Part 2: Haggling & Negotiation Skills

Woo Hoo... As I would know, negotiations are not my best skills. But as people say, an Experienced salesperson is Experienced because he has been through enough Experiences.

Today, one week after having made a transaction on impulse for a lifestyle package, with my homework and research done on other Lifestyle Aesthetic Provider Enterprises in the past one week, the time came to meet with with my consultant Kelly (KC for short), who manages my lifestyle aesthetic treatments, and is the Manager of the outlet where where I am based at.

The general rule is, to always do your research before making a purchase. However I did the opposite.. hence the rational for the Buyer's Remorse in my situation!!!

I was blessed. God was on my side even when I didn't ask him to. My research led me to find out that the deal I was given was much cheaper than the initial package quoted being,

• (N.P= Normal Price). Now that I reflect on it, one knows that we should never take the N.P unless some haggling is done.

• Then there is the (P.P= Promotion Price)- which is what I bought for my initial package.

• Finally there is the lowest price that I went to, which was much lower than the N.P and P.P, and after much haggling. I should have asked more, but better try next round. :-P

In Malaysia, is of ultimate importance that one MUST haggle & negotiate for a better price. Cultural Practice states it is MANDATORY.

Today in the midst of my treatment, KC proposed another package to me. This time, with my eyes and ears on the alert, I listened to her as she gave her sales pitch of the benefits of this next treatment.

Experience makes us wiser.
And I was.

This time I told her that I'd give it a think over and get back to her.

I believe that KC did not procure the position as the Outlet Manager without having to prove the skills. The Outlet Manager has the responsibility to meet the sales quota, reporting all sales and marketing movements to The Management.

They have to find various ways to persuade customers to sign up for the different packages in hand or to use existing customers to generate leads. Among the practices that could generate leads are

• Offering benefits and incentives for current customers
  
• Ensuring that the packages or merchandise purchased works well in order to generate good word-of-mouth
• Giving good after-sales service to ensure that the client returns.
• Offering a fairly priced package to ensure that the client does not feel that they have been over-charged, or at least giving the impression to the client that they have made a wise decision on their part.

Part 1: Haggling & Negotiation skills.

I am one of those who do horribly at haggling. Not only do most Australians not haggle, its not in their cultural practice, or expectations to do so. So obviously, during my time in Australia, I totally lost ANY skills of haggling (if I ever had any) to about almost ZERO. I might be exaggerating, but as far as I know, I haven't seen any Australians doing that....

So imagine my surprise when I started my experience at the current workplace (where I have to do the dirty work of tele-selling exhibition space to very typical china-apek/ "chinaman" (a term for someone who is thrifty in spending money) managers. You could say that I was almost a "jakun" (malay term for equivalent in Australian terms for 'someone from the bush') in the haggling department.

Apparently most Malaysian china-man put up their initial price (which is HEAVILY marked up) and then start negotiations from there. Then when they give their sales pitch to customer, they waive this (and waive that), so that in the end, the customers feel like they were given a BIG discount. Not to mention, it is also a cultural practice of a lot of the business people to haggle & bargain on the printed price which is given.

A week or two after I started my venture into the world of tele-sales, I so happened to be in this shopping mall where there was a fitness club, FF. Since both my friend, Asta & I were in need of overhauling our image in terms of spring cleaning the "fats" area, we decided to just drop by the fitness club.

It was indeedly strange, as the salesperson showed us this placard which had the price of the joining fee & administration fee & monthly fee which came up to about RM600+. We were a bit shocked, as it was really a bit too much to even join. I remember rightly a few years back that I didn't even pay a single cent to pay any such thing... so we told the salesperson, Joanne, that we were previously members.

Joanne then proceeded to contact the Centre Manager for a while (supposedly had a discussion lar), and then she informed us that our joining fee & administration fee was *MAGICALLY* waived (with a wave of a hand)...... saying too that that offer was only GOOD FOR THAT DAY.. (which anyone with half-a-brain should know that that is a 'sales gimmick' to lure in naive customers like us to make a sale. hahahaha).

The end result was no, I ended up not enrolling for the fitness club membership of RM195 as it was just too much of a hassle to go a gym after work (traffic jam, blah blah blah). Instead, a week later, I headed to Fitness Concept to get a set of dumbbells weighing a good number of kilos to work out at home. (that came up to only RM35 and will last me for a very long time... ). ^^

Speaking of which, with the economy downturn, it seems that the Australians might be rethinking of haggling after all... till then, later!