Incite 9/4/2012: Dealing with Dealers
Back in March I mentioned it was about time for a new set of wheels. Of course nothing happens quickly in my world, so it wasn’t until mid-June that I got serious about a new car. You’d figure a guy like me would relish the opportunity to sit across from a car salesperson and beat them into submission to get the best deal. I’m not the kind of guy to blink, and I’d just as soon walk out if I don’t get what I want. Turns out I’ve been there and done that, and despite living to tell the tale, I have learned there is a better way to skin this specific cat. Of course, not everyone gets this or is willing to listen to a different approach. I remember 8 years ago when my in-laws told me they were going to test drive a new car. I told them not to buy the car that day. Just go in and test drive it. That I’d help them and save them some money. Sure enough they had to drive over to show me their spanking new generic car that they bought right off the lot. From the first dealer they visited. They got a good deal. That was their story and they were sticking to it. But they pretty much got raped. Hard. I just shook my head. But you know, they felt good about it, so I wasn’t about to piss in their oatmeal. But going into a car dealership and buying a car is a pretty stupid way to do things. Regardless of how good a negotiator you are, if you go into a dealership to negotiate for a car you’re doing it wrong. About 10 years ago I was introduced to a service called Fighting Chance. It’s pretty much a research service for car buyers. I get the power of research and tracking trends and leveraging other folks’ experiences to save time and money. That’s what I do for a living, after all. The fine folks at Fighting Chance teach you how to buy the car based on what’s really happening in the field, give you information about promotions and deals, help you figure out the data you need to compare apples to apples, and provide target values for recent sales for the model you are looking for. The service is awesome. It costs something like $40 and has saved me thousands. Their idea is that a car is a commodity. If you live in a typical metropolitan area, each car brand has 10-25 dealers within a short drive who will be happy to sell you a car. The exact same car. It’s not like Dealer A has a different Honda than Dealer B. You don’t buy a commodity by dealing with one seller. Not if you’re smart, anyway. You buy a commodity by getting dealers to compete with each other. I won’t give away the exact process (you should buy the service), but it involves getting dealers to bid against each other. I was able to buy a brand new current model Honda CR-V substantially under invoice by getting bids from 5 local dealers. I handled the process via email and a few phone calls, and it took me a couple hours. By the way, most car dealers hate this approach. They prey on folks who don’t know what they are doing. But it turns out that smart dealers focus on volume and make it up on the back end through incentives and other payments from the manufacturers, with far higher margins on services and trade-ins. These folks love guys like me, since I know exactly what I want and can get the transaction done in an hour. Notice I said CR-V, not Prius V, my preference back in March. Both the Boss and the dealer pointed out to that driving only about 7,000 miles a year means negligible savings in gas, and for 10% less I could get the fully decked-out CR-V instead of a mid-level Prius V. And they were right. Who said I’m inflexible and rock-headed? –Mike Photo credits: USED CAR SALESMAN KITTY originally uploaded by victoriafee Heavy Research We’re back at work on a variety of blog series, so here is a list of the research currently underway. Remember you can get our Heavy Feed via RSS, where you can get all our content in its unabridged glory. And you can get all our research papers too. Pragmatic WAF Management Securing the WAF Application Lifecycle Integration Policy Management Incite 4 U Showing your true colors: Great post by Conrad Constantine about maintaining your sanity when dealing with a high profile incident. He should know – he was at ground zero for a pretty serious one. He points out that you’ll get to meet some pretty big wheels in your organization, and they will want answers and direction. Even if you don’t have any. He starts by telling you to keep a timeline of exactly what happened. Even if that information never sees the light of day (and likely it won’t) you need it. Conrad provides tips for playing above your pay grade and living to tell about it, and talks about the reality behind the PR spin machine. His point that it always ends at some point, and things go back to the new normal, are exactly right. But the best idea in the post is the reality of how people behave under duress: “Before anything else, no matter what field you work in during times of crisis you will see everyone’s true colors brought forth – not least of which – your own.” What he said. – MR Security Bypass: It’s not that IT users thumb their noses at IT security, as claimed by the author of this analysis of the iPass Mobile Workforce Report. But users sidestep anything that makes work more difficult. If the impediment is security controls on applications or data usage, users find ways around it. Mobile
