A Deal truism: Deals often occur in bad weather and over holidays.

As I was starting my  book section on Mergers and Deals, I had the following casual conversation with my wife:

Me: I think I will start the Deals part with Donn Corp. buying the access floor company, Liskey.

She: Was that the one you and Ted were caught in a snowstorm driving on the Ohio Turnpike to Toledo?

Me: No, that was another one we looked at called Floating Floors.

She: Was that the one you were caught in a blizzard in Buffalo for a week?

Me: No, that was the ceiling company we bought called Flangeklamp.

She: Was that one of the times that you delayed a Christmas visit with my family?

Me: That did happen a lot!

So it got me thinking about a couple truisms about Deals. Deals very often occur in bad or terrible winter weather. And Deals very often do mess up your personal life and cause you to delay or cancel a vacation or a family visit. Why is this?

The main culprit is that so many Deals want to be completed by a company’s year end which is often December 31. This lets you write off your old sins and start the New Year fresh. That also means you are often traveling, negotiating or completing Deals in bad weather and around the Holiday season. Learn to Deal with it.

The recent string of terrible storms at the end of 2012 and the start of this year, reminded me of this.

In my forthcoming book, you will learn other Deal truths. Like the critical importance 0f performing financial and operational due diligence on a company you want to buy. Or why it is so much easier and more fun for both management and their Boards of Directors to buy something than to sell something. Based on recent headlines, the shareholders of the old computer giant H-P should be asking these questions.

Or, one of my favorites truths about Deals, that there are no Mergers of equals, ever, period.

I look forward to sharing these Deal truisms and other lessons I have learned in The Business Zoo!