How a Dog Helped Close a Deal

Meet “Rosie” – the dog that sealed a multi-million dollar deal.

Late last year, I negotiated a deal to acquire a real estate technology company.

Like all good deals, it had a number of twists and turns. We needed to trust the CEO-founder (and he needed to trust us) if the deal was to go ahead.

Trust is far easier to assess and cultivate when you are out of office, so we started to take early morning walks in Centennial Park to get to know one another and to iron-out any issues that emerged during due diligence.

On the fourth or fifth walk, the CEO-founder brought along his dog “Rosie”. Rosie was such a sweet-natured and well-behaved dog that I struck up an instant rapport with her. She would jump into my lap when we sat down and would wait patiently for us when we stopped for a coffee.

Dogs are an open book, they are far easier to read than a human being. They have no capacity for subterfuge. Over time, dogs tend to adopt the nature of their owners. So getting to know Rosie gave me the confidence that I could trust her owner – and this in turn proved crucial to resolving all the thorny issues in good faith.

So the next time you find yourself negotiating a complex deal, ask your counterpart to go for a walk in the park with you – and make sure dogs are invited too.