“You can’t make a good deal with a bad person,” so says Warren Buffett.

How many times have we had an interaction with someone and left feeling vaguely uneasy? And yet when a chance comes along to do a business deal with that same person, we too often put our feelings aside and focus on the potential of the deal. But almost every deal that has gone badly for me has been with someone that, in looking back, I knew better than to get involved with. The latest example, a new house I bought from a builder who told me that she was going to make an insurance claim for damage that I knew wasn’t legitimate. Now I own a house built by an unethical builder with all of the resultant shoddy work and little or no attempt on her part to make anything right. I hold a position in a company that is floundering run by a person who didn’t keep his word in a previous deal. And I lost a large sum of money by backing an enthusiastic entrepreneur whom I knew had used and abused other supporters, but I thought it would be different this time. I could go on, but it's too depressing!

My advice, to myself as much as you, run, don’t walk, if you find yourself getting seduced by the ‘deal’ and not listening to your inner voice which is screaming at you to put two and two together and make four this time.

Note to Warren: You can make a bad deal with a good person. You just don’t feel as stupid when you do!

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive