It’s Not About The Price

Most of us believe we are good at negotiating because we’ve had some small successes at getting someone to buckle under in a negotiating circumstance. So we erroneously believe that negotiating is all about the money, the price. Whether the issue is the price of a house, the rate of a mortgage or the insurance for our cars, we are all in this pandemic head space that saving money is the most important thing we can do and WINNING is what counts. Congratulations if this is what you also think because you have been successfully brain washed on so many levels.

TV ads, mags, newspapers, flyers  - you name it – are all about saving money; all about discounts; all about anything but quality, service, reputation.

Why are we getting hooked into this? It’s because we expect products and services to be inferior, not top quality, easily breakable, short life span, discardable, replaceable… built-in obsolescence. 

And the worst part of all this is that it impacts other aspects of our lives. It affects interpersonal relationships if we believe that relationships are discardable, replaceable... like spouses and marriages. It affects loyalty, if we believe that products and services are faulty, without merit, without substance, and therefore irrelevant. How can there be loyalty where there is no trust?

It is a vicious circle in fact if we think that our career is changeable if we should fail, and this means that we are set up to do a lesser job in the expectation of failure. What about providing a service to someone who isn’t prepared to provide loyalty to the relationship; not willing to pay for the work being done? Doesn’t it imply that the person providing the service might in fact do a lesser job in anticipation of being left in the cold after it’s all over? Self-fulfilling prophesy, or vicious circle, or what? So, what`s the solution?

I say that if you are going into a deal, a relationship, a negotiation, a career - anything in fact – in which you expect to do or get anything less than 100%, DON’T BOTHER. YOU WILL FAIL.

I say that if you are thinking about selling or buying real estate and the motivating factor in which agent or sales person you hire will be only because he/she will cost you the least money, will charge you the least fee or commission, you are setting yourself up for failure. If you are discounting experience, knowledge, trust, loyalty, hard work, proven success and caring by discounting what that sales person should earn, then you are setting yourself up for failure.

I say that if you are a sales person in real estate (or in fact any profession) and you are willing to discount your services, your products, YOURSELF, then you are setting yourself up for failure.

I say that we all have the power to represent ourselves as having value.

If a vase, a comic book, a painting -  an anything that is irreplaceable -  can sell for millions of dollars, how more is each of us worth. We are truly irreplaceable. And if you are worth keeping, you are worth representing yourself as someone worthwhile.

I say, DON’T GIVE IT AWAY.

Sam Green