Читать книгу NegoLogic - Peter Frensdorf - Страница 10
ОглавлениеWhat Is It Worth?
Before we can start negotiating, we must put a value on the object of our affection.
I use that word on purpose because buyers can fall in love with the item they are interested in, as much as sellers with the prospect of a sale. This stands to reason. Both parties are interested in dealing or there would be no basis for any negotiation to take place.
Placing money all the way at the top of the list is a mistake, as we have already shown – it does not belong there. If any one factor should be placed above everything else, it would most definitely be ego. Our constant fear of making a mistake – recognisable by others – relates to ego as well.
Pride will have a part to play in how we view the proceedings, how we can explain the result. It plays a major role because we will certainly not accept a position that we cannot defend.
Usually we give some credit to the opening bid of the other party, even if we just use it is as our starting block.
The question sellers fear most is: “How did you come up with that price?” If this happens to you expect them to argue with your reasons, but they are likely to respond to your starting position anyway. This is certainly not always necessary.
FOCUS: Buffer deductions
Knowing a negotiation is in the making, both parties add their buffer.
ELABORATE: The size of buffers varies. The funny thing is extremely weak or strong openings are likely to increase buffers.
Weak: This seems a chance to take advantage when someone appears to be already sold.
Strong: Expecting lengthy and tough proceedings we want to make sure we have enough room left in the end. So a neutral approach is most likely to keep buffers under control, but there are certainly exceptions to this statement. Some people always add the same kind of buffer in size or percentage. Others get intimidated and lower their buffer size after a strong start from the other side.
SOLUTION: Some buffers can easily be recognised as long as we keep a few issues in mind.
Customs of the industry
Certain margins in one kind of business do not apply in another. Sometimes turnover rules, in other areas profit is all that counts. One is unlikely to find large buffers in areas of small margins, but it is not impossible. Familiarise yourself regarding this point.
Market situation
Even more important is recognising: are you a seller in a buyer’s market or the other way around? Keep this in mind as long as you don’t misread the signs. A hard-pressed seller may have little buffer left, so he must leap out from other suppliers pricewise. On the other hand his expectations may have been lowered several times already.
Negonomics – recognise buffered pricing
At the start of negotiation first prices are usually created to include a buffer. The technique of finding out the degree of adjustment I have named Negonomics. There are clear signals once we know what to look for. In price listings the number nine is clearly popular and for good reason. It gives the seller almost what he desires and is supposed to mislead the buyer into thinking the price is lower than it really is. Certainly this applies less in commercial circumstances, right? Well, if you look at the prices that surround you this question is easily answered. Just count the percentage of 9s. If you find more than 10% you know that buffers are being added and prices raised from the original calculation to the next nine upwards. The first realisation is as simple as that.
Just look at the difference:
Calculated prices:
7,13
2,86
1,70
3,66
The same prices with slight adjustments:
7,15
2,90
1,75
3,70
The same prices with buffers:
7,95
2,95
1,99
3,99
What kind of prices do you see most? Exactly. One further point. We can give the impression that our prices are without buffers, by making them appear irregular. On a subconscious level many of us recognise prices that have been altered. In a business situation, uneven prices appear to be the result of calculation and are less likely to be challenged or compared to fabricated ones with too many nines. We will return to Negonomics later in this chapter when we discuss pricing.
FOCUS: Misguided valuations
Every value has a blended past and an unsure future. Buyers and sellers seek past performance to make up their mind regarding what is possible.
ELABORATE: One day someone had to be the first to decide a value.
Let’s look at the oldest profession on the planet, which, as we are often told is prostitution6. Imagine the girl looking at her buying costs and expenses, which added up to an exact zero. That was no help! She received the product for free, which leaves her with the all important question: “How much are clients willing to pay?”
And this manner of picking prices still works like a charm.
SOLUTION: Contrary to what may suit our purpose, there is not just one value, there are many different ones. We must find the value we like best, the valuation that supports the result we aim to reach. We have already decided that this is not accomplished by talking down what we want to buy, or overvaluing what we are selling. This is irritating, makes the other side hard of hearing, and only works counter productively.
FACT 5: Failing to acknowledge obvious strengths in the other’s position disqualifies you as a fair judge of its value
FOCUS: If your opponent disagrees with everything you say, they won’t accept your opening bid or counteroffer. If they feel you are in the wrong, any amount you come up with is also incorrect because your ‘incorrect’ assumptions are behind it.
