Help! Need some advice....

Originally Posted by Billiard MD

First of all, keep in mind.... you were just fine with these people being naive if it meant they were just going to hand over hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of metal for free... But when their naivete flipped a 180 and caused them to ask you to pay an exorbitant amount for their scrap, then all of the sudden it bothered you. But who do you have to blame when you all but told him what you were going to make off the stuff.



I understand that you've never paid for scrap, but that's not the norm, especially when dealing with commercial entities like plumbing companies. You were only concerned with the scrap in front of you, but think about it... you were talking to the owner of a PLUMBING COMPANY!

Here's how I would have handled it...

"Mr. Business Owner, you may very well be right, that could be a load worth over $1500... A couple of minutes ago you said I was the pro when I asked you to shoot me a price, but of course you know that even pro's don't have x-ray vision. You seem pretty confident that at $1500 I'd be getting in your pocket... Since you now know what the scrap yard pays me, what do you think this load will bring once I've cleaned it up and take it to the yard?"

If he throws out any number, let's say $2k, I would say this... "Wow! I'd go for that. $500 bucks would be a great day for me. But just so you don't feel like I'm getting in your pocket, and so I don't have to get in trouble with the wife when she sees a $1500 ATM withdrawal, how about I do this on a consignment basis? I'll clean, separate, load, transport, and unload your material for let's say 20% of the final take. And hey , just for fun, if the load brings $2k or more, I'll buy you lunch in two weeks when I come back to take care of the next load... and if it brings in less than $1500, I'll let you buy me lunch. Sound like a deal?"

I used to play pool for a living... and I'll tell you this, gambling at pool for a living has little to do with being a champion pool player. Truth be known, I'm an extremely good player, but not a great one. But I know people, and I know how to "play position". An exchange like I outlined above serves a lot of purposes... First of all, it lets him know he's not dealing with an idiot. Second, it lets him know that you don't think HE'S an idiot. Third, you've taken him completely out of his game plan, and put him in yours... business owners are Alpha Males... you can't WRESTLE control of a situation from an Alpha, you have to let them GIVE it to you while making them feel it was their idea all along. Fourth, you've squashed the adversarial nature of the direction that negotiation was headed, and instead, put both of you on the same team. Fifth, you've planted the seed for an ongoing business relationship.

Your advice is very good, and can definitely work in some cases, but as Big Tex mentioned, no matter what you try and do, some people are just stubborn.

I tried something like this with a guy that had close to 10 gaylord boxes full of aluminum. The minimum he would take is roughly $200 for each, but the price at the time, I wouldn't have made any cash at all.