I Spent 6 Months Negotiating a $100K+ Deal With a 9-Figure Brand… And Nearly Lost It All

He hung up the phone.

I just want to get this contract approved.

I understand that, but at the end of the day, for the size of the business that you're running and the operation that I'm running, this is our best and final offer. Like, I want to make this work also, but— Oh, I've been trying to close this deal for like 6 months. I have met with him in multiple cities, have gone out plenty of times, have become really good friends at this point, honestly. I'll put together the contract and I'll get it sent over to you today. Let's fucking go. It's one of the biggest logos that I think we've ever closed in the— it is in the history of the business. No, I want to pace back and forth. He hung up the phone. He's probably gonna text me in 2 seconds and be like, "I'll hit you back, I'm on a call." Oh, he texted me. Let's see what he said. Yo. "That's the part people don't see. On a Zoom, will hit you as soon as I free up. Crazy day." Okay. Exactly what you guessed. That's what I guessed. That's the cost of doing business, I guess. Oh, I've been trying to close this deal for like 6 months. I met with him in multiple cities. I've gone out plenty of times, have become really good friends at this point, honestly. But I'm hoping that we can get it done. I want a signature by the end of day tomorrow. So we'll find out. What's the block? It's a behemoth of a negotiation. I mean, it's a, it's like a, it's a high 8, low 9-figure brand. I feel like there's just so many details that have to be ironed out to get someone comfortable of that size to rebuild a full website. So it's just been a lot of patience, but I think we're gonna get there. Yo Ben, how we doing?

Doing well, how are you?

Doing well.

I'm on a long walk right now.

Yeah, getting your 4 miles in?

Trying my best. Oh yeah. Um, okay, I got it internally. The only last thing, everything else can come to terms on, the no rollover, etc., but I presented a really big [MASKED] loss an hour. And so my thing is that we can— if you can turn it to more and we still keep that rate, or I don't know what we can do in the middle, but that's the only hangup from my side, right, is being able to— instead of 30, be 40 hours. Okay, it's just the retainer, like, on us. Jump around, you know, and I'm trying to make this work. Uh, obviously the first thing we proposed to you guys, uh, everything we can come to terms on is just this last point.

Yeah, but the hourly goes down. The, the is, is giving you off $20 on our hourly. All our clients pay the behemoths. Okay, we're not— you're not— we, we're not going to get $20 an hour It's just because you're going to want our best.

You're going to want—

you're going to want our— but you're going to want our best engineers on your account.

It's a—

it's a margin thing. It financially doesn't make sense.

Here's what I have to say to you. If that's the case, then I can only do 30 because I have to stay within the retainer, right? Because of the amount that we're talking here, like, I'm already jumping, uh, for the same amount of hours. I know we might use more later, but like, I need to— in order for you to get this across the line on my side That's one of the hurdles. I can't go that much higher on the retainer right now. I know you guys want like 40 or 45 hours, but that's just too much monthly, including the original website costs. You're trying to balance everything out.

I know, but your business is going to need more than 30 hours. We've done this with almost 200 brands.

Fine. Listen, that's fine. You and I both know this.

I know, but you have to understand. You have to understand. And I will. It's going to be in writing in the contract. That overages are charged at our standard rate. Our overages are at one— at overages, because the whole point—

I probably won't go to that rate, but right now, in order to get this across the line, that's kind of what I have to do.

No, I know, but I'm just telling you, I'm just telling you that if you guys start the retainer and you go over 30 hours a month You will be paying for every additional overage an hour. Within the first 30, 60 days, we'll know how much we're going to need.

Within the first 30, 60, 90, you get what I'm saying? So we can adjust that. You and I already know, and you can put that on writing. I probably will change your caterer immediately, but right now, you know, if we can get this across the line, I need to be at an hour. I can't do—

I can't do— I can't—

I understand, I get it, and whatever it is, what it is. I want to make this happen, but that's the last step. Like Just put it at 30 hours from now. I have to get something. You know what I mean? I'm trying to support my team, but I can't.

I know we're going to go higher. I can put it— I can put it at 30 hours, but I'm telling you that I can't do 30 hours.

I know, it's fine. Fuck that. Whatever. It is what it is, bro. Forget the 30 hours. It's going to be 30 hours. And put in there that we can upgrade at any point because you and I both know we're probably going to need to get 45 to 50 hours per month.

I know you're combining the two offers. It's $100 an hour at 30 hours or $100 for 45 hours. Like, this is our best and final offer. Like, I want to make this work also, but like, I also have a business to run the same way that you negotiate internally. I do too. If you're not— if you're going to bow out of a deal over $100 for a couple of months, then like, bros.

It's just upfront cost and—

yeah, but the retainer, but the retainer doesn't start until the storefront is done, so you're looking at several months out anyways, brother.

I know that, but if I put this in front of Tino's higher numbers, it ain't going to work. What I know is going to work is saying, all right, look, I can change the agreement, and you and I both know probably get to 40 or 45 an hour, I'm fine with that, but for now keep it at 30 just for contract purposes. Bro, I'm building a website. I'm obviously going to use through you guys. That's no plan to go anywhere else. But in order for me to cross the line with my team, that's kind of what I have to do. Um, listen, put it in writing. I have, you know, time to be able to switch, uh, from the 30 hours to 40 or 45. And if not, there's overages. I'm fine with that because I already know when the time comes we're just going to increase it. But right now In order to cross the finish line, this is kind of one of the situations where I have to put that down.

