Scott Adams: Car Buying
This weekend my wife and I went shopping to replace our beloved minivan. Negotiating car prices is a fascinating experience. I’m not good at negotiating because I’ve never taken acting classes. I find it hard to get into character. When the salesman asked me how much I wanted to spend on our chosen vehicle, I only had one response ready: “I’d like to spend zero, you boiled turd. Just give it to me. Or did I misunderstand the question?”
Okay, I didn’t say that. But I did laugh at him in a mocking sort of way. Obviously the question is designed to determine how dumb the customer is. You pass the test by not taking out a copy of your bank statement and saying, “I can’t read. Can you tell me how much money I have?” The sales guy bowed out of the negotiations and introduced us to the General Manager. The GM went into his ridiculous spiel about how he was willing to sell this vehicle for less than he paid because he wants the manufacturer to give him a higher quota of that model next month. Apparently his business plan involves having a greater inventory of cars that no one is willing to buy for more than his costs. The general manager looked me in the eye to see if I believed his absurd lie. My wife and I just glanced at each other with mock disappointment. The game was on.
It was time to get into character. I played the part of the husband who insists on doing endless research, thus providing the dealership with no hope of closing the sale today. I said, “I want to spend some time doing research and then I can give you an offer. Maybe I can get that done by tomorrow.”
Sales people hate two things: Informed customers and postponement. This was the worst case scenario for the dealership, and my ploy was designed to make the general manager “negotiate with himself,” as the saying goes. In other words, we wanted him to keep offering lower prices before we made our first offer. That brings down the ceiling price and prevents us from accidentally offering more than he would have asked for.
Then the general manager goes into his canned routine about some sort of dealer incentive or other ambiguous pot of money that he could reluctantly dip into, thus offering an even lower price. He said that if we accepted this offer his children would have to wear clothes made of plastic grocery bags or some damned thing. I wasn’t paying attention to the details.
We acted unhappy and asked for his business card. “We’ll do some research and get back to you,” we said.