Negotiation
John Smith
Negotiation Exercise
PROJ 598
April 6, 2014
Buying my First Car
When I finally turned 16 and received my license I was beyond excited to start driving. I had been looking forward to that day for roughly all 16 years of my existence. However, there was only one problem – I did not have a car to drive. Well, at least not a car of my own. Luckily, this was an easy fix as my dad had agreed to drive me around town to visit the local car dealerships in hopes that I would find the perfect car to purchase as my very own. After a few hours of searching and hopping from dealership to dealership I finally laid eyes on the perfect car. It was a Silver, 2006 Ford Expedition. It had everything I needed and then some. Four wheel drive, leather seats, DVD player, a third row that folded down with the push of a button. The only thing that was not perfect was the price tag hanging in the window. $18,000 seemed like a fair enough asking price but never in a million years would I admit that to the salesman. I had done my research on Kelley Blue Book, a pricing tool that is commonly used for cars, and the car was valued at about $20,000 so I already knew that the tag of $18,000 was a good starting point. Unfortunately, car salesmen are very pesky and difficult to work with. I do not like to generalize but they require so much time (and an abundance of patience) after you sit down to begin negotiations. Luckily I too am very patient when it comes to most things and buying my first car would be no exception to this. For the better part of two hours we went back and forth on the sales price. My goal when I first set out that morning was to keep the price to around $9,000. I had that amount saved up in the bank and my parents had agreed to throw in up to $3,000 more. After two hours we had made very little progress. The salesman was very much prolonging the negotiation for
Negotiation Exercise
PROJ 598
April 6, 2014
Buying my First Car
When I finally turned 16 and received my license I was beyond excited to start driving. I had been looking forward to that day for roughly all 16 years of my existence. However, there was only one problem – I did not have a car to drive. Well, at least not a car of my own. Luckily, this was an easy fix as my dad had agreed to drive me around town to visit the local car dealerships in hopes that I would find the perfect car to purchase as my very own. After a few hours of searching and hopping from dealership to dealership I finally laid eyes on the perfect car. It was a Silver, 2006 Ford Expedition. It had everything I needed and then some. Four wheel drive, leather seats, DVD player, a third row that folded down with the push of a button. The only thing that was not perfect was the price tag hanging in the window. $18,000 seemed like a fair enough asking price but never in a million years would I admit that to the salesman. I had done my research on Kelley Blue Book, a pricing tool that is commonly used for cars, and the car was valued at about $20,000 so I already knew that the tag of $18,000 was a good starting point. Unfortunately, car salesmen are very pesky and difficult to work with. I do not like to generalize but they require so much time (and an abundance of patience) after you sit down to begin negotiations. Luckily I too am very patient when it comes to most things and buying my first car would be no exception to this. For the better part of two hours we went back and forth on the sales price. My goal when I first set out that morning was to keep the price to around $9,000. I had that amount saved up in the bank and my parents had agreed to throw in up to $3,000 more. After two hours we had made very little progress. The salesman was very much prolonging the negotiation for