Last Sunday while reading the comics, I laughed out loud. The Dilbert comic strip was right on point.

Job seeker ~ “I just need a job offer at a higher salary so I can use it to negotiate for a raise. My boss is an irrational dipwad who is easily manipulated by bogus comparisons and the illusions of scarcity. Your offer will make him think my value is much higher than it actually is.

Interviewer ~ “Great. Now that I know that I cannot have you, I desperately want to hire you.”

I’ve heard so many times something along this line. “Your competitor has a lower price, so we want you to lower your price.” This statement plays on the same two principles. Scarcity and manipulation.

Consider two things:
1) Is it true that your competitor is offering a lower price? They may not or it may be for a lesser quality product.

2) You are being toyed with! If they really wanted to pay the lower price then they would not be calling you. They want your product or service and they are using you to lower your price unnecessarily. Don’t buy into it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 at 6:14 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.