Great thread op! There are any books you indicate to read?

I hate to say this-- on negotiation basically none. How to win friends and influence people is probably the best sales/social book I ever read. There is just so much garbage out there. I think a lot of people who are amazing in this area can't accurately explain why they're successful.

Great thread.

I just completed a law school class on negotiation and found it to be really interesting. As far as basic books go, I can recommend 'Getting to Yes Without Giving In' by Roger Fisher and Wiliam Ury.

What real-world advice can you give for people with poor interpersonal skills/poor confidence when dealing with experienced negotiators?

Also, good work on the value-investing blog. Definitely an interesting read.

Stanford's ecorner has a lot of lectures with videos and podcasts on all sorts of subjects including negotiation/ing:
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/search.h...ywords=negoti*

Joel Peterson is pretty good:
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMa....html?mid=1573

But yeah, ultimately there's a lot of feel and craft to negotiations, and different styles work for different people. Plus situations can differ, such as real estate or cars or business deals or partnerships etc. The best way to get a car cheap from a dealership (hardline to the point non-emotional results oriented negotiation) is going to differ a lot from how best to negotiate with your GF to get kinky sex or to negotiate who does what with a business partner on a new venture.

Edit: How to Win Friends and Influence People is an extremely good read, once you get past the cheese factor of the author changing his name to coattail steel magnate Andrew Carnegie's success in industry.

I'm currently shopping for some new cars and trading in my car.

I'm in the market for a toyota rav-4(among others), and they do not offer 2012(due to the tsunami) yet.

I'm in an area with a fair number of dealers of all the cars I'm looking at.(some large ones, some are HUUUUUGGGGEEEEEEE-if your from upstate ny you know who I'm talking about)

1. For these cars that are last years model but have not been sold yet, what sort of percentage could you expect to save(I should be able to get it some percentage under invoice correct)?

2. If I'm looking at similar but different vehicles, how do I play the dealers against each other? Or do I just treat each as a seperate transaction?

Great thread OP, thanks for this. In your experience, what are the best methods you have seen customers use that have resulted in the lowest prices for them? Is it as simple as just knowing the book value/dealership cost and sticking to a certain minimum amount above that, or have you seen other/better ways?

if you drive home and you realized your butt whole hurts because you just got raped by the dealer, can you just go back and complain and get some money back or can you return it in full.

Also, after a salesman screws a customer over, do they go out for drinks and laugh about.

I hate being taken by a salesman, but i hate the idea of being the point of the joke.

Typically the rebates get bigger as the car gets older. A lot of this stuff is local though--I wouldn't automatically expect a bigger dealer side discount just because the car is a 2011 model instead of a 2012. the dealer cares about how many days he's had the car in inventory--he could give a **** less about the year of the car.

If the car's been sitting on the lot for 200+ days you start to see some fairly silly deals... But if this is a 2011 that arrived off the truck 43 days ago you're probably going to get a standard everyday deal.

Do you have a small penis? Honest question. Turning a profit !=screwing someone over. Some salespeople come in expecting to think about customers the way car dealers in some random movies do... They don't usually last that long.

Car guys will joke about nearly anything over a drink like anyone else--customers usually say absurdly stupid things to end up the butt of jokes though... Salespeople are usually secretly quite grateful to the people who they made a lot of money from.

Like any other profession that customers are sold to or given services, you make fun of what stupid people did.

I'm in IT support, so we joke about the person who is mega angry for no reason, or wants a computer with a pendulum 4 and won't take any other computer.

guess I'll just try and see what some random dealer says via email when I say some random price under invoice.

So I receive a written offer and it included my salary, continuing education stipends, retirement, health insurance costs etc.....Basically my employer is showing me that they are paying around an additional 10k yearly in benefits to me aside from my weekly paycheck. I do not need the health insurance so would I be in the wrong to try and get that added to my salary?

Think too many people get involved in the personal aspects of negotiation when it should be more about the equity of things. Negotiating for car prices etc is very different then negotiating more flexible and general things in life.

No--but they probably pay for that in fixed costs that can't be avoided because you opt out. Basically they're taking their total healthcare costs for employees... dividing it by their headcount and reporting that to you. At the same time it never hurts to ask

Couldn't agree more. The guy who gets steamed about 'being laughed at' will continue to be a terrible negotiator until he gets his ego out of the equation.

There has literally never been a good negotiator who had that attitude.

i do not let that hinder my interactionsi. Trust me. I was curious however if car dealers looked at customers as "marks" and twirl thier mustaches plotting against them behind closed doors like Mr. Burns in the Simpsons. Nice to know they just look at it as a job, etc.

Of course they do, in the same manner the buyer uses as many tricks as they can find to beat the dealer. A counter from a sales manager is as much based on if the buyer is bumpable, and how much. It is a game, the buyer isn't the only one who can walk away.

To have a buyer come back, after they've walked out the door, and pay the last price given is an accomplishment that deserves a celebration. (just never ever let them see you at it)

Does a customer have any less leverage if the dealership is the only one of it's type in the area?

Domestic dealerships have basically no leverage. There are so many more ford, chrysler, and gm dealers than are actually needed that they'll literally cut each others throats for business. The import dealers tend to give their dealers a lot more leverage with customers. The luxury brands will give you not a single inch.

Interested to get your thoughts on a car negotiation from the weekend...

Shopped around 6 dealerships, really liked the Hyundai Elantra and the salesman offered one to me for 20,100 OTD. I came back and offered 19,000 to get it done. He takes it to his manager who claims they'd be taking a loss at that price, but they could probably shave a couple hundred. I tell them that I'm willing to meet at 19,500, but that's my final offer. Salesman gets me to write my offer down and initial next to it for the manager. They confer for 15-20 min and finally come back to tell me that they can go to 19,850 and only in either Red/White (I wanted Black). I tell them that 19,500 is my final offer, they hem and haw, and then I leave.

I'm curious if you think they were actually at their margin and if you have any advice about how to get my number (end of the month, etc.).

Great thread op! More stories about Cal please

If they let you leave you were very very close to the lowest number they would do. Something tells me that these guys are ******ed and gave you a very low price initially. I don't know what the sticker for a Hyundai Elantra is these days... I also don't know what tax and fees look like in your area...

There are definitely situations where with smaller cars there just isn't very much profit to haggle over. It's also possible that the Elantra is hot right now--and they can definitely sell all of their inventory at a higher price.

Regardless I probably try a different dealer next weekend... Another Hyundai dealer. Don't mention the other place and compare the prices you're offered

I'm buying my first car; looking at a used BMW coupe or sedan. I'm thinking of just mass-emailing lowball offers to dealerships in the region who have something I'm interested in. I'm not in a hurry to buy the car so I don't mind haggling for a month or two.

Like I said, I'm not sure how standard this is or if it would even work. Ideally, 5 out of 15+ would email me with a better-than-listed price. I would then personally go and compare. Good play?

Perhaps. A good used BMW that is fairly decent at WHOLESALE BOOK+1k is probably what you're looking for. One of the more dangerous things about the used car market is that a quality used car (clean, well taken care of etc) is something that car dealers aren't going to part with for a lowball price (because they can get more 100% of the time--and unlike a new car there won't be another just like it rolling off the truck).

Personally I think it'd be easier to do 3 dealerships that have cars like what you want posted online. I'd correspond with the internet sales people at all 3 places and let them all know that you're talking to others to keep them honest. That'll get you pretty close to the lowest price. (Bidding wars ftw)