ELABORATE: The subliminal message for them is that you, as buyer/seller, are the wrong person for them to deal with. You make them think: There must be others out there. The more convincing you are when you emphasise your strengths and their weaknesses, the less suitable as a counterpart you present yourself.
You will only succeed if they see no other option and simply have to deal with you. But keep in mind that the more pressure you apply, the more attractive their other options become in comparison. They may very well start reconsidering alternatives they had discarded earlier. And who made them do that? You did.
That is why, during negotiations, there is no such thing as a sure and set value because this is the only reason you are negotiating. Insisting your value is set yet wanting to negotiate is contradictory. Values will always depend on circumstances in which your attitude plays a big part, positive or negative.
SOLUTION: Never fear to negotiate, no matter what your counterpart tells you. The only absolute values we know are the established prices on the day. Not even one day ahead, because already you find the opinion of the experts differs. Take commodities. Will gold go up or down? What is the future price of oil?
The fact alone that we are negotiating tells us values have not been established or need revaluation. Everyone says that they offer “a fair market price” or better.
FACT 6: The market reacts to exposure, sentiment and excitement
FOCUS: Exposure, sentiment and excitement
ELABORATE: It is often said that the market decides the value of anything, which is true as far as it goes but let’s look more closely at that mysterious market… because it reacts to exposure, sentiment and excitement.
SOLUTION: The better the exposure, the more attention we get and the more attention, the higher the price. This is the sole reason companies advertise, because customers copy each other like sheep, and nothing succeeds like success but do we realise that two out of three of these decisive factors are emotional responses, and only exposure is factual?
Exposure
How visible is the item, and do people know where it can be bought?
Advertise, advertise, and advertise. Many successful companies have put every cent they have towards exposure. Put your money in the right places at the right costs, because nobody will know what you offer if you are located on page 512 on Google.
Sentiment
Without the right sentiment, we have doubts, even if there is excitement and there has been exposure. Is the sentiment right? That is in our hands. Nearly every aspect of NegoLogic relates to this issue at one level or another.
Excitement
You might very well ask; how can I spin excitement?
You can successfully trigger a wave of commercial enthusiasm by creating a bottleneck, by narrowing possibilities instead of widening them.
Seven-Eleven is always open.
This might be convenient, but the only real excitement occurs when they get robbed and that is not the right kind of excitement.
So when you are selling, you should consider closing your door instead of opening it 24/7.
Brokers may have only three interested parties but they try to make sure they meet one another, by setting the viewing appointments fifteen minutes after each other, and arranging that you stay for half an hour. That means you must wait and expectations are allowed to grow inside you.
That is a bottleneck!
Seeing others who might beat you to the deal makes your heart pound faster. Now you are liable to go beyond your original financial limits. In other words, you are reconsidering the value before the seller has even opened his mouth. Your position has been weakened by the presence of other parties.
There’s a draught – close the window of opportunity!
If we could all do everything all the time, why would anyone act right now? When leaving your opponent every chance to decide you are also removing the urge for him to do so. You will come over as willing and available. These signals can be picked up as dangerous signs of weakness and, more often than not, they are!
7/11 is always open for when you are hungry or thirsty, so that’s your impulse right there – convenience. Negotiating for larger amounts means you must make use of every advantage there is. Giving our opponent a limited chance to deal is a strong weapon, all too often neglected because of our willingness to deal. Just as I wrote earlier, the more people are willing to invest pre-negotiation, the more eager they are. Everyone reads these subliminal signals at some level and will react to them at some level of their consciousness. Once you realise this you can read them sooner and more reliably than most.
Reading the signals
FOCUS: A flock of individuals
ELABORATE: Things would go haywire if you ever admitted: “This is the biggest deal I have ever done…” Can you see why?
If a store is getting only one customer per day, you don’t want to be that customer. Nobody does. It means you are wrong if there is no flock of other buyers surrounding you.
We like to think that we are all so unique, but in our brain (where it matters) the single individual is always in the wrong.
For instance, the sole customer in the empty store gets multiple subliminal messages sent to his brain which he interprets in the strangest manner: “Weird store...”. “I didn’t like it there.” Because whatever brainfarts come out of our head, we will defend and explain them as if they made perfect sense. How could our own emotions betray us?
