"I’m a pretty good negotiator!" So said the guy talking to the camera in front of the pawn shop. So say the star pickers.
Talk about self-delusion!
These self-proclaimed negotiators, these buffoons almost always end up bidding against themselves. They have long since forgotten what polite grader schoolers know, "shut-up, the next one that speaks loses!"
Everyone is a salesman, everyone is born salesman, some are just better than others. I write about real estate investment, lending and borrowing and home ownership, but salesmanship is a lesson in life!
Most people rationalize not investing in real estate, or themselves that can't make the deals. Those going to the TV pawn shops and the pickers prove many can't!
Everyone is a salesman, new born babies cry and Mom sticks a warm nipple in their mouth, they ask for what they want and they get it, that's sales!
Pre-schooler ask for ice cream and then say please, please, please until Dad gives in, that's sales.
Some time before high school polite kids learn to ask once and then wait quietly staring until Dad gives in, that's sales.
During high school some revert to the demanding style of the new born, some to the begging of the pre-schooler, that's sales. Yes, some become timid, afraid to even ask for the chocolate milk they want instead of white.
We're all salesmen. We envy those among us who further develop their skills to ask a question and then shut-up, and wait for what they want!
Life is a sale.
As a kid growing up in the fifties I learned to ask once and stare. I perfected this with a pouty look that usually worked on Dad, occasionally on Mom, and almost always on my Grandparents. My great grandparents unfortunately were immune, I think they had trouble hearing and seeing me, it may have been selective.
Somewhere between birth and puberty the pouty look no longer helped, but ask and stare got better.
I wasn't taught salesmanship I was taught to be polite, but to ask for what I wanted and then quietly wait for an answer. I didn't grow up rich, but I was extremely privileged, thanks in great part to that little lesson.
I was taught to be polite and to ask for what I wanted. I could not have explained this simple technique in high school but I used it and I had a wonderful experience, it helped in collage. In Marine boot camp it let a lowly recruit get a little of his own back from the DI's. Out of the service and into banking, I used this simple method a hundred times a day, everyday.
It wasn't until after I left the bank to sell real estate that anyone explained this simple sales method to me. In my first sales class the instructor ask "what do you do after you ask for the order?" Some poor girl started to answer and the instructor shouted: "Shut-Up!" The girl was reduced to tears. The instructor then explained, "ask for the order, then shut-up... the next one who speaks loses." This is what the TV "stars" and their victims forget!
You're not going to get what you want every time, but if you don't give the person time to answer you'll never know what it takes to get it. People want to say yes just to be polite. If you can keep your mouth shut-up, they will either accept your offer or tell you why they won't. It works every time, in real estate, lending, borrowing, pawn, picking and life.
How long should you shut-up? I often tell the true story of an offer one of my students, Larry Hellner and I presented one night, at 10 PM (Yes real estate offers were presented by the man that wrote them and we tried to do so as soon as possable!) I asked the closing question about 10:30, no one spoke until 5 AM when the wife shouted at her husband to sign the offer!
Once you've made the sale, shut-uo, stop selling and "get-er-done!"
Don't have any thing to sell, well ask your spouse, "let's go to bed early?" "Not tonight I've got a headache!" Now repeat "headache?" and shut-up (this is a good time to revive the pouty stare), enjoy. Now there is only one reason not to make your next sale, purchase, or kid, fear. I've been in lending and real estate sales for 40 years I've been teaching, real estate, real estate investment, sales, and lending since 1973 and I still get scared with every presentation. Why should you be different from the rest of us? I can't cure fear. To control fear remember that you'll probably never see the people again if they don't accept your offer, in which who cares what they think.
If you know you made an offer in which both you and the sellers win it's there loss not yours, they should be afraid of losing you.
Watch the sellers say "I want $1,200." Then the pawn broker says "I’ll give you $400!" after which the seller says "Would-ya-pay $1,000? $800? $700? $650? $500? All right $400 seems fair."
"I’m a pretty good negotiator!" Right!
Bob Stewart told my friend Jason Sardi "
No matter how much things change here at ActiveRain, using my name in the title of your post is your best chance of getting featured! :-P" SeeAn Open Letter To Bob Stewart. I’m not to proud to take good advice!
Sales, Pawn Stars, American Pickers, Bob Stewart
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