Business lessons from brokering a half million dollar deal

I’ve had my Manhattan loft in the market for some six months now. After dropping the asking price a couple of times, buyers are finally circling, and I’m close to finalizing a deal. In that time however, I’ve learned some big lessons. Real Estate, is the epitome of cutthroat capitalism and as such has some very potent lessons to teach about business.

Understand Interests – Two Sides to Every Argument

Brokers have an interest – to make their fee; buyers have an interest – to lower the selling price, sellers have an interest to get the highest selling price. On the surface this may seem self evident. But dig a little deeper and you’ll learn more. Brokers are somewhat aligned with buyer and seller, but like a cab driver preferring lots of short trips, their incentive is to do more deals. Fewer deals with higher margins would actually cost them. A 1%-2% higher selling price may be significant to your bottom line but meaningless to theirs.

[quote]Business Lesson 1 – Pay close attention to each party’s interests and you’ll understand the negotiating dynamic more clearly.[/quote]

In brokering, like war, no one plays fair

Each industry has it’s own ugly side. No one calls back. No one emails back. There are no pleasantries. In some businesses where credibility and reputation are built over time, people do care–little bit. But in brokering a large deal they don’t. Silence means “Hey, thanks for going out of your way to give us an hour of your time even though we were late. We don’t care. We no longer need you & we’re not gonna respond.” Got it, heard you loud and clear!

[quote]Business Lesson 2 – Be prepared for selfishness and deception. In some cases watch out for cheaters and even fraud. Don’t let this color all your interactions, but be aware that some parties may not have the same scruples as you do and some may even break the law. [/quote]

Markets are bigger than you are

You may think your house or apartment has some intrinsic value, based on renovations or the time you’ve held it, or some other more personal metric. However the market is ultimately what sets the price of the asset. Market trends can swing wildly and irrationally so be prepared to “get real”, as they say in the business.

[quote]Business Lesson 3 – Market forces set the price of a good or service. The door swings both ways so when there is a greater supply be prepared for the price to go down, and when location, asset or skills are in great demand, be prepared for the price to go up.[/quote]

Buyers move on emotion; facts get you only so far

Salesmen tell stories. It’s their job to engage, stir passions, get people to move. Sometimes these yarns are taller than you or I might like, but if people knew exactly what they wanted, brokers wouldn’t exist. This occurs across the spectrum in sales.

[quote]Business Lesson 4 – Pay less attention to the facts and arguments a salesmen presents to you. Only the underlying interest of each party will tell a clear story of motivations. Weigh that along with the market appetite and you should have a good idea of the right price.[/quote]

Protect your interests and time

Over the months I’ve been on the market, I’ve had countless brokers try to sell me their services. An exclusive seller agreement is valuable to a broker as it allows them to control the process and control the fee distribution. One broker made an appointment to come by with their buyer over a holiday weekend. Following up at the appointed time, they explained that they were running late though frankly the broker sounded hung over. Upon arrival they brought no buyer. Seeing my irritation, they quickly fabricated a story about a phantom buyer and their specific requirements. After wasting a few hours of my time and breaking up my holiday weekend, I never heard from them again. Not fun.

[quote]Business Lesson 5 – Qualify your prospect before you grant them your time. There are many parties who can and will waste your time if you’re not careful. Be diligent about weeding them out before clearing your schedule for them.[/quote]

March 12, 2012

To the ‘Microsoft Azure’ Cloud

To The Cloud: Powering An Enterprise introduces the concepts of cloud computing from a high-level and strategic standpoint. I’ve read quite a few tomes on cloud computing and I was interested to see how this one would stack up against the others.

The book is not too weighty in technical language so as not to be overwhelming and intimidating. However at ninety five pages, one might argue it is a bit sparse for a $30 book, if you purchase it at full price.

It is organized nicely around initiatives to get you moving with the cloud.

Chapter 1, Explore takes you through the process of understanding what the cloud is and what it has to offer.

Chapter 2, Envision puts you in the drivers seat, looking at the opportunities the cloud can offer in terms of solutions to current business problems.

Chapter 3, Enable discusses specifics of getting there, such as selecting a vendor or provider, training your team, and establishing new processes in your organization.

Finally in Chapter 4, we hit on real details of adopting the cloud in your organization. Will you move applications wholesale, or will you adopt a hybrid model? How will you redesign your applications to take care of automated scaling? What new security practices and processes will you put in place. The authors offer practical answers to these questions. At the end there is also an epilogue discussing emerging market opportunities for cloud computing, such as those in India.

One of the problems I had with the book is that although it doesn’t really position itself as a Microsoft Cloud book per se, that is really what the book aims at.

For example, Microsoft Azure is sort of the default platform throughout the book, whereas in reality most folks think of Amazon Web Services to be the sort of default when talking about cloud computing. Although specifically, Azure is really a platform, while AWS is Infrastructure or raw iron, that can run Linux based Operating Systems, or Windows Azure stuff.

Of course having a trio of Microsoft executives as authors gives a strong hint to readers to expect some plugging but a rewrite of the title would probably manage readers’ expectations better.