SOLUTION: In the same way we accept positive messages and they won’t need explaining either. When it feels right, very few will doubt their urge to buy... even when the impulse has been planted by your words or actions, or lack thereof.
Example
Creating eager customers
I built up a successful sportswear company by closing the door five days per week. Competitors were open all the time, so we were not. Most customers will confuse your opening hours with what is considered normal. So they arrived to find closed doors. Sending people away was a signal of such strength that these victims of wrong timing always returned to see what they had been missing and then they displayed exceptional eagerness. Knowing that this was their only chance to buy, they rarely failed to do so. We combined the most powerful of all subliminal messages, “We are busy” and “We don’t seem to care, or need the money”. The Eager Beaver stores never did so well so my policy was based on the image I wanted to create.
I was well aware that we would sell more in two days than the others in a whole week. They opened at nine? On the days we were open, we kept the doors closed until nine-thirty on purpose. The ones who had been driving to reach our industrial area would not drive back home again. No, they would wait that half hour out and their expectations had the chance to grow. Anyone arriving right on time would see others lining up to get inside. So when we were open, we were always busy.
FACT 7: Allowing expectations to grow gives huge benefits
FOCUS: Nothing good comes fast or easy. While you may feel the urge to accommodate the other party quickly, this may not be the best approach.
ELABORATE: Fear of losing the deal often puts you in the wrong state of mind but most such fears have no sound basis. You will not lose any serious customer by keeping him waiting a bit longer. Only the curious ones who just want to see (not buy) will refuse to wait or return because it simply isn’t worth their while when their only objective is looking. You cannot lose what you never had.
SOLUTION: Someone wants to see the item you have for sale?
“Next Thursday at a quarter past five, is that okay?”
That way:
1 Their expectations will be allowed to grow.
2 You do not seem overly eager. This is always a signal of strength. Just compare that with the person who will come right over to show the product to you. More often than not, this happy-to-please attitude does not pay.
3 You get the chance to gather other interested parties together at the same time.
As you can see, it costs nothing and only has advantages.
Looking successful and being successful
When customers saw others buying, they copied them. This added incredible value. Bargain hunters were stacking up clothing and shoes in models and sizes they normally would have turned their back on. To remain successful every segment of your image must fit the whole picture so I instructed personnel to spend a limited time with each customer.
The subliminal Story2Tell: “We are so inexpensive that we cannot give you personal treatment for long. We would really like to help you out, but we don’t care if you buy or not because we can barely handle business as it is.”
Take H&M or Primark on a busy Saturday. Too few registers open on purpose so customers must wait in line. The longer the wait, the better the deal must be. The girls work at a regular but slow-motion pace, as if accepting money is rocket science. How many customers walk away because the wait is too long? I promise you that such tiny minorities will play no role in your bottom line result.
FACT 8: People love to hand over their money to the ones who don’t seem to need it
FOCUS: Our natural impulse is that if someone else buys it, it must be good. If others are willing to pay that price, it must be the right one. This belief increases with the number of buyers who surround you. Our own personal valuation is overruled.
ELABORATE: We shy away from the empty stores and walk the same path as everyone else because we cannot all be wrong, can we?
SOLUTION: So when you give the impression that you are doing a lot of business by understatement, or better still; create actual busy-ness the way I have already described, you will see positive results coming your way.
FACT 9: Nothing succeeds like a proven success
The quality of FREE
Or you could consider giving your product away?
FOCUS: The FREE factor
The reasoning behind giving something away is to sell more. Buy this, get that free.
ELABORATE: It really means included, because whatever they give away has been calculated in the price. No sane person is fooled into thinking otherwise. Yet a strange phenomenon takes place inside the head of the receiver of the “gift”. The fact that it must have cost something means we have been paying too much all that time, leading up to this moment when we pay ‘nothing’.
A buying director of one of the leading importers in Europe once said, “Whatever we sell at a mid-price must reach a certain quality level. And whatever we give away must be much better than that.”
“Free” triggers a direct response but the boost isn’t just positive. We become suspicious. Why do they have to give this away?
Which connects with the washing powder mantra, new and improved. Remember the last time when we told you it was the best? Well, that was a lie! It’s even better now.
A pure and positive response to a free gift is much rarer. When something is given away and we are in no way bound to the giver, it triggers ‘worthless’ in our mind. Why would they give it away otherwise? That makes paying of vital importance when you promote something. Even if the amount is small, the mere fact that they take out their wallet demonstrates the fact that customers want to own it.
