Small Business Mediation Tips, Tricks and Advice from Dave Hamilton and Shannon Jean – Small Business Show 164

The Small business show, episode 164 for Wednesday, March 28, 2018. Greetings, folks, and welcome to the Small Business show here at BusinessShow Co the show by, for and about small business owners. Sponsors for this episode include Textexpander, where@textexpander.com podcast you can get 20% off your first year. And Jamf. We're at jamf j-a m f.com SBS you can get your first three. Actually, you get three devices at any point in time for free for life. We'll tell you what that means in a little bit. Here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in Lafayette, California, I am Shannon Jean. How are you, man?

I'm good. I'm good. I'm a little cold, but I'm good. Yeah.

You had a heat issue.

I saw. I'm happy having a heat issue.

Yes. I saw a request for a space heater on Facebook.

That's right. You know that. I guess my wife posted it just generally on Facebook. I posted mine. We have a private group or a closed group, whatever the Facebook calls it. There's no privacy over there, but it's closed groups.

Absolutely.

Yeah. For our neighborhood. And we started this before next door was a thing or anything. But that's been a really handy thing because I posted out there and within about 20 minutes, I had like four different neighbors saying, yeah, just come on by. And the nice thing is it's just, you know, it's. I know that it's the, you know, 200 people that live within, you know, three minutes of me or whatever. So it's. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah.

Yeah, it is pretty good. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, that's awesome. Very cool. Well, hey, after last week, after last week's show, we were talking, as we often do as the show wraps up, and we start chatting and then something comes up and we. We got on the topic of legal stuff and mediation and arbitration.

I even teased that a little bit in the episode.

Yeah.

That I had an interesting experience where I learned something I didn't expect to learn, which is the best, you know.

Yeah. So we're going to talk about that today. We're going to talk about the differences in mediation and arbitration, how you may be involved in those. And then we've each got, of course, because we've been in business for a long time, we've each got stories about these that we would love to share.

Yeah, well, we're going to. We would love. Yes, we share them. Yes, that's right.

And we are. We're going to do it. So.

So let's start.

Let's talk about. You want to jump right in? Talk about the differences between the two?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah.

So I. I mean, from my perspective, you know, arbitration, one of the biggest things, it can be binding most often when it's in, like, contracts and things like when you click lots of terms and conditions, maybe even on Facebook or wherever you're using. Oftentimes there's our binding arbitration clauses in really meant to avoid litigation.

Right, right. So I think we should rewind just a step and explain the difference. So when you litigate something, that means you're going to go into a courtroom, either with just a judge or with a jury, and there's different ways to get there. And, you know, we won't go into that. That's right. But that's sort of.

We did a show on that not too long ago.

That's right. That's sort of the classic, you know, two people, two parties disagree about something. And so we're gonna go and, you know, present our case to this group of presumably neutral people or person, if it's just a judge. And. And then that. The decision that person makes is, you know, more or less final because there's always, you know, you can potentially appeal and that sort of. Sure. But, you know, you're turning it over to somebody else. Whereas mediation and arbitration. I'm taking the binding thing out of there, but. But I think most arbitration is binding. That's usually the difference. But. But that's something where you go to a. A lawyer's office or a mediator's office, and you sit in a conference room and potentially the. The other party is there, whether or not they're in the same room. We'll talk about that in a minute. But everybody's there and everybody speaks their piece. And then the goal is to get everyone to try and agree willingly, voluntarily, without certainly without it being binding. It's up to the two parties to come up with an agreement and maybe.

Yeah. Trying to reach a common solution that everybody can live with. Right.

And the person that's paid as a mediator is there to sort of ease that process along in whatever method. You know, it's a conflict resolution thing. It's. It's like marriage counseling, I guess.

Yeah. So. And if you find yourself in a legal situation and you're going up to, you know, proceeding and going, you know, hey, we're going to go to court and everything, you will be pushed into a. One of these Things to try to get it resolved before you go to trial.

The judge may mandate it.

Yes.

That says you have to at least try and fail non binding mediation before I will let you, you know, walk past the bar here and take my.

Time in my courtroom. Yeah, time is the major thing that, that judges and the courts are concerned about. So they want to keep you out of there. Even if you've had a lawsuit filed against you or you filed against someone, doesn't matter. Yeah. Part of the proceedings leading up to that, like, okay, let's do the alternative dispute resolution, which is typically mediation.

Yep, yep, yep, yep, you got it.

And you know, it. It often works. I mean, one of the biggest benefits is you do get that objective third party person to review the situation and try to try to get both parties to reach some, some kind of common ground. And it, and I think another big benefit of it is it's typically private and confidential where once you go to court, it's not correct.

