By William Seidman
A recent article by Maureen Farrell in Forbes.com, “Doing Business With The Big Boys,” discusses several ways in which smaller companies, eager to do business in the big leagues, got burned - or at least chastised. The gist of the warning is:
If you’re signing a contract, you need a lawyer. Then check out that big company thoroughly, proceed with caution, be prepared, get it in writing, make sure you have read and understand ALL the fine print - and then read it again. I’m profiled and quoted (though Cerebyte is in beautiful Lake Oswego, Oregon - and not the nonexistent location Lake Oswego, Canada!) because it’s happened to us, too. We dealt with a senior manager who, in fact, didn’t have the decision-making authority we’d thought he had. Ouch. But it won’t ever happen to us again, and needn’t happen to you.
