Think about it from the owner’s side
Say a number is for sale for $5,000, and you offer $500. You’re thinking, “I’ll start with a lowball offer to get him down, and maybe I’ll get it for $1,500.”
Now think about it from the owner’s perspective. If you had your car for sale for $5,000 and someone offered you $500, what would you think about them? You’d probably think some very negative things. At best, you’d think they were trying to take advantage of you.
A dealer hears it differently
If you were selling your car to a car dealer, and the dealer offered you $500 for a $5,000 car, you’d think he was trying to take advantage of you.
But if you’re the car dealer, with a car for sale at $5,000, and someone who doesn’t know the car business offers you $500, you don’t think they’re trying to take advantage of you. You think they have no clue, and they’re wasting your time. The dealer doesn’t doubt his business model. He just blows them off instantly.
Vanity number vendors are the dealers in this story. A 10 percent offer doesn’t tell them you’re a tough negotiator. It tells them you don’t know the business and you’re not a serious buyer. Most of them won’t explain that to you. They just stop answering.
What works instead
Offering 50 percent of what someone asks is lowballing it, too. It makes it sound like you’re not serious, and it’s on the verge of insulting. If you offer 60 or 66 percent, you’re more likely to get a split-the-difference response and end up at something like 75 percent. That’s still saving 25 percent!
Offers don’t usually have more than 25 to 30 percent room for flexibility, for the same reason you don’t usually get discounts bigger than that from any real business. This isn’t a garage sale. There are costs in every business, and you’re much more likely to have a positive outcome if you treat it like a business. So look for that sweet spot, where you get the biggest discount without insulting them and raising the odds of blowing the deal.
There are exceptions to the rule, but play the odds. And if the price is only a little more than you planned, don’t just say no without at least making some kind of offer. You never know!
When the price isn’t close
If the most you could pay is 10 or 20 percent of the price, don’t make an offer at all. Thank them and leave the door open, with something like: “That’s more than I can do right now, but if anything changes, I’d love to hear from you.”
Why I won’t pass along an offer like that
When you’re buying a number through me, I’m in between the buyer and the seller, and my job is to filter out the people who aren’t serious. I also have a relationship with all of the vendors in this business, and I can’t waste their time with what are more insults than serious offers, because I have to work with them in the future. So don’t be upset if I don’t pass an offer like that along. That would be wrong, and it would hurt my business and my relationship with them.
An offer like that does tell me something, though: the number costs more than it’s worth to you right now. That’s OK. I’ll suggest some less expensive alternatives, and many of them are available for $49.