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.
