings Incorporated, Zibings Technologies, ZibTech Computers
posted by z|Andrew at
8:21 PM
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