It depends on the mediation, you know, the outcome. And it depends on the state in which the proceedings are happening, the outcome or even the process of settlement discussions of which mediation falls under that umbrella. Right. It's just, it's another type of settlement discussion. Those are generally like the. Everything divulged there, offered there, you know, denied there, whatever. All of that is inadmissible in court. But if it is successful, then everything's admissible in some states. Yeah, yeah. Depending on. But, but that, that. So that gets very interesting. Right. Because. Or maybe not everything, but, but certainly the result, the outcome of it is, is admissible and all of that stuff because it becomes a contract. Like, like any other contract. Sure. So. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah, that's great. And then also housing, it's typically much less expensive because you're saving time again, you're paying attorneys and the, once you get to court, it can take a long time and still not get resolved in the way you'd like it to. So you can certainly save time and money by, by going through the mediation process potentially.

I'm not convinced of that with, with the scenario I just went through.

I forget you're like a junior lawyer, so.

Yeah, yeah, I'm a hack lawyer is what I am.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. But yeah, well, I think especially if you can, like in my case, one of the time, I've been through it a couple times and one time we never even got to the point where the judge said, okay, you have to go to mediation now. It was just like offered up and about, you know, a Quarter of the way through the process. Process. Let's say it's like, hey, let's try mediation and just see if we can get it resolved then. And in our case, it saved us a ton of money, and we got it, you know, did get it resolved quickly. So, yeah, worked out pretty good. Yeah. And. And I think, too, with mediation, there's a much. And this is just in my, you know, anecdotal experience here is there's a possibility that you can work things out in such a way that you can. You could continue your business relationship with the parties involved.

Yeah. Court usually means thou shalt not interact anymore.

Like, yeah, everybody's so angry or whatever that, you know. But. But mediation if. Because often mediation brings out lots of details that maybe you or the other party weren't aware of. And so it's kind of a discovery or can be a discovery thing if.

Both parties are willing to hear them.

Yes, true. That's correct. That's correct. Yeah. You have to have both people there. You can't have one person there with their arms crossed, angry, and try to do anything. It's a waste of your time.

Right. Or simply, you know, delusional. But that's okay.

That's. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's. That's true. We're going to talk about that a little bit, maybe.

Yeah.

Yeah, maybe. We'll see. We'll see where it goes. But, yeah, but I think that, you know, works out pretty well. I mean, or it can. And in one of my cases, and I'll give you a little background here.

Sure.

We had a. I went through mediation. We had a dispute with a massively large giant corporation that was really angry at me, and not me in particular, but us. As if. Like a mosquito flying around you in the middle of the night when you're trying to swat it and kill it. Right. That's kind of the way I still think of it to this day, is we bothered them so much that they really wanted to try to kill us. But in our case, when we went to mediation, the mediator didn't show up. And, yeah, he got his, you know, whatever calendar messed up or whatever. So.

Okay.

Yeah, it wasn't that they didn't show on purpose, but. But. So we were in these two. Separate. Separate. Actually, we started in this one conference room, and we'd been down a long road before we got to this mediation. It was. It was a long and painful road, usually.

Right.

Yes, yes. And one of my attorneys, because we had multiple ones in the room because These guys brought like, you know, an entire, an army of them as their. One of their intimidation tactics. And of course, so we were fortunate that one of the attorneys.

Can I ask you a question about this? Because the mediation that I did, we did wind up settling, which will sort of spoil the story down the road, but trust me, it won't spoil it. And after we settled, then we were able. At that point, we all saw each other. But up until that point, for the entirety of the productive part of the mediation, if you want to call it that, I was in one conference room with my attorney. The other party was in another conference room, obviously with their counsel. And then the mediator bounced back and forth, trying to. As I quantified it, you're just going back and forth telling either party the lies that the one just asked you to tell them. Right. Here's what I'll take. It's like, yeah, really? Okay. So we never interacted. And I, I, I got the feeling that that was a decision made by the mediator for this particular set of circumstances and people, and that not. That wasn't necessarily how it always was, but usually is how it starts. So I'm sure we had that way.

Yeah, ours was actually a little different. We all piled in because we were kind of standing around the lobby of this, you know, place that we were meeting, and nothing was going on. So that we, we all went into a large. Fortunately, one of the attorneys on my side actually did mediation and was involved in that. And so when the other person didn't show up, he said, hey, look, guys, why don't we split up and let's just see how far we can take this thing? And he played the role of mediator and did a very objective job to the point where I think it actually benefited. Now that I have, I've had some distance, you know, of a decade or more on that, it probably benefited us a lot because I felt very comfortable.

You trusted him?

