How to negotiate. Not.

I went into a car show room the other day.  I went prepared.  I knew what the list price of the car I wanted was.  Yes, I had checked on line on the manufacture web site.  So I knew what it would cost, including the extras I wanted.  So no sales person fooling me!  Right down to the rather nice carpets I wanted added to the foot wells.

In I went.

I’m glad I was so well prepared.  When the sales person asked what I was interested in, I told them.  No messing about for me.  “What is your price on the car I’m looking for, including all the extras”, I demanded.  They told me.  It was the same as I had worked out on the car manufactures web site.  Amazing.  Tick that box!  They didn’t get me there.

And when the sales person asked how much I wanted for my car, I told them.  Oh yes, I told them.  Exactly.  I was prepared.

“Shall we do a deal then?” they asked without another second passing.  Deal done.  Money paid.  

And off I went.

Unfortunately I had left my scarf on the chair I had been sitting on, so returned to the showroom.  Still sitting at the desk, facing away from me, was the sales person.  They were laughing.  They were telling a story.  They were telling someone on the other end of a phone line about this complete tube who had just been into the show room and declared what they were willing to pay and what they wanted to get for their old car.  “Couldn’t believe it, just told me what they wanted, so I gave it to them.  No need for any negotiation.  Made a fortune on that sale I did.”

You will be pleased, or relieved, to know this is of course all made up.

But it does show what would happen if the government were to declare their negotiating hand on their strategy for exiting of the European Union.  We'd be trashed.