The biggest part of negotiating is to know when to walk away. Arguably, it’s the most important part of negotiating because if you aren’t willing to walk away, you lose. No exceptions. If you aren’t willing to walk away, then all the other side has to do is say no to everything. Eventually, it’s only a matter of time before a bad deal is reached.
Negotiating is an integral part of personal finance. When you buy a car, get a cable bill contract, and get a rental apartment, you negotiate. I’ve had my fair share of negotiating mishaps and mistakes, but one thing became clear to me. I had to be willing to walk away. The times that I didn’t walk away was when I made the worst deals ever possible.
Otherwise you are fighting against two entities to get what you want, them and you. The other side does that care about your side at all and you have to advocate for yourself from start to finish. They can smell your reluctance to walk away from a mile away. You can bet they will take advantage of that fact.
Don’t be the loser in a negotiation. Know when to walk way. Negotiation is all about reaching a fair agreement that’s a win-win for all sides involved. When you know that the result will be a lose-win, then that’s when you draw the line and you walk away.
One way to not be a loser in a negotiation is to DESTROY the share button above for the Google algorithm named BERT 😊. BERT is a highly powerful being who might sound scary but he’s a really nice guy. As long as we all get along together and share the knowledge to others. Otherwise, he becomes really mean!
Know When to Walk Away: Actual Scenarios
Yes, there are an abundance of negotiating books out in the market today. I’ve learned quite a bit of effective strategies and tricks to implement in my own life. However, one thing that the negotiating books have in common is that they never teach you to walk away. That is the biggest flaw that you’ll find with the books.
The negotiating books all focus on one common theme: that making a deal is possible. None of the books teach you when a deal is literally impossible due to the other side’s demands and stubbornness. They do show realistic scenarios in which the other side is being unreasonable.
By the end, they seem to actually listen to reason. Meaning, there was a string of words that you could say in order for a transaction to happen.
In some situations, that is actually impossible. There are times when no matter how well-reasoned your explanations are, a deal will NEVER happen. Remember that the best and skilled negotiator in the world since Earth’s existence can never make a deal if the other side says no.
That’s when you need to walk away.
After going through a ton of negotiating situations, I can honestly say that walking away is sometimes the best course of action. Not only does it save you stress and time, it saves the other side as well.
From their perspective, you are too demanding and ungrateful and the offer that’s on the table. From your perspective, the deal is not fair until certain criteria is met. Let’s explore these scenarios in which both sides are unwilling to back down and compromise.
Scenario 1: xFinity
In June 2018, I moved apartments and contacted xFinity to just move my address to continue my Wi-Fi service. In the process of moving, xFinity returned a $170 credit that I had with them by mailing a check. To my old address that I no longer had access to.
I contacted customer service and stayed on the line for about an hour to which they agreed to credit me for the $170. They assured me that they would cancel the check and that the credit can be added, no problem. Well by September 2018, they still haven’t credited my account for the amount.
I called customer service two more times in September 2018 for over an hour each. Both times they assured me that they would credit my account. They didn’t.
By October 2018, I racked up late fees of $10 AND my account wasn’t credited. I called their customer service 3 more times at an hour each. At the 3rd time, they actually credited me the $170 they owed me.
I demanded they compensate me a month free of service for the time spent with customer service, they said no.
Moreover, the late fee stayed intact. Not only did I lose 6 hours of my time, I lost $10. That didn’t sound right to me, they should be compensating me for their mistake, not the other way around. So instead of trying their customer line again, I had to know when to walk away. I gave up.
Instead, I contacted the FTC through their complaint process detailing what I suffered. Two days later, my late fee was waived and they offered me an additional month of free service. Done.
Scenario 2: Apartment
From 2017 – 2019, I found out that I was paying above market value (which was $749 a month) for my apartment. I never missed a single rental payment and kept the home in good condition. So I asked for a price reduction to a fairer price. They gave me the spiel of “we can’t do that, but we really enjoy having you here”.
I told them I might be then moving out soon and they replied that they didn’t want me to leave. They hinted at there could be a rental special around the time my lease was up. I waited two months before my lease was to be up, and they never contacted me.
So then I assumed that it was just a classic case of dangling the carrot in front of me. So because I had to know when to walk away, I walked away. I found another place that was 8% smaller in square footage but was higher quality. For the exact same price.
So I made the plunge and was very close to signing the lease with the new rental company. As part of the background check, they called my prior rental company to which I had no problems passing.
As a result though, the current rental company finally contacted me and offered a $50/month concession to $699 a month. On top of that, they offered to take out a $100 for the first month’s rent.
WHAT! I was just looking for a $25/month concession, let alone $50/month PLUS a $100 one time concession. I could hardly contain my excitement but I just cooly said great, send the documents over. Then I signed it.
Practice Continuously
None of the negotiation advice you read every day matters if you don’t apply what you read. The hardest part is remembering what you read and applying it in the real world. The thing about negotiating is that it happens when you least expect it.
Sometimes, you’re negotiating without even knowing that you’re negotiating. Sure, the first couple of times you might fail. I certainly did. What matters is that you learn from your mistakes and do better next time. Heck, the worst you should do is to leave empty handed, which isn’t bad nor good.
The next time you do business with anyone that requires a human conversation, you should practice negotiating. Ask for a discount. One 24 Hour Fitness was trying to charge me $15 for a 1-day session. I just wanted to go in and see my friends.
I asked them, well have you ever made an exception before? They said no. I said “well, then how about for this time, I pay $5?” They countered with $10. I countered with “I appreciate it, but the price that works for me is $5”. They said OK.
It’s very fast, that conversation lasted 2-minutes and the guy probably didn’t even know we were negotiating. It happens very quickly, but recognition is key to practicing negotiation.
Know When to Walk Away For Fairness
Remember that doing no deal is better than doing a bad deal. In every situations all you have to make sure is that you are not worse off. After doing this enough times you will have a plethora of wins under your belt. It will lead to a better financial life in the future.
When I was younger, I was fascinated with negotiation.
Two sides going at it to reach an agreement that work for both parties at the end of the day. It’s fascinating. When I started out, I was god awful at negotiating. Why? I was at a point where doing a bad deal would make me better off than not doing a deal. That’s how I viewed when I was in college.
Having a bad job is better than not having any job at all. Boy was I looking at things wrong. Since I was unwilling to walk away, I got put in a lot of bad positions and situations.
When I negotiated my car, I did an awful job in the negotiation process. Sure, I got it at a GREAT price and I got a great car to boot, but I knew that I could squeeze more out of them.
I got taken to the cleaners. However, since then, I learned on what to do in a negotiation. While I can’t win every situation I sure can come up with a fair agreement that works for both sides.
The goal is for you to do the same as well.
Love the blog, David! That xFinity experience must’ve been so frustrating! But I’m glad you ended up getting your money back. I’m amazed at the apartment story too – everything really is negotiable after all. Keep up the great work!
Thank you! Love your blog as well. Most people will just take whatever’s on the table instead of negotiating. I’ve learned that that is NEVER the case, we can negotiate for more things than we realize.