Yeah, yeah, I really trusted him. And I felt that, you know, he was really representing our case. And, you know, we were definitely at, you know, we were kind of in a weak point in the sense like, you know, there's a few things I've learned if going through a thing like this, it's, number one, don't, don't really make giant. If you're going to make a giant corporation angry or and kind of say, no, you're wrong over and over and over and over. You need to have some money to back that up.

Yep.

Because it's expensive to prove that you're right. And even if you do prove you're.

Right, you won't necessarily win. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, that's correct. That's correct. And the, the. One of the first things I learned after spending a bunch of money is you may not. You may need a different kind of attorney for this type of thing because your, your small business attorney may not have the kind of experience that's required when you're dealing with a bunch of very expensive, high powered corporate guys that are like sharks, you know, that, that. So, so you got to ask yourself if we're gonna go in and fight a fight like this. And, and I was young and much, I don't want to say stupid, but less experienced than I am now.

Lacking wisdom.

Yeah, lacking wisdom. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so, but, but along the way, I learned a lot. And, you know, one of the things I learned is that after, you know, what kind of attorney do we really need here? And, and also that, you know, you may lose the battle, but you still can win the war in, in the long run.

Right.

And. And part of winning the war is being able to live to fight another day.

Right.

And totally.

Well, yeah. And the problem when you're going up against a big company is they know that they probably have the ability to outspend you.

There's no doubt.

Right?

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's part of the process, you know, is there? It's like they're going to win by attrition, you know, and can they just wait you out?

Yeah, yeah.

And if this is your first time, which in my case it was the first time I'd ever been through anything like this, and I was so shocked to learn, like, things like, you know, facts that you felt really helped you can easily be twisted to make you look like the bad guy. And, you know, intentions can be really skewed. And so the place to learn about mediation or going through legal processes is not. When you're fighting, you know, a Fortune 100 company, it'd be. It's. It's much better to do it on a small scale and learn a little bit first.

I would. Yeah, I write that. Yep. But you don't usually get to make that choice.

No, I didn't get. Yeah, that's correct. That's, you know, and then.

Yep.

Yeah. Well, yourself, you up there, you're there.

Right. You find yourself in a scenario and it's like, okay, well, we're standing on the precipice here of either walk away or learn through this process and hopefully make you Know, get an outcome that's livable, right?

Yeah, that's livable.

That's it. Yep. Yeah.

And the last couple things on this. On this topic real quick, because I know we're going to jump into something else, but, you know, one of the things you want to be sure is make sure the attorneys that work for you know exactly what you want. I felt like one of the things that I didn't do a good job of was really conveying to them what we were trying to get out. I know I wanted to win, but after going through it, I realized that winning was very broad statement.

It's a broad statement. Yeah. There's. Because rarely does some. Is there a. You know, rarely do you win 100%, even if you go to court. Right. I mean, it's possible, and I've actually been in those scenarios where it has happened. But. But it's. First of all, it's rare. And secondly, it might not like, even winning 100% might not get you what you really want or need coming out of it. So you really need to examine that. Yeah, yeah.

And ask yourself. And then. And then communicate to your. Your team and that last 10% that you really want may be so expensive for you that it's not worth it.

That's so funny that that's what you say.

Yeah. And I think you're. I think you have a story related to that, too, but. Yeah. Yeah. So that's my huge, giant corporate story. And, you know, lastly, try not to be intimidated. It's really hard, but, you know, they're going to play all kinds of games with you, because that's what it is to a lot of these guys that are on the corporate, you know, hourly payroll making 500 bucks or, you know, thousand bucks an hour. They're going to play all kinds of games, and they're going to roll in with all kinds of equipment and people and that. And you're gonna. You're gonna be sitting there going, oh, my gosh. You know, there's no way I knew.

Going into this mediation that I had to remain as unemotional and objective as possible. Yeah. And there was one moment I said that we didn't intermingle. We actually did. The. The attorney from the other side came in at one point and was, you know, explaining their perspective on things, and their perspective, as I'll tell you in a minute, was like, totally out off the wall, of course. And. And my attorney said, you know, because we had a lot of moments where we were either talking with the mediator or in this case, talking with both the mediator and the opposing counsel, you know, the other attorney. And then we had a lot of moments where it was just my attorney and I sitting in a conference room, like, you know, checking out RSS feeds and, you know, talking about waiting stuff. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And so he. I didn't realize that I did this, but he pointed it out to me. He said my favorite moment of this. He's like, I don't think we're ever. Anything else is going to happen today that's going to trump this. He said, she said something that was. That to you was totally off the wall. And he's like, your hands went in the air. And it was obvious that if you had just gone with that, you would have completely, like, screamed at her and told her how wrong she was and how ridiculous this whole thing was. And he says, you probably would have just stormed out the door and we would have gone home. You know, like, it was clear that that was the re. That was the gut reaction. And he said before you even, like you opened your mouth and then brought your hands together in front of your face or in front of your chest, rested him on the desk, took a breath and explained why she was wrong. And I was like, that's good. Like, yay, me.

