This email is a bit of a departure from my self-storage-focused content, but I guarantee it's relevant to improving your life, whether you care about self storage or not.

Last week, I negotiated a $10,000 discount on a new truck.

Here’s the story, tactics, and why you are missing out if you aren’t studying how to negotiate properly.

The truck is a Chevy 2500 HD ZR2; not many of them are available, so I was already starting at a disadvantage.

It was the only one in the area, and only 150 have been made so far.

The dealer had marked $10,000 ABOVE MSRP.

I went in to test-drive it.

It was awesome.

I told the dealer I would buy the truck at MSRP, but they weren’t interested.

They told me I could buy the truck at MSRP if I ordered it, but it would likely take 10 months to get it in.

Here’s what I did.

I ordered a ZR2 and told them I was happy waiting 10 months and in no rush to get the truck, which was true.

The following week, I called some larger dealerships to see if I could get the truck quicker than 10 months.

I discovered if you order with a larger dealer, they tend to get better allocations on hard-to-get trucks; the dealer I had the order with was much smaller.

With that information in hand, I sent my dealer an email:

They could either sell me the truck at MSRP

or

If they didn’t want to, I just needed my deposit back to reallocate my order to another dealer.

The next morning, I got a call from the dealer; the truck on the lot was mine for $10,000 less than they were asking.

Here are the strategies that I would highlight as the reasons behind my success:

#1: I signaled that I did not have to have the truck.

Any time you are in a negotiation, if you have to make a deal, you’re going to get screwed.

I walked out of the dealership the day I test-drove it and gladly placed an order for the truck that was 10 months away.

#2: Time

This happened over the period of 3 weeks, and the longer you drag out a negotiation, the more time invested the other party has in it, and thus, the harder it is for them to walk away.

#3: Loss aversion

This was the biggest factor.

When I initially tried to negotiate for the truck on the lot, they were losing nothing by not selling it to me.

A couple weeks later, when I told them they would lose an order if they didn’t sell me the truck on the lot, it motivated them to act.

People are more likely to take action to avoid potential losses, rather than to seek gains.

Figure out how to trigger this in a negotiation, and you will greatly increase the probability of success.

Finally, I share this to stress the importance of negotiation skills.

They take a long time to curate.

I’m far from Chris Voss’s (Never Split the Difference - read the book if you don't know what I'm talking about) level, but these favorable outcomes have become more frequent in my personal life and at DXD Capital and Radius+.

I’ve founded companies, raised 100’s of millions of dollars and closed on deals that I never would have without these skills.

They work, but it takes time and practice. I hope this motivates you to take it more seriously.

Btw, here's my new truck

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Cory

Co-Founder DXD Capital, Radius+, ManageSpace​

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