The Brown Couch - Negotiate Everything!!

It was the year 2004 and I was standing at the door of furniture city store about to buy my first ever piece of furniture, a set of couches for my then empty living room. As I entered the door, obviously not looking very rich, a number of sales people walked passed and opted to assist other people. As one particular guy noticed me looking intensely at a brown set of couches, he must have smelt a sale and came closer asking to help. "How much are these" I asked. "R4,999 including the 2 ottomans sir" he responded. Without thinking about where I was, I then jokingly asked "is that your best price?" To my absolute surprise however, this guy responded "give me a minute. "Let me go an speak to the manager".

Now at this point in my life, I had no idea that you could actually negotiate prices in a furniture store. As this guy returned with the manager, I had gathered that this was now a negotiation and decided to take it full on. "Just for today I will give you a R299 managers discount" the man said ever so kindly. "Aha.. So we really are negotiating" I thought to myself.. "Just for today I will take it at R4000" I responded looking very serious. This then kicked off a back and forth discussion which eventually ended with me taking the full set of couches and an additional coffee table which I had been eyeing for the original price of R4,999. In other words, I had managed to drop the price enough to add a coffee table and walk out of there with a little bit more than I had planned to buy at the original amount of money I had budgeted for.

Knowing what I had learnt on this day, I decided to try this at a till in PicknPay and again to my surprise the manager actually came out and gave me a discount on my monthly grocery shopping. While there was an irritated man behind me on the queue that day, with a much bigger purchase, once I had actually succeeded in obtaining the discount, his very words were.. "Wow buddy, why didn't I think of that"?

These two experiences set up a belief in me that simply says "just about everything, everywhere is negotiable with anyone almost all the time". If you don't ever ask, chances are you will never get.

So what sort of things have I done with this belief? I have never bought a car at the advertised price or accepted delivery of one without insisting on a full tank of gas to come with it; I have always negotiated a salary package before moving companies; I negotiated a significant discount off the purchase price of the house and even went as far as to negotiate the legal costs that come with buying a house (very rarely done) and in the process I have learnt how to negotiate in business.

In the work environment just about everything is a negotiation and if this skill is not one that you build on a day to day basis in your personal life, it won't suddenly turn up as a strength in your professional life.

So here are a few things to watch out for while you negotiate:

1.) Never negotiate the quality, negotiate price: It is vitally important that you decide upfront what the quality of product or service you are looking for is, determine that this is indeed what you want and go into the negotiation with that mindset. This then becomes about "I really want this product but let's talk about the price". In other words, you must never drive out of a BMW dealership with a VW having been convinced that they are both made in Germany.

2.) Be willing to walk away and come back later: Desperation is probably the worst thing that one can enter a negotiation with. I have walked away from the biggest "bargains" many times only to find them still available 3 months later. On return, I have then come back with the upper hand. On the other hand, I have walked away and lost deals and have had to learn that you can't always have what you want. That too is ok.

3.) Explore various options: Are there different payment plans for instance? Rather than R8,000 per month over 3 months, can you pay R20,000 upfront and save R4,000? Are there extras that you don't need on the product or service and can they be removed to reduce the price? Discuss these options at length and involve the other party in coming up with these alternatives.

4.) Build rapport with the person you are negotiating with: Negotiations done in a friendly and light hearted manner with the view of building a relationship yield the best results and significantly reduce the probability of you getting screwed. Raise your voice and consistently get upset only to your own detriment.

So many years later, the brown couch sits in the kids' play room, is still in great condition (at least according to me) and although we are about to give it away, I'm grateful that it taught me how to negotiate. ?#?LongLiveTheBrownCouch?!!