Yeah, you settled yourself before you exploded on her.

But that. Yeah, that's the thing. Is it, like, there are times when the explosion is actually beneficial. Not in a cathartic way. It's always beneficial in a cathartic way, but in a long term way, showing, okay, if you want to cross that line, here's what you'll be met with. Right. And sometimes that can be the intimidation in reverse. Right. But it can also show that you might fly off the handle. And if you get to court, like, wow, I can make this person look really bad in court just by bringing this up, like, all of that stuff. So you have to. Every word that comes out of your mouth, even in mediation, where it can't be used against you unless you agree that it can be used against you. Even there. Like, I found myself being. And I'm used to it. We talk on the show all the time. You know, I've been doing this for 13 years. I'm used to being on stage and pre processing the things that come out of my mouth. Usually I'm not always great at it. Right. But you know, it's something. And using that there was just like taking a breath before I reply slide and, you know, explaining, okay, well, here's. Here's actually what happened. And. And here's where we are. And. And, you know, all of the things that were frustrating me, I was able to articulate as opposed to just venting about and that. And that. I mean, I don't know if it helped or not sure. But. But it's. It's. You want to be intentional about everything that you do there and. And if only to prepare yourself for the courtroom if mediation fails. So.

No, it's great.

Yeah. I want to talk about our two sponsors before I get into the nuts and bolts of my story and the thing that I learned from this media.

Excellent.

Okay. Our first sponsor is Textexpander, of course, from the company Smile. Well, there@smilesoftware.com, but you can go to a straight link for Textexpander if you visit Textexpander.com podcast. Yes, that's the right link. You get 20% off your subscription of Textexpander for the first year. Textexpander lets you communicate smarter, more efficiently, and more accurately. What textexpander does is, in essence, or put most simply, lets you create snippets for things that you would type or things that you might copy, paste all the time. Right. So before I used textexpander, what I did was I had. I think I had a sticky note. I mean, it was. It's been that long, right? You know, like a computer sticky note where I would have all these things that I needed to type occasionally, and I would go to the sticky note and okay, yeah, there's the thing I need to type, and I copy it to the clipboard and then paste it into the document. It was like, okay, cool, great. Next. You know, and what textexpander lets you do is invoke those with just a keystroke so you don't have to go to the document and copy and paste. It does all the copy pasting for you from its library that you've created. And you can create things very easily. Like, if you type something and you're like, that is the magic phrase. The next time a customer emails me with a similar question, I want to say this exact thing. You just highlight it, copy it, go to your menu bar and say, you know, create a snippet from this selection, and then, boom, it creates it, and you can assign a little keyboard shortcut to it, and then you're off to the races. That's it. Next time you need it, just invoke the keyboard shortcut. If you can't remember the keyboard shortcut, you just go to your textexpander library and tap. It works out great and works really, really well. It's something I know you use it. I use is an app that I couldn't possibly live without these days. It's just, you know, for business, for personal stuff, for everything. So you got to check it out. Go to textexpander.com podcast and you can download it there and start messing with it and then that'll get you 20% off your first year when you inevitably sign up.

Do it and then thank us later.

Thank us later. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Our second sponsor is jamf@jamf.com SBS that's where you can sign up for JAMF now, which is their device management solution for all your Apple devices at work. So you've got an iPhone, that's yours and you know, maybe an imac or an iPad or something and that, that's fine. And it's easy enough for you to manage your own devices maybe. But as soon as you start having other people for whom you are the responsible person, even if you're not a tech support type of person, oftentimes as the business owner, that job falls to you. And JAMF now makes it super easy to do things like configuring the WI fi settings, setting up email settings, deploying applications, protecting sensitive company data, even remote locking or wiping a device. And yeah, that's the thing with JAMF Now. All of this stuff that I mentioned can be done remotely. So let's say you run a virtual company like I do, but, you know, you might have a couple of salespeople spread across the country if they need help setting up their email. You can put in what you know to be the company credentials and everything into JAMF now and it pushes them across the ether to their devices, wherever they are, and boom, magically these settings are there and then they work. And, you know, there's no, hey, copy this in, or, you know, listen, like, type in what I'm telling you. Like, that stuff gets very, very tedious and it's inefficient, especially when you need to do this for multiple devices because you can do it all at once for many devices and group things. Really, really cool stuff. And as I said at the beginning of the show, you get three devices for free just by signing up@jamf.com SBS and that's not just three devices. And if you happen to take one of them out, well, sorry, you don't know, you get three free slots for devices and you can use any devices you want in those slots. And then when you go over three, you're just paying two bucks a month per device over three. So it's a great deal. And you can get started if, even if you're a solopreneur, I recommend getting started with this now, especially if you're the person that your family members come to for help. Put your family members phones on a JAMF now account. Right. And just learn how it can work for you so that when you get to that point with your business, you realize, whoa, I don't need to hire somebody to do this. I can do it with Jamf now. I already know what to do. Jamf.com j a m f.com SBS is where you go to do that. Yeah, yeah.

