If You Give a Mouse a Cookie...

Being a dealmaker for almost 30 (!) years now, I have received, displayed, broken, and discarded many mementos of the deals I have worked on along the way. The fun ones are called “deal toys,” and the glass monuments, with details engraved, are called “tombstones” (which is an odd term for something memorializing the beginning of a relationship, not the end).

My favorite deal toy (and it really is a toy) is a little figurine of the mouse from the children’s book, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” by Laura Numeroff. I especially like it because the figure itself is so charming, and because the executive who gave it to me did so to reflect the valuable lesson he learned on the deal we closed together.

If you aren’t familiar with "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie," it’s a “slippery slope” story of what happens when you give a mouse a cookie: then he wants some milk, then a straw, then a napkin, and, before you know it, he wants to take a nap, gets thirsty, wants some more milk and then asks for another cookie. (I guess I should have announced “spoiler alert.”) In other words, you give him a cookie, he will keep asking for cookies.

During our negotiation, when the client would ask for a concession, members of the team would suggest we give as a sign of our “good faith.” I would tell them that giving concessions without anything in return is not a sign of good faith. It’s a sign of naiveté. Then I’d explain that “naiveté” is a nice French word for “stupidity.”  

I then asked if anyone was familiar with the book, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” and we discussed what happens when we give in on price or terms without an exchange of value (lower scope/lower risk). The client just keeps asking for more. Why wouldn’t they? It’s worked out pretty well! And before you know it, you’re out of cookies and you have to say “no.” And you still get the deal, but with much less contingency and higher risk.

Why didn’t you say “no” in the first place?

So the mouse sits on my desk as a reminder not to give anything away, but to exchange value with a client. Giving money away is called “charity.” Exchanging value is called “business.”