My favorite part of retail sales was always haggling, negotiating, and
making a deal. I always enjoyed it, and through a combination of on-the-job
experience and undertaking specific training courses (back in the day Sony
offered a training course called Negotiate The Deal You Deserve that paid
enormous dividend to those of us who enrolled in it) learned a thing or two,
and enjoyed both the process and the rewards.

As a result, my favorite customers and clients were always the ones who also
love to haggle and negotiate, and understand that it is a two way street,
with some give and some take in order to make a deal. Here are a couple of
examples.

I put together a full package deal of high end appliances for a customer who
was building a new home: fridge, stove, dishwasher, washer, dryer. The
customer owned a construction company so haggling was second nature to him.
He was a big, brash, “How you doin’?” type guy, and he ground me, or at
least he tried to, and did his best to bust my balls, and I gave it right
back.

Eventually, after a couple of days, we settled on a price for the whole set.
Right after he signed the credit card slip he says to me “You know, I would
have paid a thousand dollars more”

I looked him in the eye and replied, “That’s okay, I would have taken a
thousand dollars less.”

He looked stunned for a moment, and then replied “Well played, sir.”

Honestly, I think he bought it all because he liked the cut of my jib.

The West has an unusually high percentage of people who just pay the listed
price for anything. In other countries negotiating is ingrained in the
cultural code.

And for many cultures, negotiating isn’t just a way of getting a better
price, it’s entertainment. It’s not just about the price at all: If you can
put on a good show and make the client laugh, you’ll get the deal.

There was one couple that I worked with to put together a big screen TV and
HiFi package with. Despite the language barrier, we went back and forth on
price for a while. Eventually we had reached a middle ground price of ten
thousand dollars, tax included.

On my computer screen, fiddling the pricing, I liked what I saw for gross
profit, but with the tax figured in I could only adjust it to $10,000.01.

Just as I was patting my pockets, Chris, my General Manager walked by.

“Chris!” I called, “Have you got a penny?”

“What?” he asked.

“A penny. I need a penny, please.”

So Chris gave me a penny. I turned to my customers, and said “I cannot do
ten thousand.”

They looked sad.

Continuing, I went on, “But I can do ten thousand dollars, and one cent. And
HERE!” I slapped the penny on the counter, “For you, because I like you, I
will pay the one cent!”

They thought that was the funniest thing they had ever heard. And they took
the deal.