You are a real estate agent and have been assigned to sell a downtown property by its owner. Your instructions are 'get the best price you can'. Do you:
Get on with the search for a buyer?
Insist on more specific instructions?
Decline the assignment?
Advice for another agent?
An Arab with six camels approaches an oasis, in search of water. Standing by the spring there is another Arab and a sign (in Arabic): 'Water: all you can drink - price one camel'. Who has the power?
The Arab with the camels?
The Arab with the water?
Impossible to say?
The strong one?
You have been working only three weeks in a new job in a shipping agent in Baltimore and had planned to get married on Friday 18 August (which you did not disclose at the job interview). Your 'intended' has demanded a proper honeymoon vacation of at least a week in Miami. It's now 16 August and you ask your boss for leave both for the wedding day and for the honeymoon. He is visibly put out by the request and asks stiffly how long you were 'thinking of being absent'. Do you say?
The wedding day only?
Two weeks?
Three days?
One week?
You respond to an advertisement in the trade press offering a salmon-fishing estate for sale. The advertisement insists on 'principals only'. You find in discussion with the other side that you are dealing with an agent of the owner. Do you:
Insist on dealing direct with the other principal?
Ask if the agent has power to settle without reference back to the owner?
Carry on negotiations on a wait-and-see basis?
Try to meet other buyers and negotiate with them?
You act as a go-between in the sale of a light aircraft. The buyer pays by cheque and the owner is willing to accept this and release the aircraft once it is cleared by the bank. When settling up your fee, do you:
Press for payment in cash?
Send in an invoice?
Accept a cheque?
Do nothing?
Do you see negotiating as being about?
A fair and equal transaction?
Finding the most acceptable compromise?
Making a joint decision with the other guy that meets as many of his and as many of your interests as possible?
Give and take?
You are package-tour operator negotiating with a Spanish hotel chain on the terms for next season's bookings. The price they are asking per person per week in their hotels $9 higher than your current offer. They offer to 'split the difference' 50-50... Do you::
a.Suggest, say, 60-40 in your favour?
Say you can't afford to split the difference?
Agree to their offer?
Agree, if it is a 75-25 split in your
You are a copier machine sales representative and make an invited sales call at the local home for unmarried mothers. The social worker in charge indicates that she wants to purchase one of your machines that have a list price of £2,200. However, her budget from the Council fixes an absolute ceiling of £1,775. Do you:
Regretfully decline to do business?
Use your pricing discretion and make a sale?
Suggest that she considers a cheaper model?
Suggest that she can pay the rest later?
You are managing a civil project for the Saudis, who have imposed a time-delay penalty clause on you. A subcontractor has missed a delivery of important machinery. Planned start-up times may not be met. Do you:
Check through the supply contract to discover his liability?
Ask the site agent to list all the failures associated with the defaulting contractor since the job began and telex their head office with your complaints?
Telephone their managing director and threaten to use for any penalty costs imposed on you by the Saudis?
Arrange an immediate meeting with the contractor to put into operation an alternative delivery programme that your own engineers have drawn up?
You are in the market for a yacht and have taken a fancy to the 'Isabella' which is advertised at £50,000. The most that you can raise is £43,000 from selling your own boat and borrowing from the bank. You meet the owner in the clubhouse and casually tell him of your (strong) interest. You mention that you could raise £43,000. He agrees to sell you the 'Isabella' for that sum. Is this:
An offer you can't refuse?
A lousy situation?
An occasion to celebrate your bargain?
A occasion to tell your friends?
You are management consultant and receive a telex from Sydney asking to quote for a sales seminar for the Chamber of Commerce. Do you reply?
How many and who is to be there?
Tell them that your standard daily fee is £700 a day plus expenses?
Ask for £1,000 for the seminar plus expenses and £250 per day for travel?
None of these.
You are negotiating with a video publisher in New York who has offered to market your series on management education. They offer you an advance against royalties of $50,000 - $25,000 on signature of contract and $25,000 on delivery of the video tapes. They rejected your demand for $60,000 split, similarly. Do you:
Accept their offer?
Tell them it is not good enough?
Offer them a repackaged proposal?
Walk out?
Suppose they reply to a request for £700 a day plus expenses that you are asking too much for the fee, though they agree to meet your expenses. Do you telex back and:
Reduce your price because you want to go on an expenses-paid trip to Sydney?
Confirm your price but offer to travel Economy?
Confirm your price but assure them you are worth it?
Cancel the trip?
You are a manufacturer of engine parts and have been granted an interview, after many last-minute cancellations, with the boss of Europe's largest car firm who insists that you meet him at terminal 3, Heathrow, a few minutes before he flies off a Australia. This is your big chance! While walking towards Passport Control, he opens with a demand for your 'best price' for a six month's contract to supply fuel-injection pumps. Do you:
Show him what you can do by quoting the lowest price you can in order to get your foot in the door?
Go in slightly above your lowest price?
Go in high to leave yourself room to negotiate?
Wish him a pleasant flight.
A young talented actress wants to get into the 'big time' and she meets a television producer who is desirous of securing her services for an important part in a detective film. He tells her that she cannot get top rates until she is 'known' but if she does this one 'cheap' and gets famous, she will see 'train loads of money' coming her way for her future work. Should she:
