“I Couldn’t Justify…” Part Two

In Part One we saw that, when in the process of buying something you’d like, if you feel you need to negotiate a better situation for yourself with the salesperson working with you, it’s best to do so in a way that is respectful, and keeps the door open to negotiation. Not only is treating someone with respect the right thing to do, it will also go a lot farther in helping you achieve the outcome you desire. After all, when you make someone feel good about themselves (and about you) they have a greater desire to please you.

After utilizing the words, “I couldn’t justify” (in our example it was, “Thank you, Steve. I appreciate the offer. Unfortunately, at that price and the long delivery time, ‘I couldn’t justify’ making the purchase. But I DO appreciate the offer”) you wait for his response. 

If, after a few seconds, he says nothing (and assuming you really want the widget enough to pursue this), simply say: “Steve, what can you offer that would help me to justify the decision to buy?”

That one question, asked with respect, will allow him to provide you with the appropriate answer.

He’ll either come back with something better, or he won’t. There’s no guarantee he will. (Sometimes, it’s a ‘condition,’ not a choice, meaning that he has no room to negotiate further.) The choice will then be yours. However, what I CAN guarantee is that if you’ll proceed with the “I couldn’t justify . . .” response as opposed to a simple (or less than nice) “no”, the odds of him going out of his way to make you happy will increase dramatically.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 6:40 am and is filed under WWI. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.