I have sat in a few of those negotiations.
The best was with a former Spanish boss and a major equipment manufacturer. He said “Red, sit down and I will teach you how to negotiate”.
We were looking at buying 30 high speed decanters. I had worked out what I thought was a good price with the engineer. My boss listened to the speech, got up and pulled over the screen showing the price he would pay, which was 15% less than what I had worked on. He then sat down and pulled out the contract and said “Sign this, or I tell Red to go talk to the competitor”.
They signed, and we got the machines. The VP of the other company laughed all night about it. Said that Americans don’t know the art of the deal, because we have been made “Sissy’s by your Mommies”.
Your simple, real life example shows how quickly, how easily, things can be turned around.
Thanks for that.