Don’t Take the Last Dime Off the Table
Larry Roine was a force of nature, born to practice law, and one of the most successful negotiators I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Larry’s favourite and best saying was, “Never take the last dime off the table.”
While Larry usually walked away from the table with everything he wanted, he was always careful to make sure that the other party did, too. Larry practiced “win-win” long before the term became a fad.
It’s not because Larry was a softie. He was a big, muscular guy who had been a quarterback in university, he always exuded confidence and strength, and he really did like to win. But he knew a lot about human nature. He also knew that the world was a small place, and the odds of doing business again with someone, or one of their friends, were high.
Larry understood a thing called buyer’s remorse, the tendency in all of us to second guess ourselves after we’ve made a deal. More often than not, when the shine has gone off the new toy, we blame the salesman for duping us, and we are angry. “I’ll never buy a car from those shysters again!”, we tell all our friends. By snatching the last dime off the table, we ensure that the other side will have buyer’s remorse, and disparage us to their friends and community.
Letting the other guy take the last dime off the table let’s him feel that he is the winner, that the deal was not only fair, but tilted in his favour. He’ll want to do business with you again.
And it’s only a dime.