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Cool stuff. Thanks to both JAMF and Smile with textexpander for sponsoring this episode. All right, cool. So I did. I was in mediation last week. Yeah. Or maybe the week. I don't know. Whatever. It was very, very recently. And this was a dispute that I never thought would be resolved because we had resolved it several times only to have the other party change their mind is really the best way to say it. Didn't like the way the outcome wanted things to be different. And this was sort of why we got into a dispute in the first place without going into all the nitty gritty that's sort of irrelevant and boring to all of you. But that was sort of the issue. So this wasn't really a surprise. It was just an extension of the frustration and the judge mandate. We had a court date coming right up, but the judge said, as we said before, you got to go to mediation. So I was like, okay, well, this all happened in Texas. I decided, fine. They asked me if there was one day they could do mediation. And it happened to be in the middle of south by Southwest. And I Said, you know what, What? Fine. I'll go to south by Southwest. I'll make some lemonade here. I'll cut out a day. We'll go and do the mediation. It'll be a waste of time, but, you know, at least I'll be in Austin and I'll have had, you know, seen some people and gone to some shows and made. Yeah, made, like I said, made lemonade. No problem. So we get to this mediation and this mediator is, you know, a seasoned pro. Very, very. This is all he does. Right. A lot of times, like you said, you'll have a person who's an attorney who represents, actively represent clients and then also, you know, does mediation for other clients.

Right?

Yeah. And this guy isn't. Was. Not that he was in the past, he was a trial attorney and then had just switched his practice to being entirely mediation, which is fine, no problem. And you mentioned before two things. You mentioned the objective third party, and I think the objective third party comes in as the uninformed third party. When you had your attorney switch kind of on the fly to the role of mediator, that person already had a functional knowledge of at least your description of the case. Sure, yeah. Understood what was going on. So there wasn't a ramp up period. And that's not normally gonna happen because you've got the way a third party is objective is they don't know any of the things. Now this guy came in and he made it clear, I'm not here to make the decisions. I'm not calling balls or strikes. I'm just trying to listen and see if I can find some common ground and help you two get there. It's like, okay, cool. Like, I get it. No problem.

Sounds good.

Yep, sounds good. And I didn't go in. I honestly went in pretty neutral. I was sort of. I know this is gonna sound crazy. I was sort of excited about having the opportunity to go to a jury trial. Right. Because when am I ever gonna have that option again? Like, you know, even if when somebody sues you, it's like you start the clock in years for when that might actually get to trial. So here I was, you know, weeks away from jury trial. And this is interesting. Like, this could be a little bucket list thing. I don't think the judge would like to hear that, so. But no.

Well. And I think it's important you and I don't know every detail about the case and everything, but I don't think there was a lot at stake. There wasn't a big risk for you to go to trial. So you could look at it a little bit differently, be like, oh, this will be great. It'll be an interesting experience.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't expect that this company that, I mean, we made a great product, but I, the way it's been managed over the past couple of years just doesn't give any indication to me that it's going to go anywhere. So this really was just an exercise and potentially protecting some, you know, future worth. But, but really, I don't, I mean, fine, you know, I, I'm not banking on that. Okay, so we get in there and the mediation was a four hour mediation. We did a half day mediation, started at 1:30 and the mediator went back and forth between the, you know, us and the other party. And, and that was fine. And there would be long periods of time where he would be with us. Long periods, maybe, you know, 20min. And then there would be 20 minute periods where he would be with them and digging in and all that stuff, which is fine, no problem. And it started out fine. He started asking sort of the big picture questions. In fact, he was even the one that said, look, we're going to focus going forward. I know that this has been going on a long time. And it was obvious he was giving a spiel that he'd given many, many times. But he's right. By the time you get to mediation, you've been through the muck with this thing. And he's like, look, our goal is to find out if there's a workable path going forward. We don't need to rehash the past. And I'm like, yeah, okay, cool. And I'm kind of laughing in the back of my head because the whole reason that this case existed was because the other party wanted to rehash the past. So I was like, all right, yeah, good. Like, cool. Like this is that. That actually gave me some faith. Right. Like, okay, maybe if it makes sense. Yeah, if he can get them on board with that, like, we're in good shape. Shape. And so we were maybe three, two and a half hours into this, you know, four hour mediation. And he comes in after a long stretch away and asks a question about something that happened like three years ago.

