Negotiating is a term often associated with high level board room meetings and political and international wrangling, but the truth is we all have opportunities to negotiate every day.

Once we recognise this, we are set to save cash every time we buy.

The fact is everything is negotiable.  Everything!  The problem is that in our culture, most Australian's are "conditioned" to believe that either most things are not negotiable or that it's not "nice" to negotiate.

To prove my point I went shopping one Saturday morning a few weeks ago with a friend and his wife who had both read my book "Negotiating In The Age Of Integrity" but were still not sure that they could really use the ideas there.

They were expecting their first baby and we went to one of those big baby shops.  As we entered the shop they were approached by a sales person who asked, "Can I help you?"

Before we entered the shop, I reminded them of a few simply techniques they had read about and I coached them on what to say.  They were going to do the negotiating, not me.  Hence their response was, "Well we need to buy a few things for our new baby and just thought we'd see what you have here."  We call this playing "Reluctant Buyer". 

They looked around and after nearly 30 minutes had selected a pram (price tag $650), a cot ($440) a combined change table and baby bath ($450) and an intercom ($120), a pusher ($265) and a car seat ($415).  One of the suggestions I had made was that they could save a substantial amount by buying everything together, rather than all of these items separately in different stores.  The bigger the sale the more leverage you have to obtain a sizeable discount.

As we walked around and as they decided on each item. The sales person picked up the item and offered to take it to the cash register.  I had instructed my friends to say, "No that's OK, just leave it there right now thanks".   Finally the sales person added up all of these items and it came to $2,340. 

Now here's where my friends really began to play the negotiating game. The fact is, if you see negotiating as a game, it can be fun and profitable to play.  Indeed one of the most empowering things you can do is not to take negotiating too seriously.

I'd coached my friends to do five simple things..... 

The first was to play "Reluctant Buyer", by not allowing the sales person to assume that they were going to buy anything at all.  Once you have taken items to the checkout, it's fairly obvious you are going to buy regardless of what the price is, and your negotiating power is considerably diminished. 

The other four techniques were simple little phrases.  Easy to learn.  Easy to use. 

The first  is called "The Flinch".

So my friend said, "How much???!!"  acting visibly shocked.  His wife joined in saying, "That's a lot of money!" and then they both deliberately went silent and waited for a response.

The sales person very felt uncomfortable and finally said, "Well I think we can do a little better than that.  How’'s an even $2,300 sound to you?"

The third technique I had coached them in was called "The Vice" and my friend simply responded, "You'll have to do better than that!" and went silent again.

"Let's make it $2,250  then." said the sales person.  Continuing with the "Vice" my friend had two more simple questions."What's your best price?"  Again he waited in total silence.

The sales person didn't know what to say, and scurried away to see an older man in the office area, and when he finally returned he said, "$2,100 but that the best we can do!"

Now most people would have stopped there, but my friend had one last question for him, "But how much for cash?" as he took cash from his wallet. 

The fact is most businesses lose between 1% and 5% on a credit card transaction, and that's $21 to $105 on a transaction of this size.

My friends left the store all smiles paying just $1,995, and saving of $345 by using 4 simple phrases.....  "How much?";  "You'll have to do better than that!" ;  "So what's your best price?" and  "So how much for cash?" They even negotiated free delivery, saving a further $25. 

As we left the store my friend said, "Let's go look at new cars!" but that's another story.

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