Yeah, I get it. I'm just— you're not respecting the offer that I put in front of you. You're trying to take one piece from one line item and another piece from another line item and put them together.

It accomplishes the same shit at the end of the day.

It doesn't because it's a different price point because you're asking for 30 hours, which is substantially lower. The whole point— you don't get a price break for lower amount of hours. You get a price break for a higher amount of hours. So you're asking me to give you the lower amount of hours at a lower price break. I understand you're saying like we're probably gonna go up anyways, but like a contract is a contract. At the end of the day, for the size of the business that you're running and the operation that I'm running, if you're gonna bow out of a deal over hundreds of dollars, then it probably wasn't meant to work anyways. Like you have to respect the fact that like I can't go any lower than this.

I mean—

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I've been talking to this brand founder negotiating a deal for over 6 months now, and we've just been going back and forth. I went to LA, spent a week with them there. It's like phone call every other day negotiating at every single point. And then in the last call a couple days ago, I was like, this is best and final, like take it or leave it. And I woke up this morning and realized I had a missed call from him last night at like 11 p.m. He's like, hey, can you hit me back to talk? So I'm hopefully going to talk to him later today and then we'll find out what the verdict is on the deal. It's, it's a household brand name. Like most people know who this brand is. And I think one of the benefits of running and operating a really large brand is that you can have your way with service providers and vendors because a lot of vendors will make concessions because they want to be able to say that they've worked with a brand of your size. And I feel like that was us when we first started the company 3.5 years ago. And now that we've started to, like, gain a little bit of traction and have really good deal flow, fortunately, we've learned to, like, have a backbone and say no to deals that don't work for our business. The other thing to note is big brands, they will appreciate if you hold your ground because that means you know your value and respect your own worth. And oftentimes they end up coming back to you to try to get something done, which hopefully is the case here. Time to hit the gym for an hour. Uh, I did 3 hours yesterday at the boxing gym, so took the morning off, and now I want to do an hour of mobility and some strength training. I feel like I want to do legs, which is crazy. I haven't done legs in a while. I did everything I said I wouldn't said it first. I mean, the world's in denial, but they all know what I'm headed for. We about to feed these youngins to the metaverse. Meanwhile, I'm over here just trying to pen a verse because I'm done being extra with the extroverts. You gotta say something. I'm like tired. That was like heavyweight, low rep, all explosiveness. I gotta get used to this the next 4 months. I feel like I've always I always resorted to like lifting heavy weights when I stopped playing sports. Yeah. Now I have to do like athletic workouts again. You get your 4-mile walk in yet today? You better be walking right now in this call. There's no sitting and talking. What's going on?

I got everything settled down on my side, and look, I need to get this one at the store at— it needs to be 40 hours.

Yeah, that's fine.

Yeah, if we can not get it in something, just drop it in.

Okay, then I will, um, I'll put together the contract contract and I'll get it sent over to you today. I mean, I can send it to you today, uh, as soon as we get it signed. I can talk to the team, but we can probably get a kickoff call scheduled like 40— within 48 hours after signature. Yeah, we can get a call Monday.

All right. And then also to get to know, like, I essentially want to know what the whole process is going to be like, cuz I'll be like pretty much involved in everything. And then whenever we need my team members, I'll tag them in. But I want to make sure I'm like fully in the know. So whatever that looks like.

Yeah, I mean, on the, on the onboarding call, that's essentially what the purpose of the onboarding call is, to walk you through everything that you need to expect.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, all right, dude, I will, uh, I'll get that drafted up and sent over, and then we can rock and roll.

Sounds like a plan, bro.

All right, later.

Thanks, bro.

Let's fucking go, dude. That was literally— that was the longest deal I've ever negotiated. Let's fucking go. I got to call my co-founder and tell him.

Your call has been forwarded to voicemail. He's busy.

He's busy closing other deals, so he doesn't even answer the How do you feel, dude? I'm excited about it, uh, just because, I mean, the name of the game with sales is sometimes you do shit like that and it doesn't end up working out, and then you feel like you just spent so much time working on something and have nothing to show for it. But it's just like part of the game. Like, chasing nos is literally the way sales works. But when you, when you nail those big ones, it just, it's That's why you play the game right there. I'm excited about this one. It's one of the biggest logos that I think we've ever closed in the— it is in the history of the business. Uh, implementation and month retainer for 12 months. Did he pay? No, he just verbally agreed to the price.

Yeah, that's not—

what do you guys think? Mia, you're happy about the deal too? Same. High five, high five. Come here, Paul. Oh, you can join too. Yo, what up? Finally got it fucking done. I hope you enjoyed my first video. I've been talking about making a YouTube channel for the last 5 years now, and for for whatever reason, could just never get myself over the hump of wanting everything to be so perfect. I finally did it. I have a lot more content to share in the coming weeks and coming months. If you made it to the end of my first video and you're still watching this, send me a DM on Instagram, @bensharf. I bought a special gift for what I think will be the most loyal person on my channel if you're the first person to make it through the entire first video that I posted. I guess I can end it with, uh, see you guys next week. See you guys next week.