Page 101 - Paulisms: Gold Nuggets for Small Business

likely things go wrong.
Paulism: Debt collection, if you don’t have systems and discipline, creates so much noise, energy and cost. Follow these Simple Rules and your debt collection and cash flow will be a lot stronger.
3.5 The art of negotiation
I encouraged my team members to learn the art of negotiation – and it is an art. I love the excitement, art and power of negotiation.
I told my team members to never accept the first offer. For example, if we were buying a vehicle, and a team member said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got a price for the vehicle. It’s going to cost us fifty grand.’ I would say, ‘Ok, well what do we do now?’ And quite often they would give me that blank look.
I wasn’t trying to insult their intelligence – I was trying to teach them business skills, because all that money you save, say you save five thousand, it’s not gross profit – there’s no overhead that it goes towards – its beautiful net profit. Not only do you save, but the saving goes straight onto your bottom line.