A great post from Fred Wilson’s blog that discusses a more personal approach to negotiating changes in terms for any type of deal.  When I previously worked in real estate investing, it took me a couple of gaffes before I learned this principle.  Some people would take offense to my initial offers (that seemed so clear and flexible on paper).  At first I tried to explain that “this is how the game works”, then I realized that there is no “game” and it really was my responsibility to walk the sellers through what can be an often intimidating process.  Usually by taking the time to explain things and work with them I was able to get even better deals than I had previously detailed using my inefficient document-only approach.

Great idea to put this out there Fred!