And I mean, like, not sticking to his moving forward thing. Yeah.

And I, and I even had to get clarity. Like he sat down and just asked the question. He didn't say, okay, I think I've got like a thing. He just sat down and in this very like almost bewildered voice asks this question. It was a very different person that was sitting in front of me, right? And I had to like, I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, right now you're asking, like, related to today, or are you going back three years? And he's like, well, back in the fall and summer of 2015. And both my attorney and I are like, whoa, dude, like, we don't have time to do that. Like, like just what he says, well, this is really an important aspect of the case. And, you know, so we let him kind of talk and then my attorney even said something like, well, these are some really nice trees that we're looking at here in this forest here. But this isn't gonna get us anywhere, like, because my attorney does some mediations. He's one of those guys that does both. And so, you know, and the guy's like, well, you know, we really got to get into this. And this was, was sort of the problem with negotiating with this with this other person was anytime we tried, it would get into these, you know, like, I always called it cherry picking. It would be like, okay, you're picking the one thing out of the big picture and avoiding looking at the big picture and just obsessing about this one thing that, that, sure, if that's all this was about, then, right, your perspective would be correct.

But it's, which is what the mediator is supposed to see through that and keep on the, on the big picture.

Right, but, but, you know, this other person has, is a pro at this. I've seen it happen over and over again, which is why we were in a dispute to begin with. So I was like, oh, man, okay, well, all right, you know, fine. It was like, okay, well, we're not going to get there because I, I, we've had this particular con about this one little, you know, niggling thing, and it's just not going to happen. So, you know, we let him talk and I think at that point he might have even brought, you know, her attorney. And that may or may not have been the, you know, the session where I raised my hands and, you know, calm myself and all that stuff. And then we were. Mediation was supposed to end at 5:30pm he left at like, you know, 5:05 or something. And, and my attorney and I were like, okay, well, that was fun, you know, like, cool, fun day, man. No problem. We packed up our stuff. Like, my attorney had literally packed up, you know, the things that he brought or whatever, and we were zipped up. And my attorney said to me, look, here's how this is going to go. He's going to go talk to them and he's going to let them leave first and then he's going to come and delay us for like 10 minutes so that we don't have that awkward elevator conversation and then he'll let us go. I'm like, okay, that's fine. Like I could care less about the awkward elevator conversation, but, you know, fine, fine. Yeah. And so sure enough, five minutes later, the guy comes back in and, you know, again, we were in the mindset of this thing had failed. And so as he walked in, I was just being a smart ass. And this is where, if I, if I could, I wish I could say I planned this, but I did not. I just said, well, Mel, his name was Mel Wolowitz. Right? You know, that was the mediator's name. And I said, well, Mel, well, you met your match on this one. She certainly dragged you into the weeds, right? And what happened was his face like changed because two things happened. Number one, he realized I was right. He hadn't really thought, like he had been drugged so far into the weeds that he didn't, he didn't yet have that perspective. So I shocked him with that perspective. And then also his ego was a little bruised because that's right, he knows it's his job not to get drug into the weeds. Right?

He got totally taken off track, right?

Totally taken off track back. And, and he looks at us and he says, I'll be right back. And he. So I, we think, I mean, we don't, you know, we can only guess, but we think he had let them go and they were packing up. So he went and, you know, five, ten minutes later he came in and he said, okay, what if we do this? You know, and it was like, ah, now you're being a mediator again. You know. And so we were there. We had paid for four hours of mediation and that's all we paid for. Even though the contracts say if you choose to go longer, you know, you pay this rate per hour, yada, yada. Yeah, Scotty, he never billed us for more, but we were there. We didn't leave there until almost seven o', clock, maybe a little after seven. So we went 90 minutes late, but he got it done. I mean, it, it, you know, you talked about that final 10 might cost you. That's exactly what I gave up, was 10% of. Yeah. And I really wasn't going to give it up. And because I, I had, you know, I had already sort of, I mean, I went in there assuming mediation wasn't going to work. And then, you know, there I was and it didn't work. And so I was like, fine, we'll go to court, no problem. Like, I'm already budgeting that time wise and expense wise in my head. It's no big deal, you know, and my attorney, I had given him a couple of trump cards over the past couple of years to play, and he basically played one of them and said, look, man, we need this to end. And it was like, smart. Okay. You know, I'm not going to get into the details of what those cards were, but it was, he had a little bit of power over this. And it's, you know, it was 10% like you said, you just give it up and fine.

