Mission
Turning fear into excitement
Democratising the power of negotiation
Maximising profits for the companies we support
Our Story
Our founder and Chief Negotiator Alex Adamo, a negotiator and serial entrepreneur, has always had a mission: bridging the gap between business and behavioural sciences and allowing human beings to become more conscious of their own actions.
After helping commercialise some of his startups, achieving an MSc in Evolutionary Biology and Anthropology at UCL to learn hard behavioural sciences from humans and primates alike, negotiating with CEOs of the largest banks in the world as a strategy consultant and learning how to up-skill negotiators from world-class training companies, Alex discovered that there were little to no negotiation consultancies in the world that offered end-to-end negotiation support from providing macro-strategic oversight on 6-12 months negotiation plans to the minutest levels of micro-behaviours through each negotiation event i.e. providing scientific and actionable answers to questions such as "why are we making a certain micro-facial expression while putting our proposal on the table or after we receive theirs?", "why are we being more verbose than we need to be when sending a negotiation email to our counter-party, is it because we are afraid of losing the deal? If so, is this actually what we want to communicate to our counter-party?", "what impression will I communicate to my opponent if I immediately call them back after their angry email, and I employ a trembling, startling voice? Will they know I am really eager to close the deal, will my amygdala take control of my behaviours, will they, therefore, be tougher and firmer with me, making it more difficult to maximise my deal?".
Often the problem is that most negotiators are not even aware of the importance of asking themselves such questions, let alone the ability to employ behavioural on-message execution. It was clear that people, including C-Level executives, do not pay conscious attention to such behaviours and just go into the negotiation room to use their experience to close the deal - This is what we call "finger-crossing". When such negotiators manage €150m+ deals, the consequences of a millisecond hesitation detectable in one's tone of voice, an ill prepared deal structure, a micro-facial expression of surprise lasting for less than a fifth of a second, one's thumb stroking the back of their own hand, can and will be financially disastrous as it will send signals which our interlocutor will consciously or subconsciously receive and act upon. To add injury to insult, after reaching a deal, the negotiator will usually not even be aware of having left a few millions on the table and will go away and celebrate having closed another large deal.
The mission for The Commercialiser was clear: bringing the finest level of behavioural insights and negotiation strategy to a select number of large corporates would immediately add measurable EBIT to such companies. The Commercialiser exists to help you identify the millions that are at risks of being left on the table and to provide strategic and behavioural support to help you maximise each deal you make.
We use a selected number of experienced negotiators to support our clients. Our negotiators are either full-time negotiators or CEOs and Commercial Directors of large enterprises who support ad-hoc negotiation engagements.
Our negotiators conduct high-stakes negotiations on a daily basis and put their own money and careers at stake in each negotiation they lead. While we are ever-learning students of negotiation and human behaviour, we are not armchair theorists.
High-stake negotiations require rigorous emotional management and flawless pre-frontal cortex operational capability under tough, high-pressure circumstances - this skill will not be learnt in a classroom while teaching MBA students or conducting white paper research about negotiation game theory.
Practice Over Theory
Values and
Culture at
The Commercialiser
Honesty and loyalty are our key drivers as people, colleagues and friends at The Commercialiser. We refuse to collaborate with companies which use underhand or illegal commercial tactics. We advocate negotiation techniques that put our clients firmly in control and enable them to reach their ambitious commercial objectives while employing fairness and integrity in the process.
While we know how to employ executive authority in the boardroom, we also like to be light-hearted when possible, enjoy a bit of banter with colleagues and clients alike, and bring passion and joy into our engagements every day.
We give the utmost respect and professionalism to our clients and we expect the same in return.
We are painfully and refreshingly unscalable. And we have decided to remain so, uncompromisingly.
Boutique consultancy means small and tailored, rather than producing one-size-fits-all solutions, we personalise every engagement to our clients' needs strategic objectives so that we can maximise the ROI of your investment.
Led by behavioural anthropologist and Chief Negotiator Alex Adamo, we have a selected team of C-Level negotiators. We are committed to retaining our small, boutique consultancy structure and, rather than scaling in size we are relentlessly committed to growing exponentially in negotiation impact. As we continue to support the world's largest businesses in their negotiations, we take every client engagement as our life depends on it.