SOLUTION: You may always give a slight taste to whet their appetite but once you give a full plateful away you are asking for a vote of ‘uneatable’.
The more you pay for something, the more it must be worth to you. Take for, instance, this book. When I needed a platform of recognition I emailed the manuscript to several people asking for their opinions and comments. Getting these reactions was like pulling teeth. No time to read – too busy!
Suddenly it occurred to me it was because they hadn’t paid. Once the book started selling and buyers had to take the trouble to pay, they also found time to read it. The same material had gained value because the readers had to do something to get it.
FOCUS: Explain why you are doing what you do. If it makes sense, the reason adds excitement and credibility to the whole project. With the sportswear company, our story was that we were wholesalers, not retailers at all. We just cleared leftover stock part time, a minor part of our business. That made sense.
ELABORATE: Always prepare your reasoning even if you think it is obvious. Take the time to explain anyway.
SOLUTION: Certain reasons appear to give an electric signal to the spine of your counterpart. Easy to recognise, these always go hand in hand with the Story2Tell.
The company needs warehouse space. They must clear out exactly what you need. Isn’t that lucky?
New models are arriving. The “old” ones, while basically the same or better, must go cheap.
Out of business! When someone else loses money you are taking advantage by buying.
You won the auction while others lost the right to pay for the product.
FACT 10: We ponder over decisions but fail to question our impulses
FOCUS: The very same people who brood endlessly over decisions accept their impulses with closed eyes.
ELABORATE: It never enters our mind that the root cause of these impulses could have been planted by the actions of someone else! Whatever comes from our own brain must be safe and can never be mistaken.
SOLUTION: So while an impulse is not by any means a decision, it leads to exactly the same basic result – a yes or a no. We may think we accept or decline offers on the basis of our decisions or impulses but in fact it is always a combination of both.
The key to thought manipulation is that the explanation steers the decision.
FOCUS: Before every decision comes a thinking session
It would be great if this was always the case, but this sentence is both true and false because even when we really consider and weigh arguments, both pro and con, we invariably do so according to the impulses that we are receiving at that moment and they never come with a label of explanation. At least not the right one.
ELABORATE: We really decide based on a confused combination of hunches, emotions, past references, facts and feelings. We are not able to make the calculated, well-balanced decisions we give ourselves credit for. The coldest bank manager may try to act like a computer and study only the figures. In fact he can only manage such a clear vision if he never meets the person in question. Otherwise, that individual will leave some impression that will influence his decision one way or the other.
So details – no matter how small – play a decisive role in our decision making.
SOLUTION: We will explain these impressions, interpretations and impulses to ourselves as well-founded decisions, but really we just make up some kind of explanation afterwards. Rarely does anyone admit they “decided” something based on a mere impulse. But don’t let that fool you because it happens all the time.
Professionals seek past references. What did a similar item sell for in the past? What did we do last time this happened to us? This is not so much thinking, as basing one price upon another one. Without past references we are sailing blindfold through uncharted waters. We are forced to think, to balance without the benefit of a safety net. This is clearly not to our advantage.
FACT 11: Auction mind set: accepting a value based on what someone else thinks it’s worth
FOCUS: We feel that only the difference between our prices is at risk of being “wrong”.
ELABORATE: The economic Fairy Tale is that manufacturing and design costs are the basis for all prices, plus, of course, you get to pay for shipping, import duty, and profit for the importer, wholesalers, sales reps and the profit of the stores. There you go! That’s everything!
A great story, but overtaken by the present. It started like that in the Middle Ages, perhaps. Now greed rules with an iron fist.
SOLUTION: A particular model of cell phone can be sold for one dollar, or for three hundred, although the production cost is eight. Yes, there are many ifs and buts attached to the lowest price but much of the value is up in the air.
Any item is only worth what customers in large numbers (who know of its existence and location, in other words exposure) are willing to pay for it.
Think this over. The price is accepted or declined by groups of customers. If they decline unanimously, we are forced to lower the price we came up with.
The decision-makers of multinationals who introduce a new product venture a guess at what is the highest price Joe Public will accept. First there is the group of eager ones, who are willing to pay top price for the latest model. When sales calm down, they direct their attention to the next group who can take it or leave it. Meanwhile, they make a new range for the ones who always want the latest model. Last to be served are the bargain hunters, who are getting model one when edition three is out. When the price fall has bottomed out the item is discontinued.