And I think that you bring up a good point is maybe, for lack of a better word or whatever, maybe this is the word. You know, our egos get involved in our pride or whatever and we want certain things, but not even us as the person involved in the mediation. But I've had the experience with the attorneys. Egos get involved totally when, when that happens and they're, you know, in the, you know, situation where they're trying to look good or, or outwit the other guy or do some kind of thing, you know. Who pays the price for that?

Yeah, the clients. Right?

The client pays the price. And when I was back young and inexperienced and saw this going on, I didn't really. I just thought, oh, this is great. These guys are, you know, I mean, my legal experience at that time was limited to what I had seen on tv. And I was like, oh, these guys are killing it, you know, and they're battling these attorneys back and forth and not giving them an inch and telling them this and this we're not going to do. But in, in the long run, it did not do anything to solve this problem. And it actually made it much worse because they were, these attorneys were angry at each other and it occurred at my expense because I was the one paying the bill. And, and in the end, I wound up telling the attorneys, look, I'm not going to pay. I mean, the legal bill was, you know, well into the six figures and I said, hey, we're not going to pay the bill you this money.

Yeah.

And it actually wound up. The law firm that represented us actually split up over this case because my attorney, who had handed us off to a different department, you know, my was, this guy is still my, my business attorney. Great guy. Yep, he handed us off. He was so Upset that the way they had handled this and got their egos involved in it at our expense, that he and two other partners said, look, look, you know, we don't want to be in business with these guys anymore. And they split up. And I didn't know this until a few years later when I went to lunch. And he said, hey, you know, I want to let you know your case.

Yeah.

Was the reason. And he was, he was like, you know, it actually worked out really well. It worked out good for everyone, me included, because things once that happened and other people got involved in the case when they saw it kind of going sideways. And then at the end, the other. Their original group came back and said, hey, are you going to pay this bill? And I said, no, yeah, I'm not going to pay the bill because you guys ran up the tab because you had to, you know, play this big game with these people, and I'm just not going to do it. And then, you know, we. They wrote it off. As far as I'm concerned, it's been, you know, 15 years.

Yeah, they're not suing you for it. So if anybody was going to sue you for a bill, it would be a law office, so. Yeah, that's right.

So I'm sure they took the write off and, you know, that kind of thing. But it's important to try to keep your ego out of it. Or you have to.

You have to. And I mean, in that sense. Sense. Like in the moment when my attorney sort of played that card, it was like, you know what? I looked at him and I said, damn it. You know, he's right. He was right, of course.

Yeah, he was right.

You know, it's like, okay, fine, Fine. I said, you don't let, you know you've taken this joy of going to court away from me, but, you know, I'll find another way.

Well, it comes back that oftentimes winning is secondary to just easing the pain and moving on and something else that's going to be more positive in your business life, your personal life, all this kind of stuff. Because this, the biggest problem beyond financial stuff is it's a massive time suck. And it takes your eye off is what it is.

Yeah, not even the time. It's just. It's mind share. And, you know, the interesting thing is about a year ago, like a year ago now, I was able to emotionally let go of this case. The whole thing, like, and it. It was not easy. And I spent, you know, a good 18 months routinely, you know, fretting over this and thinking about it a lot and. And just, you know, it occupying more mind share than I really could afford to dedicate to it. And so like I said a year ago went away, and that part of it went away. And it was just. I became very objective about it. It was like, okay, that's fine. They're. They're being silly again, you know, okay, no problem. And then I just wouldn't think about it for weeks or even. And then I'd ping my attorney, like, hey, we got one of those dates coming up. Like, what's the deal? He's like, oh, yeah, I've been trying to get in touch with him. And they don't answer. Whatever. Whatever the silliness was. And I was like, okay, that's fine. And then we'd move on and whatever. Now that it has been settled, though, I realized there was yet another step to take. Because while I certainly had reduced the mind share that this thing was occupying, for me, me, it was not eliminated. And clearly it's not completely gone. I mean, here we are, you know, actually making lemonade about it. Right? Talking about. Right, that's right.

From sheer experience.

Yeah. But. But it, but like, other than this, I don't think about this thing on a daily basis ever. You know, it's just. It's like, okay, well, it's over. You know, whether I. Like, what I signed or not is irrelevant. I actually do. I think it's fine. Right, but it's irrelevant, right? I can't say. I did have a day in Texas, you know, like, the. That night I actually went up, went to. Went out to see a bunch of bands, which was really sort of a good way for me to process all this, because in the moment, you know, everything's running high emotions and you're exhausted and you're hungry and like, all that stuff. And it was like, oh, dang it. Did I, you know, did I. Did I jump the gun? Did I sign that agreement before I should have signed it? Like, I know they would have signed it the way it was written tomorrow. Like, should I have slept on it? Should I? Should I? Should I? And so I had to go through that, right? Because that's just how my brain works. But that happened very, very quickly. And within 24 hours after it was over, I was like, yep, okay, well, it doesn't really matter. But, yeah, this outcome's fine for me and I'm good. And that was it. You know, it's like, okay. And I realized this weight sort of fell off my shoulders even more this Weight that I didn't realize was still there there fell off my shoulders. And that was a good thing.

