Bargaining Power

If you were to buy a house, you would not wait until the day of closing to negotiate the price. At that point you have very little bargaining power because you have put in a lot of time, energy and interest in getting to that point and the seller knows it. At the closing you could say I want [a specific low price], but the seller could easily say no, knowing that you already want the house or you would not have been involved in the process up until closing; it is obvious that you have invested in the house whether financially or not.

So with that example in place, it does not make sense to me to see people negotiate referral fees, salaries or stock participation in companies after they have already been involved in them. Now one can always walk away from any deal, but the further along we are, the more expensive it is to do so.

The awareness for today (and this is very important for myself as well) is to not get ourselves stuck in the place of little leverage. We need to look at our situations and ensure that we are getting the deal we want from the beginning, not pushing it off to deal with when we have no bargaining power.
~Paul