FACT 12: Prices and proposals are not accepted on merit, but on presentation
It is no wonder that the manner of price presentation gives many subliminal messages.
The ladder of price acceptance
FOCUS: Getting a price accepted
ELABORATE: We are well aware that some values are accepted without discussion while similar ones are refused. Why is that?
SOLUTION: The likelihood of any price getting accepted is:
“I WANT!” The spoken word. You are selling broomsticks from your garage. Every time a car stops to ask the price, you yell; “I want five dollars!” Not surprisingly, you sell very few. One block away, there is a department store selling the same broomstick for $7.99 by the truckload because they have exposure and present the price correctly.
“I want!” The handwritten price. This fares a bit better. Now you have a sign with the price on it; $4.99 so you lose a cent, but sell a bit more.
“I WANT!” The printed price. Better again. Now it looks as if you know what you are doing.
Print out a poster-size sign and hang it high. Now nobody can reach it any more An untouchable price cannot be changed. Nobody bothers to try.
Now change that price! Cross it out in red ink: NOW $2.99! What the hell, you only paid $0.35 from China.
Now, don’t be around to argue the price, and at the sparse moments that you show yourself, have a dumb expression on your face to match a T-shirt with BROOMSTICKS ‘R US printed on. The message is... there is nobody here that you can debate a price with.
Can you see where this is going?
This is exactly how major retailers deal with their customers!
Because they know that the easier it appears to change a price, the more likely it becomes that people want to try it.
We are all so susceptible to this kind of mind control that when a sign hangs high, or is laminated with a bar code, we automatically assume the numbers are beyond our power.
Why try and make a fool of ourselves? There is nothing that scares us more, not even overpaying.
The ladder of business proposals
The same rules apply for business proposals: the likelihood that we will accept a proposal is, from low to high:
1 Oral offers.
2 Written by hand.
3 Typed.
4 Printed.
5 Printed with calculations to prove basis.
6 Written in stone, but more practical is – laminated. The information becomes untouchable. Add a bar code, now the logic behind the price is unreadable too.
7 Printed with valuations from a “neutral” source, with signatures and explanations.
8 All of the above plus a Story2Tell others. So you can explain how you could make such a great deal.
We are likely to discard a proposal, regardless of the content:
If it comes from people we do not trust.
If they seem to have no other basis than the wish to buy cheap or sell expensive.
If our opponent has shown no respect for our position, and does not listen to arguments.
If we do not believe the offer is firm.
Not surprisingly, this applies during negotiations. You adjust your price based on your hunch on how much the other party is willing to settle for.
Remember Negonomics earlier in this chapter? Seemingly random numbers send the subliminal message that your calculation stands on solid ground while fabricated prices should be seen as an open invitation to a game of bartering. So “smart” pricing may be unwise when dealing with the ones who have a high EQ.
Example
Say you calculate a price of 341,300. Most people will make it 349,500 in a soft market and maybe 10,000 more in a stronger one. Now imagine the smart buyer’s thoughts. The first 341,300 number appears to have a basis in fact. Their attention goes to the inflated price of 349,500. The 49, especially when followed by a 500 or 950 or 995, leads them to conclude that the number 349,500 is a fabricated one. Now I will ask you questions to establish the range of possible buffers because I am positive they are added.
Estimations without calculations
If there is only one specific item like some unique real estate or work of art, this means you also only need just one buyer to be willing to pay it. When there is no comparison that changes everything because now the range of margins will be much wider.
FOCUS: Negonomics in pricing
Do the prices we mention give away what we are really thinking?
ELABORATE: Everything we say and do reveals what’s on our mind. This is certainly information we don’t want to share, least of all with the other party. Regardless of our position we want them to think that we are strong when we are weak. And if we don’t think carefully about it, our numbers really make our position transparent.
First we must separate two objectives, because there is a huge difference between making an opening bid and a firm offer.
Opening bid: the amount must be well considered, because otherwise it might give the wrong message. A “wrong” number can give the impression that you are not really interested or, maybe worse, that you are willing to pay more than is your intention.
Firm offer: This must be carefully chosen or the answer you get will be “no” instead of something setting the wheels in motion for any step-by-step haggling if that was what you had in mind. This does not mean that firm offers are really final. They may or may not be...
