Getting Offers Or Getting Sold
Getting sales offers is great if you’re prepared. If you’re unprepared, it often means just getting sold!
If you’re ready, an offer is:
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An Option (not a demand)
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Education (informing you about the market)
But if you come to the sales discussion:
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Unprepared
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Without the right knowledge
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Without other options
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Without the time to fully analyze an offer
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With an over-willingness to accept
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Feeling weak under pressure
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With general complacence
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Without negotiating skills
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In desperation
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Or without sufficient willpower to say ‘No’ and susceptible to forms of temptation…
… Then it’s very likely that rather than gaining an option and learning something…, you’re just going to get sold.
You Need To Learn How To Buy
You can build a life, a business, and maybe a fortune… by knowing how to buy.
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Warren Buffet looks for companies he might buy, reading business financial statements all day.
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Real Estate investors look at 100 houses, make an offer on 5, and buy 1.
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Most large companies have a ‘Purchasing Department’, where people are paid and trained to negotiate and ‘buy better’.
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E-commerce merchants probably look at 100 potential products before choosing one to buy/sell in their store.
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The best hiring managers have a system for finding great job applicants in a stack of resumes, and the best job seekers have some system for applying to the right companies.
If you’re ‘getting sold’, getting stuck with lemon cars and the like, don’t get angry at the seller. If you’re going to get angry, it’s probably best to get angry at yourself instead.
It seems to me, that when you get pushed around in a negotiation, it’s rarely about the negotiation. Really, it’s about you and your life up to this point.
If You’d Planned Your Life Better, You’d Be Better Off In This Negotiation
If you’re worrying that you need this job, and the Starbucks manager isn’t willing to pay you more than minimum wage, the issue is that you have no skills and no financial safety fund. The ability to learn skills (even going to local community college if you want) and the willpower to at least save some money… is within your control.
When I was a freelance writer, I always felt more pressure to say ‘Yes’ to a mediocre writing job if I didn’t have any other clients. When I systematically applied for 3 jobs per day, even when I had clients, I felt much less stress and anxiety when negotiating my rates, and as a result I usually increased my rate by $5/hour for every new job I took on.
If you’re looking to buy a house, and have never analyzed the housing market in your area, you’re likely going to feel pressure from the sales agent. If however, you’ve been driving the neighborhood and watching Zillow for a few years, you’ll know what’s fair.
If you’re a bit of an emotional push-over, easily influenced by the opinions of other people (I know the feeling) then a sales person can ‘push’ you through the shopping process. Again, you can learn to exhibit self-confidence and learn to stand your ground… if you take the time to learn, perhaps searching “How to be more assertive” on YouTube.
On a similar note, are you easily tempted by things that look pleasurable? Are you unable to say no to fried foods, a cup of coffee or a bottle of beer if offered? If you have difficulty saying ‘no’ to inanimate objects, then a live person ‘pitching’ or ‘selling’ you may be able to apply similar pressure. If you were better at saying “I want to eat that donut right now, but I’ll challenge myself to not eat it.” you’ll find it easier to say “I want to accept your offer, but I need to talk it over with my wife.”
Who Are You? Not Just In This Sales Discussion, But In Your Life.
Have you learned any valuable skills and saved some rainy-day savings?
Have you searched for multiple employers, clients, houses in your neighborhood, cars in the lot, or products you might want to sell?
Have you developed your emotions, so that you don’t feel sales pressure or juicy temptation?
To me, it seems that the power or lack of power that you feel in a buying situation, and value of the eventual outcome… are effected much more by how you have lived your life over the past 10 years, than by any details of this specific situation, the product you’re buying, or the seller trying to sell it.