Funny Negotiation Story

So, as I posted a few days ago, I've been shopping for a new car.

Coincidentally, a few weeks ago, my wife and I were looking at property values for a nearby neighborhood with million dollar houses. We found that two of the most valuable houses were owned by the owners of a couple of the local car dealers.

There's lots of money in selling cars, I guess!

I was torn between two similar models from Jeep and Hyundai. Well, I decided that if I could get the price I was looking for, I would go with the Jeep.

So I went to the dealer - let's call it Smith's Chrysler Jeep to protect the innocent - to negotiate, backed by all of the Consumer Reports information I gathered.

The sales person went back to his manager and improved upon his most recent quote. Of course, I said that I wanted a lower price.

The sales person said "We're not really making any money on this vehicle at this price point. I mean, it's not like a Dodge Ram that has thousands of dollars of markup. There's no markup left."

I said, "C'mon Jim. You know and I know that there's markup left. I got all of the information from Consumer Reports. True, it might not be enough to pay Mr. Smith's mortgage, but there's still some juice there."

Then I hear a voice from over my shoulder saying: "What's this about Mr. Smith's mortgage?"

I turn to find Mr. Smith - the owner of this rather large dealership. Ha ha!

So Mr. Smith sat down and got more aggressive with the deal, I challenged a few numbers he wrote down, and he further swung the price my way. We reached a price point I was happy with and bought the car.

I always teach my students to negotiate directly with the decision-maker and was planning on asking to speak with the sales manager/finance guy once we got to the appropriate point, but didn't plan on things happening the way they did - in such a funny way.

To Your Career,
Charles Dominick, SPSM
President and Chief Procurement Officer
Next Level Purchasing, Inc.
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