Again the way you read the meaning of numbers must depend on the market situation and what is customary in the industry. It speaks for itself that when buying in a low market, you may deduct more than in a hot seller’s market and in some lines of business margins are larger than others.
SOLUTION: The following examples are just indications.
Price 109,500
Price 219,500
Price 529,500
The 9,500-29,500 figure seems added to the price as a negotiation buffer, and can be discarded by you before the negotiation even starts. That is how you deal with obvious buffers; just ignore them in your mind.
Only the remaining amount will be considered. It does not mean that you have to pay it. You will come up with your own valuation anyway, but it is helpful to consider their train of thoughts so you can relate your arguments accordingly.
Price 49,950
Price 79,995
Price 99,975
This is a whole different ball game because there is nothing visibly added. The nines indicate that the seller feels the rounded number may scare you off and initially you should read weakness in such cases. The fact remains that they are really asking for 50,000, 80,000 and 100,000. These prices may be dealt with as random numbers, without any good calculation to back them up, unless proven otherwise. Of course, it is possible that they compared and calculated and came up with this round figure, but it is just not very likely.
Example
The situation: There is a weak market for real estate. I am buying. An asking price of 340,000 suggests to me that the sellers were hoping for 300,000. That means that the 40,000 can be discarded and only afterwards do you start taking the real money off. Any number put on the price as a buffer should have no real bearing on the negotiation. They will try to use it as a real number. Just ignore it with a smile.
Another situation: There is a strong market for real estate. I am selling. According to the real estate broker, the house I have to sell is worth just over the 500,000 mark. My asking price becomes 528,000 and I am happy with anything over 500,000 but there are no takers, not even any bids. After a few months I have a meeting with the broker, who is really down. He does not understand what went wrong, because the market was steaming hot. Only my property did not sell.
Seeing his desperation, I take the house off the market. Five months later it is my turn to decide the manner of selling; the broker just follows my lead. I put the house on the market again as if it had never been on offer before. Using the power of introduction (visibility, excitement, and sentiment all rolled into one) the price is now set at 499,995. I am hoping to attract several buyers bidding up against each other.
Selling ice cream to Eskimos
The broker bows to my wishes, but has very little faith left. It is now the worst period to sell property, a few weeks before Christmas. Everyone knows that! As a result, nobody is foolish enough to introduce new property at that time so mine receives all the attention.
The first viewer makes an offer, the second one is informed of this, and immediately wants to pay the asking price, as does number three. The next week I sell for the highest bid, which is 526,000. More than I could have hoped for.
Auction mind set again
Auctioneers know very well that starting lower, especially under the first number, often reaches a higher price in the end. Is it not amazing that in an affair of cold cash, like buying a house which often needs financing, particular numbers speak so loudly? How is it possible that starting with a 4 instead of a 5 creates such a dramatic effect?
Adding the emotion of excitement to the sale (so many people wanting the same unique item) gives buyers that extra push to go beyond what they would have paid otherwise. They were forced to reconsider and the Story2Tell could not have been any better because now they own a house worth fighting for.
Negonomics, the message
Example
The situation: A good sellers’ market and I’m selling.
My asking price was 4.7 million but this was not an easy property to sell, not suitable for everyone.
I received a written offer:
A bid of 3,995,000.
An escape clause for financing.
An escape clause if the fifteen buyers fail to form a company.
I needed time out to think. The question was not whether to accept or decline but rather could I work out what the message was behind this bid. What was their weird offer telling me?
1 The number 3,995,000 is not a successful buyer’s bid, but a seller’s starting price. Adding the last 5,000 would have raised their chances tremendously. Why did they offer below the four million mark? It made no sense at all.
2 They had not got the financing in place before making their offer. One can only demand such a deduction if the offer is otherwise firm with no ifs or buts that are outside the seller’s control.
3 There is no excuse for an escape clause like the one they had added. It seemed to protect them in case I accepted and they wanted to back out.
So what was the explanation for their bid?
They had no real intention of buying but they had invested so much time, mine and theirs, as well as expenses, that they needed to go through the motions of “trying”. Then they could say afterwards they had been close to buying. In fact, they wanted us to say no. Owning the property was a dream that they feared too much.
Later I found out that some of the partners would have had to put up their house to get the mortgage and were really unwilling to do so. Others rented property and lacked the finances. Their cooperation was dead from birth.
