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Dear ,
I don't know of any entrepreneur who hasn't had to negotiate at some point during their lifetime.
Whether it was with a customer, a supplier, a landlord, other
business people -- we've all had to do it.
And yet most people enter the negotiation arena terribly unprepared.
So, every now and then, I'll share some of the tricks and secrets of negotiation that should give you a shot at achieving much better results. And while I can't promise that my tips
will end the usual negotiation "dance," I can promise that you will be a more formidable negotiator if you apply what I share with you.
"Can You Tell Me How You
Arrived At That Number?"
The "How'd you get that number?" tip is one of the oldest tricks in the book.
Let's say you need a new air conditioner (ugh, that's no fun)
and the owner of your local Air Conditioners R Us comes to your house to pitch you. He spends 40 minutes telling you how horrible your current unit is, how much money you're losing due to inefficiency, and why you MUST replace it today (typical sales pitch).
Finally, at the end of his presentation, he gives you a number -- let's say
$6,500.
At that point, most people would either say OK, let's go ahead... or... I'm sorry that's too expensive for me. If you tell him it's too expensive, he may offer you a slightly lower price, but probably not because you haven't put much pressure on him to negotiate.
Instead, what you should do...
When he tells you $6,500, simply ask him, "Can you tell me how you got that number?" or "What is the breakdown of that number?" "...because I just want to fully understand."
What that does is require him to start giving you details and justifying the breakdown of the price, which will give you an opening to negotiate.
He might say, well the unit costs us X, plus we have labor costs, initiation fees, delivery fees, disposal fees, government fees, etc., etc. He's working hard to justify his
price -- but more importantly, he's opening the door for you work on lowering each cost separately (good luck trying to lower taxes and government fees!).
So, you might say, how can we find a way to reduce the number closer to $5,500 -- how about the initiation fee? What can we do about the disposal and delivery fees? Where can we trim down the costs? You probably won't reach
your exact target number, but you will have opened the door to negotiation and taken him off his original $6,500 quote.
If you do all this a nonchalant, non-confrontational manner, you shouldn't get any pushback. The reason most people don't do it is because they don't know about it or don't think about it.
I would say, in a majority of cases, if you ask this question, you'll be pleasantly surprised with the results.
Give it a try and thank me later. :)
If you have any comments, ideas or suggestions, please email me at:
nader@copticchamber.com
Until next time...
Your friend,
