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What price enthusiasm?
Recently I had to go through the unpleasant (to me) process of buying a car. I love driving Honda Civics and thanks to a recent accident, I was in the market for a new used one. After a long internet search, I found 2 in my town that were close enough to what I wanted that they warranted a test drive. The first one wasn’t going to work almost as soon as I saw it. It was more used than I wanted and it died at the first stop light during the test drive.
The second one was “it” almost from the word go. It was a few years newer than the first one with less miles, it was less beaten up and it was a manual transmission! I’ve been driving a stick shift since I learned how to drive and I love it! The test drive was the trip to the mechanic to have him look at the car. He gave it a good once over and said it had a good engine that had been well maintained. Sold!!!
I’m not know for having a good poker face. I pretty much wear my emotions all over my face. So when I jumped out of the car back at the dealership and said, “What do I have to do to own this car?” I pretty much destroyed any bargaining power I might have had but I WANTED THAT CAR! I only had the rental car for a few more days so I was on a very tight time frame. I knew there wasn’t much else out there I wanted to buy so my enthusiasm boxed me into an excited corner.
I probably could have brought him down $200 - $300 more if I had played it cool. But I got the car for a good price (actually, it was already listed for less than Kelly Blue Book value) and I love it! Now what I’m trying to figure out is how to use negotiate enthusiastically!!