How NOT to Negotiate 

Dale is the lowkey MVP of Wyrmwood. I get happy when ever he shows up. Even though I have a different discipline of Engineering than him, I feel a kinship with him.

@@averagegatsby I'm Computer Science (it *is* Engineering) and my Older brother is a ME. We feel kinship with Dave. Oh, and my Dad would absolutely love to take his job, if he knew the skills. My Dad was practically ready to throw hands when I described to him the role of essentially an Industrial Engineer with "on-hands" experience, aka how I interpret Dave's job

I always enjoy seeing Dale. Dude just keeps it real and seems to really know his sutff.

i feel this is a way to get sued for rent with holding

@@almightyderpy If they are legit issues and they take it to the county commission, they absolutely can in MA. And are not obligated to pay back rent when the repairs are made. But can be taken to count by the landlord and plead their case and only have to pay back a percentage, or none at all. But this all varies by state, but I looked it up and this is perfectly legal in MA. To do this while building their own space is petty AF, but still legal.

@@almightyderpy If there are issues with the building itself causing it to be out of code, withholding wouldn't be as significant an issue because the landlord is renting out a commercial space unfit for commercial use.

they started with 1x revenue with 1x space = 1x rent. TO 10x revenue to 8x space = 8x rent, so it's not that bad of a move

That kind of information is typically disclosed in your new rental agreement. It isn't like that is a mystery to them. Some corporate landlords will ask for information on your finances between contracts and you can tell them to get bent, but when new contracts are signed finances are on the table.

In reality, the people who own the building probably know that. Because they know how much bigger the realestate is. So they can extrapolate how much more money they are making. They have a good idea on how much the equipment is and how much power it takes to use them to gauge output.

In most cases thats stuff you will need to disclose to the landlord anyway. I own 3 businesses right now and for everyone I had to provide financial documents and future financial expectations. When I moved one business just two blocks down the road I had to give them the numbers for the past 3 years before they would even talk to me.

What i dont get is why Wyrmwood don't buy some land and build some locals, no more lease problems! With 30 + millions annual that's not a problem!

The owner isn't stupid. Doug said that he liked WyrmLyf, so the man walked in already knowing how this would go. Hell, *everyione* knew how this would go when Doug started out with "Wood prices go down...", was immediately corrected by the owner, and then Doug does a 180.

@@jaycee7901 To be fair to doug, and really this is the ONLY part of that train wreck that i can defend, doug didn't initially say lumber prices were down, he said when you buy lumber in larger quantities the overall price goes down...Which Is often true. Whether or not the base cost of lumber is going up as a whole, you are still adjusting that base cost against any discounts you get for buying massive quantities of said wood. Whether that has any baring to real-estate or rental agreements at all is a whole different matter.

The landlord did refuse to say ANYTHING specific though. Doug said reduce the price by 50 c per square foot, and he denied, but essentially refused to negotiate on camera, by saying he'd have to think about it. The landlord has a great outfit btw.

☝️this

Already seen these guys looking at different spaces with Moses. So they are currently thinking about it obviously but it's just so hard in this economy. Regardless of the market the recession is really going to put a dampener on doing anything substantial like finding a new property

@@VoiceNerd Like Doug said, it was more about optionality than looking for a space. He wanted information to know what is going on in the market to see if it is worth/able to buy this property or another. Or to expand the business.

I feel like Phil has said something similar to Doug

There are contracts and laws that may prevent something like this .

@@compsolt I’d they higher him to negotiate, but just tell him not to say anything then that covers it all

Kinda depends on a lot of different factors. I have a IDGAF attitude about a lot of things and its actually worked out much better for me in many cases. Its costs money a few times but overall its made me more money and gotten me further ahead. Course it all depends.

The second tragedy I realized today is when I found the English language to be lacking, and utterly incapable of generating a word more appropriate, or more impactful, to describe Doug's "negotiation tactics" *other* than the word "debacle".

If you aren't willing to walk away from a negotiation, you are already negotiating from a position of weakness.

@@jaycee7901 "Fiasco", maybe?

I think Dale is the guy you want.

Lol, Jason was in the room… I think if he didn’t speak up, he feels the same way.

@@TheSchnook you don’t contradict or overstep your CEO in front of an outside party.

@@zbetz You do know Jason is actually the CEO, right?! 🤣

He gave it back to Doug .. they didn't make a huge video on it but it is mentioned in one of them

Couldn't even bring myself to watch it once the landlords arrived. This isn't something I think we should be seeing.

Moving _all that equipment_ is going to cost _thousands_ just in the lugging it from this place to the next place. Not including the downtime from needing to move, ensure the next place is wired properly (spoiler: it won't be), and configuring everything back to the tolerances they were at before moving. I can't help but feel that Doug is going to learn why "tenants have all the power" is not true outside of news headlines for residential properties in some states. Source: just some guy on the internet with fuckin zero experience with any of this stuff. This is all conjecture from an outsider.

Yeah, it's one of those things where it is mutually beneficial to maintain status quo. Landlord gets a paycheck, wyrmwood keeps the space. Realistically, there is a number that the landlord can push where it's worth it more for wyrmwood to stay and eat the cost, then to lose however much money they would gaming the whole shop down for months while they move and reset.

@@mattbanak8917 agree with you totally. Tenants do have rights but that doesn’t really apply to “getting the best deal”. You need to have leverage and doug didn’t walk into that conversation with any leverage besides a bluff that they would move (which the owner called him out on).