Yeah, it is. And, you know, this has been a long show, and I think it goes to the point of it is this is a really important thing that can impact your business in a very negative way in your personal life in a very negative way. And focusing on the resolution, I think is critically important. And maybe, you know, the most important bit of advice that I would leave you with is that, you know, it's not so much about. I mean, sometimes you do just have to fight, you know, Right. To the bitter end if you're. You got it.

But, you know, there was one case. I'm not going to go into it now, because, like you said, the show's been long, but there was one where it was about whether or not we could use the ad server that we use. Yeah, yeah, we've talked about it here. Yeah. And it was like, if we don't get this, we have to shut down our business because we can't afford to pay for what that would cost. So it was like, all right, we. Well, you know, we got to scrap our way through this thing, and hopefully it works out. You know, otherwise, we'll just figure something out. You know, we'll go into a different business. So. Yeah, that's right. Case.

It was like, you have to fight.

You have to fight. Right. But. But we were aware of that. And. And that, frankly, was less emotional than this one was at times, because this one, they really. I mean, I had built something. It was my baby. This. This cool engine that we had built. And. And then there were these people, you know, that were trying to take it away from me. Right. And so that there was some emotion of that with different.

Right, that's right. And every time it's. And every time it's different. And there's. It's also. Each of these things has, like, a lifespan.

Yes.

You know, and you're not gonna. You may not be able to settle it really quick, and months away, or even months, it may take years. Like, this thing, which you just had, has taken. And. But that there's a. When the time is right, it'll come together, but you just want to focus on that solution. Of course, representing yourself as good as you can, but getting some good outside advice, keeping everybody's egos out of it, and just focus on getting this thing resolved.

And to me, the big win for this was realizing this new negotiation tactic, because without realizing it, I was negotiating in that moment with the mediator Right. I was getting him back on track. And, you know, I said earlier, I wish that I could have calculated that move. Right. Of waiting until exactly the right moment to tell this guy, you effed up. You know, I mean, which is essentially what I told him. But it really was just me being a snarky jackass. I mean.

Well, that's great, though, because it pointed out something to him that he's like, wow, I really did. I screwed up here. I gotta go back and try to fight again.

Yeah, that's great. If I had. I knew that an hour and a half before, if I had said that to him an hour and a half before, it would not have landed as successfully as it did.

Yeah, he needed to get there.

He needed to get there. And then I just needed to, like, tip the scale. Like, I needed to put the straw on the camel's back. I couldn't put the whole bale of hay on the camel's back because he would have rejected it. You know, he needed. And so, so for me, especially, because I'm a super impatient person. Like, I. I now have this particular arrow in my quiver. Like, I know. And you do, too, after listening to the episode. Right. But you, like, there is a patience that needs to be exhausted before you can intentionally pull this out, because you're gonna know that it's a weapon for you in a negotiation way before the time comes that you can pull it out. And you need to keep your emotions in check. And I'm saying this to you as our listeners, but really, I'm sitting right there next to you because I'm the target. This you. Right. You need to keep your emotions in check. You know, you're gonna know that you're gonna play this card, but you have to wait and wait. And then when you think it's the right time, wait a little bit more and then you'll know when it's the right time.

Yeah, it's great. And, you know, we, and we'd love to hear your stories and, you know, feedbackusinessshow co as well. You know, we've got 3, 400 people over in the small business support group at businessshow co Facebook. Come on over and, you know, story in the comments or post to the, to the group and let us know what worked for you.

Yeah, please do. Yeah, it's fun. I mean, I, you know, I know there's something wrong with me, but like, this, this is fun stuff. I don't know.

Yeah, it's a puzzle.

Right?

You know, it's a puzzle.

That's exactly what it is. Yep. And, and there's rule. The nice part about it is there are rules. Right. That are just defined by your state or your county, whatever it is. And so, you know, it's, it's like tax law. Right. It's like, not my rules. I'm just going to find a path through them that is the most beneficial path for me without breaking the rules. So there you go.

Got it.

Thanks, everybody. So much for listening, folks. Indeed. Yep. We, we will be here next week and you can find us. Like you said, business, show, co, Facebook. What's that thing we say? Keep living that charmed life. See you next week.