The other missing piece with this book is a chapter on tackling new challenges in the cloud. Cloud Computing – Azure or otherwise, brings challenges with respect to hardware as using the cloud means deploying across shared resources. For example it’s hard to deploy a high-performance RAID array or SAN solution devoted to one server in the cloud. This is a challenge on AWS as well, and continues to be a major adoption hurdle. It’s part of the commoditization puzzle, but it’s as yet not completely solved. Such a chapter to discuss mitigating against virtual server failures, using redundancy, and cloud components to increase availability would be useful.

Lastly, I found it a bit disconcerting that all of the testimonials were from fellow CTOs and CIOs of big firms, not independents or other industry experts. For example I would have liked to see George Reese of Enstratus, Thorsten von Eicken from Rightscale or John Engates from Rackspace provide a comment or two on the book.

Overall the book is a decent primer if you’re looking for some guidance on Microsoft Azure Cloud. It is not a comprehensive introduction to cloud computing and you’d definitely need other resources to get the full picture. At such a hefty sticker price, my advice is to pick this one up at the bargain bin.

February 29, 2012

Oracle to MySQL – prepare to bushwhack through the open source jungle

I was recently approached by a healthcare company for advice on suitable database solutions capable of executing its new initiative. The company was primarily an Oracle shop so naturally, they began by shopping for possible Oracle solutions.

The CTO relayed his conversation with the Oracle sales rep, who at first recommended an Oracle solution that, expensive as it may have been, ultimately aligned with the company’s existing technology and experience. Unfortunately this didn’t match their budget and so predictably, the Oracle sales rep whipped out a MySQL-based solution as an alternative.

Having worked as an Oracle DBA throughout the dot-com years, I know the technology well. I also know the cultural differences between enterprises that choose Oracle solutions and those that choose open-source ones.

This encounter with the healthcare firm struck me as a classic conundrum for today’s companies who are under pressure to meet business targets under a tight budget, and in a very short time.

Can an open-source solution like MySQL be the answer to such huge demands?

The Oracle sales rep will likely nod excitedly and say no sweat. But as a consultant I could only manage an equivocal yes.

As the healthcare CTO rattled off the list of products he wanted to use, specific RTOs and RPOs (recovery time objective + recovery point objective – all I could think was to react with concern.

In my experience with startup after startup I’ve seen plenty of different MySQL installations but I’d never heard of one with the technology stack he described. What’s more I’d never heard of these solutions described with the Oracle Corp titles.

On one hand I wanted to discuss the merits of the solution he was keen to implement, while on the other, I was expressing concern over possible directions and paths we might take.

An Oracle cluster is not a MySQL cluster

The solution Oracle suggested was a MySQL Cluster. The term cluster unfortunately means different things to different people. Such loose usage of the word dilutes its meaning. In particular a lot of Oracle technologists expect that this solution might be similar to Oracle’s Real Application Cluster technology. It’s not. There are a lot of limitations, and frankly it’s really just a different beast.

The list also included various management dashboards which Oracle likes to push, but which I rarely see in my consulting assignments. What’s more I heard nothing about replication integrity considering that replication problems are an ongoing concern for real-world MySQL installations due to the particular technology used under the hood. There are reliable solutions to this problem but none yet available from Oracle. In fact, this is a big problem but one that may be completely off the sales guys’ radar.

Don’t let sales frame your architecture

Honestly, I don’t have a particularly large axe to grind with the sales guys. They have a job to do, and providing solutions which bring revenue to their firm and commissions for themselves is what puts food on their tables. Each party is motivated in different ways. But as a company shopping for solutions, this should be kept clearly in mind when starting down that road.

Beware prescribed architectural frameworks that appear too easy because they almost always don’t do what they say on the tin. Unfortunately sales folks don’t have experiencing designing architectures in the real world, so they can’t really know how the technologies work beyond the data sheet with feature bullet points.

As we all know in the technology space, all software come with bugs and real-world experience does not match the feature lists in the brochures. In law they have de jure and de facto. The former describes what is written and the latter, what’s practiced. For technology solutions, its never just adding water for something to work.

Do your homework

Before you embark on a new trip through the open source technology jungle, do some due diligence. Read up on real-world solutions, and how other large firms are using the technology. What configurations are they having success with? Which are causing trouble for a lot of people.

One of the great advantages of open-source are the very vibrant communities, forums and discussion groups where people are glad to share their experiences and offer advice.

Allow sufficient time to test and
bring your team up to speed

This is very important one. Shifting from an enterprise that relies primarily on Oracle for it’s relational database solution over to one that relies on open source technologies is a very big step indeed. Open-source technologies tend to be much more do-it-yourself and roll your own. Oracle solutions tend much more toward predefined paths and solutions and prescriptions for customers.

There are merits to each of these paths, with attendant pros and cons. But they are decidedly different. It’s likely that your team will also require time to get up to speed, not just with the particular software components, but with the new process by which things happen in the open-source space. Allow sufficient time for this shift to take place, lest you create more problems than solutions.