Here’s something buyers rarely admit:

They start counting money they already spent as a reason to spend more.

Legal fees, deposits, inspections, travel, diligence consultants, time off work, negotiation fatigue…

And then they treat those as “investments that must be recovered,” rather than what they actually are:

Sunk costs.

A valuation comes in light, and suddenly it’s not:

“What is the business worth?”

It’s:

“We’ve already spent $X. We can’t walk away now.”

That’s when price becomes emotional, and the deal becomes a momentum machine.

But here’s the cold reality:

The market does not reimburse sunk costs.

If the economics don’t support the price, the economics don’t support the price—no matter how much effort got you to this stage.

Leadership sometimes looks like walking away after you’ve already invested.

That’s the discipline most people don’t have until they’ve been burned at least once.