Pierfrancesco Fagiani
Pool Specialist Consultant

You can negotiate in these cases only

Let’s handle this hot topic once and for all: the discount!

Everyone, even the most rich person, looks forward to pay the right price and doesn’t turn down a good deal for sure.

People have different reactions to this topic and sometimes they get emotional. In so many years of experience I talked to hundreds of persons and I learned how to recognize what type I’m talking to.

Just for chatting a little, here’s some of them:

  1. The ones who go like “The discount is the most important thing”; usually this is the person who brags for having got the best of the discount from the salesperson. It doesn’t really matter if the salesperson raised the original price just before starting the negotiation. All that matters to him is to somehow handle the negotiation and brag in front of his friends.
     
  2. The clients who never ask for a discount. I have to say that this is the most unpredictable one. They feel uncomfortable to ask for a discount. When I was young, I was the same. This type of person, as I said before, are unpredictable and you never know how they’re going to behave during the commercial phase. 
     
  3. The “I don’t care, just tell me the final price and I’ll let you know” ones. Usually, these persons are entrepreneurs with no time to waste and they just don’t like messing and chilling around. They listen to you, they ask questions, they negotiate on the payment method and eventually ask for the final price. With all odds they do the same with the competitors. They just don’t like to negotiate on the price. They just cut to the chase.
     
  4. The clients who are not interested in the price itself. They’re into the assistance service, the customer service, the quality and exclusivity of the products, the reputation and reliability of the company and their experience and results.

Of course, every person is different and there’s nothing wrong in any of them.

Personally, I get along especially with numbers 3 and 4. Anyway, whenever I talk to a prospect I always try to understand his needs, his desires and aesthetical tastes, in order to give him the best advices I could suggest about the pool.

Our special consulting service (Pool Professional Consulting®) is for sure one of our greatest strengths. The negotiation itself (meaning the price discount and so on) is not. We don’t like to waste time talking about these topics and we definitely are not into wasting our prospect’s time. I like to be simple and clear when defining the terms of the contract.

For what concerns the economic aspects, in my opinion a deal is always made by two persons. If the customer is the only one who wins, it’s not a deal. The company can’t survive if it doesn’t get paid the right price. Who is going to take care of the customer once he bought the pool?

In other articles (you can find them in our blog) I already talked about our price including also a highly professional service in taking care of our customers, something you can hardly find somewhere else. Our success is not based on low prices and great discounts. If you aim to take care of the customer at your best, you must be sure of being actually able to offer him that service, thanks to a solid company.
 

SO, HERE ARE THE THREE EXCEPTIONS FOR THE “DISCOUNT”

  1. PAYMENT TERMS: even if it may seem obvious, it’s not! For example, paying a certain deposit may allow us to buy the materials at a better price and therefore to make a better offer to the prospect. Even the payment method can make the difference: for example, if you pay with credit card you’ll be charged with the bank commissions, and so on…
     
  2. INSTALLATION PHASE AND TIMING: this is usually the main reason why we may apply a bigger discount. To install a pool during the autumn and winter is completely different compared to those prospects coming to us in March asking for a pool installed within August. I already talked about this in the article “What is the best time to build a swimming pool?". You’ll get the best discount (which also means you’ll have the pool installed at its best) by signing the contract in June, starting the installation in September and finally concluding the job in November. This is the cheapest way. 
     
  3. SURPRISE! Come visit me in our showroom and I’ll tell you the last one.

 

Do you want a discount? You can get it thanks to one of the previous ways.

To be honest, I don’t love those prospects who always talk about the discount. It really bores me and leads to nothing. I instead love to talk to customers who challenge us by putting us to work with extraordinary projects.

Your time is precious. And so is ours.

I’m waiting for you!