Schedule A
Can you reduce your commission?
Rainmaker charges a standard 5% commission (as do our competitors). Of course, for larger trades (above $1M) these fees are often reduced. Many clients ask to lower the fee in our Schedule A, and of course, this is possible. However, this guarantees two things:

a. Your shares automatically go to the back of our order book. In other words, if we have $100M in selling inventory and all those sellers are engaged at 5%, our management expects us to work through the 5% sales before looking at the inventory at 4%. This puts you at a significant disadvantage, especially in a buyer’s market.

b. Few of the nearly 50+ brokers at Rainmaker (and their buyers) would ever see this offer because we split fees internally. We don’t always work with other Rainmaker brokers (and the process is invisible and irrelevant to you, as I would make a direct introduction to a buyer in any case), but if my buyers are willing to pay $100/share and a colleague has a buyer willing to pay $101, we would offer you the higher price. However, these brokers generally have more than enough inventory in all names to start working first on those clients that are engaged at 5%, so you reduce by a factor of 50 that potential number of buyers who will bid on your shares.

However, it’s important to note that while our engagement starts at 5%, in many cases the Schedule A is updated on a per-deal basis. In other words, if a seller is firm at $100/share and I can only find a buyer willing to pay $103, I would most likely update the engagement to reflect this new commission percent and make the introduction.

In all cases, we urge sellers to focus on the NET price and to ask themselves which trade they would accept: $100 / share net with a 5% commission or $95 share / net with a 1% commission?

2c - Disqualifications for Pre-Existing Conversations
Question: “Can you extend the time to provide written notice to longer than two days?”
Answer: No. Normally, what happens is immediately upon making an introduction, within a few minutes the buyer and/or seller say, "Thank you, Chad, we actually have been discussing this so we'll keep those discussions going without your help." This is extremely rare, but when it does occur, out of courtesy the buyer and/or seller will alert the agent immediately. The reason for this is that immediately upon making the introduction and both sides re-confirming agreement to the terms, our team gets to work preparing all necessary paperwork, compliance documents, etc. This can take many hours. If we had to wait five days, for instance, we would simply not start work during those crucial days, a long enough time for the buyer to find shares elsewhere. It would also be quite a bad start to a long-term relationship if I bring a buyer to a client, prepare Transfer Notices, SPAs, create our Roadmap, halt other potential transactions with other sellers in process, and then, after five days of work and opportunity costs, the seller writes "Never mind, I already know this buyer." I would never waste a seller’s time and would expect the same courtesy.