“We have a handshake of a deal”
By Marc Laplante
May 16, 2017
Along with “I gave at the office” and “Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help you,” the “handshake of a deal” concept seems to have gone the way as the dinosaur. What happened between the era where my dad used to say, “We shook on it,” and that was the end of it, and now where it’s not a PO until the cheque has been cashed. And even then as, an another agent once said to me, “Wait ’til you get the return request.”
In the U.S., everything is driven by liability. I’ve seen more “Do Not’s” in installation manuals than “Do’s.” “Whaddayamean I can’t plug this in while standing in a foot of water on a copper plate?” Duh.
I always thought that here in Canada we were a bit less litigation driven then our U.S. brothers. It would seem that although we won’t award $70 million to someone who scalded themselves with the coffee they were holding between their legs, we are nonetheless getting into more detailed contractual arrangements. So now, when we get a contract from a principal, we have to look to see if there are any mentions of POS-POT, or Spec credits, of exclusivity and a whole bunch of other issues that my dad never would have thought to make sure was in the contract. Hey, “We have a handshake of a deal,” right? Good enough, right? Well, no, sorry , not good enough any more. Because when he was shaking your hand, he was making off with the rings.
I lived through the handshake of a deal once. We helped this gentleman start his business from ground zero. He didn’t have any sales. We took the line on because my father my brother and I knew that this was going to be the winner. “Our retirement line,” to use an expression that another agent and great family friend Dick Roney used to say.
Yup, retirement line alright, until one day an end user phones to say he’s having problems with the product we sold him and I ask my brother Paul, “Hey, did we ever sell our product to this company? The guy is saying that he’s got four floors of our stuff and it’s not working well.” Only to find out, when we confronted the owner of the company that, well, this customer called and they didn’t want to deal with a distributor so he decided to sell them direct. End of story. So yes, I still believe in the handshake of a deal because I try and see the good in people before the bad in them, but now I’ve got a bunch of lawyers to make sure that I don’t sign anything before they’ve okayed it. Thank god for that.
As a manufacturing agent, Marc Laplante of Laplante and Associates represents a full range of products used in the sectors electricity, mechanics and ventilation, as in residential, commercial and industrial and also at the level of original equipment suppliers; marc.laplante@laplante.co.
