This method doesn’t work 100% of the time, however, as my father always told me, “If you don’t ask you never know what you can get.” So let me clarify what I mean. In the last few weeks as I’m negotiating for various purchases twice I’ve called up and asked one person for a great deal. Twice that person didn’t give me the deal I wanted. Twice I called back and got the deal I did want from someone else in the same organization. One time it was even in the same day. Let me explain…
When I was ordering my Sonos, I of course wanted the best deal possible. Heck, I’d been waiting for 2 years, 9 months, 12 days, and 6 hours for the right deal (maybe not exactly that long), so if I was going to bite the bullet I was going to make it worth it. So I emailed my contact to find out if I ordered the bundle with the free speakers along with another zone player if they’d throw in shipping for free. He said no can do. Oh well. I wanted it anyway, so I call to place the order and talk to someone else and ask again. She throws in the shipping (on the extra zoneplayer only) for free along with a free cradle for the controller (which I didn’t even ask for). Yes! Good thing I didn’t just ask the first person and assume it couldn’t be done…
Second instance was working with the Colorado Department of Revenue. They assessed some late charges and penalties that weren’t correct. My payments were postmarked on the proper day and after calling them all I had to do was mail them a letter requesting them to review the file and pull a copy of the envelope with the postmark on it…. But I forgot to write down the address to where I was to mail the letter. So I called back, talked to another gentleman and he said “Don’t worry about it, your account has a zero balance now. I took care of it.” That time I don’t even think I asked. He just volunteered to take care of it for me. Nice.
The third instance I was working with Paychex and they wouldn’t talk to me cause I wasn’t the “authorized” person on the account. Didn’t really matter that I owned the business they were servicing, they wouldn’t talk to me. So I hang up, call back and before they could even ask me who I was, they said, “Sorry Bryan, we need to talk to X or Y.” Well needless to say when they now call me for sales calls (since I cancelled their service) I make sure they know I’m not the authorized account holder.
So the moral here is, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
To your negotiating success, Bryan
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