Well its like they said at the beginning. The owners hold all the cards. They know Wyrmwood is getting a fair price, and they know that they can easily replace them.

Hence the title of the video. I agree with you though; good grief! The owners need to talk to someone who isn’t putting on a show for the camera.

@@bclarkca9113 Oh thats why they don't want the Realtor there.

But that's the thing: He made his money speculating on crypto, not from Wyrmwood.

I'm honestly surprised the landlord didn't throw it right back at them. "Oh, you want a 10% reduction in rent? I want you out of here by next month."

I couldn't agree more with every single part of this.

Hard agree on all points

@@DrigrX I mean. He basically did with that "crass" portion of the discussion. He just left the option on the table for them to stay.

See you soon!

Yep, exactly. This is one of those examples of Doug envisioning that he’s got it all figured out when really…

Dale is the BEST

And if he finds a place, he will need to find someone (or multiple someones) willing to sub or be forced to pay two rents until the contract is up.

He doesn't need to be prepared, he can come in at any time during negotiations and go "pay my price or GTFO by this date." He is under no obligation to renew Wyrmwood's lease, just as Wyrmwood is under no obligation to stay. Preparation would have been nice, however, but it looks like he has the other guy to remember the numbers for him.

Definitely unprofessional, yes. When they brought forth the argument that property taxes and energy numbers went up without having data to back them up is as bad as it gets. This is super low level stuff that should have been prepared by any respectable company.

Landlord number 1 and 2 both knew those numbers. They wanted to negotiate with Doug because they know tenants rarely know their stuff, that's why they hire people like Phil. They didn't tell them those numbers because they wanted to get a feel for Doug and see how much they could raise by, if they tell him the numbers then they set a ceiling for how much they can raise by.

@@adriankemp254 Thank you for your enlightenement. I assume 90% of the other wyrmlings never had to deal with commercial real estate either. Where I come from residencial and commercial renting price increses are regulated.

@@dekkarmcgowan1423 Also, the landlord isn't obligated to share those numbers. The landlord also knows just how inexperienced Doug is when he offered to just outright pay the tax increase for them.

This is the first time Doug has negotiated a new lease agreement of this size, the guys across the table have likely done this dozens of times.

Well yeah, they own the building.

Not to say that Doug handled that well, but the scales are in the landlords favor heavily. It’s sucks but they could very well tell Wyrmwood to pound sand and move if they don’t like the terms. Now they could be bluffing but they probably have contacts with businesses looking for a new place. And after this conversation, I wouldn’t be surprise if they’re lining up tenants. And even if they lose out on months of rent, they can just jack up the price per sq ft, and come out on top.

He does have like 5 kids...

I can't give Doug respect for doing something he admitted was a bad idea before hand. He really should just have Phil handle it and pay Phil's fees. It would be like someone suing Wrymwood demanding Doug represent himself in court. The only reason to do that is to put him behind the eight ball.

Yeah, couple old dudes who've owned this building for ages were not intimidated by him being loud. The reason Moses was worthwhile is he does know if the taxes went up, if the energy costs went up, and he'd know by how much, and would likely be able to tell Doug what a commensurate rate was if he was looking for some kind of discount (though I think that was a bad angle to begin with, as it's not like Wyrmwood is going to rent less space all of a sudden if these guys stop giving them the price per square foot they want. And the difference between the kiosk and Sears, is how much foot traffic they bring to the mall, and the benefit of profit sharing that many malls have. A giant retailor tended to generate lots of profits and bring more customers who would go to other stores. Wyrmwood does not do that for these guys.) And they were right, Moses is Doug's guy, his fee is Doug's problem. They don't need a guy there, they've been doing this since before the sun first rose over Doug's cradle. His negotiation should have been to have Moses involved, and that's where it should have ended.

@@Lurklen not to mention it's pretty predatory to have them do LONG term leases

@@TychoNorris They want the long term so that if they DO cut wyrmwood a deal, they know they'll have a consistent tenant for the next X years instead of cutting wyrmwood a deal today and having them move out next year.

@@DrigrX Which, is more or less exactly what Doug wanted to do. He wanted the ability to just get out of there with no strings when they found another spot. Big surprise these dudes didn't want to go for that. Doug had a bit of main character syndrome, and forgot that the people on the other side of the negotiating table have an agenda as well. The point of negotiation is to come to an accord, ideally while achieving as many of your personal goals as possible and not accruing unexpected costs. If you go in trying to leave the other party with nothing of substance, that's not a negotiation, that's a con.

@@TychoNorris No it isn't commercial leases are normally 10yrs+.

I think Doug paying the taxes was more like: okay sure, we started at $5, we *should* be at $4 with wholesale pricing, but i get that taxes increased, so we'll accept that as an acceptable reason to be slightly above $4, charge me whatever $4+the amount taxes went up is

My thinking is rather that Doug is saying that tax increase is marginal compared to a rent increase. He's basically saying "i don't recognize this as an actual cost you need to adjust for, i am willing to pay those taxes because it is an afterthought compared to a rent increase. As I've said, your costs haven't gone up." Really, with inflation, the debt of the owner has gone down.

@@yrreiht4913 that's also acceptable. Either way it wasn't saying "I'll pay your increase and all the taxes", which is how i initially took your understanding of his statement. Basically boils down to "if you're gonna claim there was an increase in cost due to taxes then fine, charge us that increase" Although this is willfully ignorant of the fact that, like quitting a job and finding a new one, you can usually get away with at least 10% of an increase, more in the case of this landlord I'm sure.