OK, so we’ve been over “after the close, shut up” recently. Something reminded me tonight of another pair of closely related axioms:
- From the seller’s side: If the buyer takes your first offer, you could have gotten more.
- From the buyer’s side: If the seller takes your first offer, you could have paid less.
Now obviously, there’s not much you can do about it on this transaction. If you’re a person of integrity, then well, you just agreed to terms, so honor them.
But you can carry forward what you learned here into future negotiations. For one thing, get your reasonable-sounding number, then bump it a little bit. Always bump it a little bit. For another, play back the entire interaction, as best as you can remember it, carefully. Did the other party give you any behavioral hints? Was there anything that didn’t seem significant at the time, but might be in the context of his/her overly ready acceptance?
We tend to undervalue rapport with a potential transactional partner. If you’ve spent time with a person and you’re clicking a bit, go ahead and ask above what you think you can get (or offer below what you think you’ll have to pay). You’ve built enough relationship to absorb any minor offense resulting from a rejection.
(And they might say yes.)
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Interesting that you should mention this right now. Jeff is helping his dad sell his house. A friend of one of the neighbors has expressed interest from the beginning. Kept them informed through the appraisal process, and they didn’t run screaming from either the dollar amount from the tax assessment or the official appraisal (not exact but close enough). They then offered a REALLY low amount and wouldn’t budge. Thanks, but we’re not that desperate. They then added that they thought it was a fair offer. Um, no, that’s why we had the appraisal done. The appraiser takes into account the condition of the property and what other houses in the neighborhood have sold for. You don’t like it, go live somewhere else.
It would have been better if they had said, “That’s outside our budget” instead of making an insulting offer, because I think that’s pretty well soured us on them.
Sounds like they hit you way too low. That’s not what I’m talking about, as I’m sure you realize. Sorry about that.
Sometimes when that would happen when I was selling cars, and my boss had met and gotten a sense of the customer, he’d tell me “blow him out of here.” That meant, pretty much, that he’d not been particularly professional and/or realistic with us, so get him gone and get you another one.
I never did anything truly comical when “(blowing) him out of here,” but I did once have my elbow on the window frame of a car that a guy drove out from under it at high speed. 🙂
I hope this will be a long-running series on negotiation!