Front-Load the Leverage
Get every promised deliverable locked in writing at signing, because your leverage disappears the moment you deliver your side.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 65%
Wing Lam's rule comes from repeated bad experiences with promoters: once his side of a deal was delivered, the promoter's leverage to actually pay out or provide the promised quantity disappeared, because there was nothing left to withhold. The mechanism is to move every deliverable a counterparty promises into the written agreement at signing, before any work is performed, rather than trusting it will be honored afterward. Any promise not committed to in writing at the point of maximum leverage should be treated as unlikely to materialize. This applies especially to quantities ("10 tickets" instead of "we'll get you tickets") and timing (deliver-simultaneously instead of deliver-then-hope). The framework protects against a specific failure mode: businesses that make promises to their own people (your team, your family, your customers) based on a counterparty's verbal assurance, only to be left holding the broken promise when the counterparty can no longer be forced to perform.
Origin
Wing Lam described a repeated pattern with promoters on college trips and events: he was told a specific quantity (like 10 tickets) would be provided, delivered his side of the deal, and then was told at the last minute that only a fraction of what was promised was actually available, with no recourse.
Core principles
- 01Leverage is highest before you perform your side of a deal, and near zero after.
- 02"I'm sorry, we didn't make enough money" is the only recourse you'll get once the event has happened.
- 03Verbal promises about quantities or deliverables evaporate once your part is done.
- 04Get exact quantities and deliverables written into the agreement, not left to conversation.
How to run it
- 1
List every promised deliverable
Before agreeing to anything, write down the exact quantities and specifics the other party has promised, not the general shape of the deal.
- 2
Move it into the contract
Put the specific quantities and deliverables into the signed agreement itself, at the point when both sides still need each other most.
Pro tip The moment you've delivered your part, your negotiating power is gone, so lock terms before that moment.
- 3
Sequence delivery to protect yourself
Where possible, arrange for the other party's deliverable to arrive before or alongside your own performance, not after.
Watch out If a counterparty insists you perform first and they'll square up later, treat that as the highest-risk version of the deal.
- 4
Don't over-promise your own people on a verbal deal
Avoid telling your team, family, or employees they're getting something based only on a counterparty's spoken assurance rather than a written commitment.
In the wild
On a college trip promotion, a promoter verbally committed to providing 10 tickets for the group. Wing's team delivered their part of the promotion. When the event arrived, the promoter said only 2 tickets were actually available, leaving 8 people from the group with nowhere to go.
→ Because the ticket count was never locked into the agreement at signing, there was no way to enforce the original promise once the promoter's side had already fallen through.
Common mistakes
Trusting a verbal quantity
Agreeing to a deal based on a spoken number ("we'll get you 10 tickets") instead of a written commitment leaves no way to enforce it later.
Delivering your side before confirming theirs
Once you've performed your part of the agreement, you lose the leverage to force the other side to perform theirs.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone doing sponsorships, event promoter deals, or barter/trade agreements where one side performs before the other pays out.
Not ideal for
Long-standing vendor relationships with an established trust record and repeated fair dealing.
From the transcript
“You tend to learn early on that if you were promised whatever product, whatever service you were promised on a promoter end, try to get…”
“So, if my job is I should have gotten those 10 tickets the day we signed the contract to make sure my whole team is…”
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