The Art of the Deal

By Jim Hagarty

Business people like, or should like, potential customers who ask a thousand questions about the item they are probably going to buy, especially the price.

They shouldn’t even take it wrong if the customer tries to haggle on the price and terms of payment among other things. The reason for this is, that person intends on paying for what he is about to buy, so price, quality, warranty, payment terms, etc. are all very important to him.

The wonderfully agreeable guy who just loves the item and has no questions to ask about anything, hardly even glancing at the price, is this way because he will not be paying for the purchase. He may not even know he won’t be paying for it, at least not consciously, but his cavalier attitude towards terms of the deal should be a potential red flag for the seller who might want to insist on cash or credit card.

This does not apply, of course, to the fabulously wealthy to whom price might not matter, but even for them, terms are important. They didn’t get rich and stay rich by throwing away their money.

My father told me this years ago and I thought it was pretty insightful.

Author: Jim Hagarty

I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.