"Time kills deals."

I remember the first time I heard that phrase. I owned a franchise of a national recruiting firm, and my trainer was in town to teach me how to close more deals.

At the time, I had no sense of urgency. I guess I wasn't hungry enough. And he promised I would be hungry - and so would my family - if I wasn't more aggressive in closing sales rather than just introducing likely candidates to companies looking for a top salesman.

Turn the clock forward a decade and I was trying to close one of the bigger deals of my life. It was a little awkward because I had become inactive in the management of the company while I was living in the Philippines for 19 months. But I was on my way back to Utah, and I was determined to close this deal.

My problem was, I had four partners that I hadn't seen for more than a year and a half. Plus I was in a different time zone and soon to be on a plane, then on a ship for seven days.

To be honest, the company was troublesome, and it wasn't going anywhere. But we had a willing and a capable buyer: a rich father was going to buy our company for his son, who for some unknown reason (who cares?) had fallen in love with our training company.

The offer wasn't great, but it was acceptable and it would get the four other owners enough money to get started on something new - preferably far away from each other.

We were scheduled to close the deal with this - believe it or not - billionaire on Friday of the week I was calendared to be on an Alaskan cruise getting over jet lag and becoming adjusted to civilian life again. All the partners but one, including myself, had signed off on the deal. It was Wednesday night and the final partner was a holdout. He wanted his share, plus a new Harley Davidson cycle (the rich Daddy owned a cycle shop, and my partner thought he ought to get a new Harley in addition to his share of the sales price).

We all begged him to not be greedy and take the deal.

I spent $660 on ship-to-shore phone calls quoting every closing technique I had learned in my 40 years in business.

"Don't let this guy get away," I counseled. "We have to take this deal and close on Friday like the buyer wants."

"Nope," he said. "If he doesn't give me a new Harley, I am not going to close."

I couldn't give my partner a Harley, but I was ready to give him a fat lip if he didn't sign the paper and close the deal on Friday. The rich father was scheduled for a four-day Memorial Day weekend in Florida on his $5 million yacht.

Finally, I used the "Time Kills Deals" line on my partner.

"If we let this guy get away from us before we close this on Friday," I said, "the whole deal could die and we will be stuck with this company."

Still he wouldn't budge.

So the billionaire went off to Florida for the weekend, and my wife and I tried to enjoy the few days on the cruise. When I got home late on Memorial Day Monday, there was a message from one of the other partners who had also been trying to close the deal with our holdout. Turns out the billionaire and his new wife were on a jet ski and hit a sand bar. They both flew over the handle bars, landed on their heads and their necks were broken.

They were dead, and so was the deal. I didn't get the check that I expected when I got home from the Philippines. My three partners didn't get any money out of the deal, and the holdout didn't get a new Harley.

So the saying is cliche, but only because it is true: time does kill deals.