Step 6: Driving a Hard Bargain (Buying a Car)

Back: Step 5 - Evaluation (buying a car)

My evaluation complete, I was ready to march into the dealership and drive a hard bargain for my car of choice, the Suzuki Swift. This meant not only getting the lowest price, but also getting the most value, which translated into:

1. Minimizing the trade-offs of choosing the Suzuki over the Jazz and Yaris.
2. Loads of free extras.

Minimizing Trade-offs:
From my evaluation I knew that the Jazz and Yaris were better in the following respects:

1. The Jazz had the most spacious trunk, followed by the Yaris
2. Both the Yaris and the Jazz had a full-sized spare, unlike the Swift's "compact" spare.
3. The Jazz's speakers sounded better better than the Swift's.

This knowledge was useful because it allowed to me exert pressure on the dealer by highlighting the strengths of rival options whilst avoiding the points I was already sold on:

"I like the Swift, but some other cars I looked it have more space in the trunk -- what can you offer to make up for the fact that I can't fit my desktop computer in the trunk of this car?"
OR
"The Swift is a fine car, but the sound system in some other cars is much clearer. What can we do to get better speakers in there?"

Note: the object is not to demand the unattainable, but exploit the weaknesses of your preferred option in order to minimize its trade-offs. This also helped to keep me from becoming enamoured of my first choice, which would have played into the dealer's hands.

Getting Loads of Free Extras:
In order to get loads of extras, I'd have to use good-old-fashioned haggling. There are a few things that made this difficult for, the two most pertinent being:

• Experience in negotiations: the dealer negotiates a car's final price every day, whereas for me this is a journey into unfamiliar territory.
• Recall under pressure: It's hard to remember everything when you're in the spotlight. Just think of any TV game show...

Enter bCisive Online, again:

Since bCisive Online had helped me to work out my car of choice, I decided to use it create an inviting checklist for the final negotiation:

Now here's a checklist I can follow under pressure!

Because bCisive Online does not rigidly conform to a particular methodology, it gives me the freedom to build a map to suit my purpose. This time, rather than use it to weigh up my options in pursuit of a decision, my bCisive Online map served as a road map for the journey to the dotted line.

After an intense session of haggling, we finally agreed on the following;



How much did I pay? To be honest, I slightly exceeded my self-imposed limit of $17,000 , but I got value for money. Had I been on a strict budget, I'd have been well placed to determine what to leave out and what to drive hard for.


Next: Post-purchase: Thoughts on Using bCisive Online

Step 5: Evaluation (Buying a car)

Back: Step 4 - Analysis (buying a car)

My analysis in the previous step gave me a simple, elegant scheme for evaluation.  I looked at the criteria in the first category and simply ranked the cars in order of preference -- i.e. which car was best for me in this regard?

The beginning of my evaluation (click to enlarge)

I found that the Suzuki Swift was a clear winner in the criteria that mattered most to me.  Until then, the Honda Jazz had seemed very attractive as well, but prior to laying out and organizing the criteria I had struggled to make sense of it all.

Click the Full Screen button in the bottom right for the best view.

The results are in! Well done to the Suzuki Swift. (Click to enlarge)

I could have applied a quantitative scoring and weighting scheme to my raw criteria, but I do not believe that this would have led to as compelling a result as my qualitative analysis.


Notes

• If I had to justify a purchase decision to a boss or other stakeholders, the map would be a great way to present my analysis.
• In this purchase my categories were roughly of equal importance, but in a more complex evaluation I could weight the categories (and even individual criteria) if need be. 

At this stage in the process, here's what I was certain about:

• Which car I wanted
• Why I wanted it
• What it lacked (i.e. what the others had)

As a final safety check I sought the advice of an expert, my car mechanic friend, to make sure that I had not overlooked anything important.  With his blessing I was now equipped to march into the dealership and haggle with the dealer for the very best car I could get.  I knew what other similar cars had, and I was well prepared to negotiate for the best possible deal.

Next: Step 6 - Drive a Hard Bargain

Step 4: Analysis (Buying a Car)

Back: Step 3 - Detailed research (buying a car)

My table in the previous step was a good way of listing the pros and cons of each car, and even counting the number of things I liked and disliked, but it didn't show me which criteria were the most important.  I could see that the Swift was a winner in many categories, but were they the most important ones?

To get a clearer picture I extracted my criteria from my notes and organized them into a hierarchy in bCisive Online in five steps:

1. List all the criteria that come to mind (brainstorming)
   
2. Identify all the major criteria (what's most important)
3. Group the major criteria into categories
4. Organize the minor criteria

All these cars had satisfied my original criteria, but in the course of my research I had identified many new criteria, which I hoped would serve to distinguish them.

To help me with this somewhat daunting task I turned to bCisive Online, which is ideally suited to sifting, organizing, structuring and refining a mass of ideas.  Its drag & drop and automatic layout allowed me to brainstorm and categorize, and play with different arrangements until clarity emerged.  Its flexibility allowed me to use both top-down and bottom-up styles of structuring, and to switch freely between the two.  Here's what I came up with:

My detailed criteria as a map (click for a larger image)

The new criteria, broken down into the categories that emerged, were:

1. Handling: On the road, parking, acceleration
2. Comfort: Height of the interior ceiling, feel of the gearshift, seat comfort
   
3. Cost: purchase price, fuel economy, cost of parts and services
4. Storage: Trunk capacity, size of spare tyre
   
5. Safety: Crash safety rating, brakes

Now that my criteria and categories were in order I had a simple, elegant scheme for evaluating each car on its own merits, without losing sight of the big picture.


Next: Step 5 - Analysis and ranking (buying a car)

Step 3: Detailed research (Buying a Car)

Back: Step 2 - Basic research

Now that I had a manageable shortlist of 6 cars it was time to compare them in more detail.  By the end of this step I wanted to have a clear and comprehensive list of criteria.  These detailed criteria would enable me to:

1. Identify the 3 (or so) leading cars
2. Articulate my criteria for purposes of comparison and ranking (for use in step 4)
3. Start to prepare me for the bargaining process with car dealers (step 5)

As I considered the six cars on my shortlist I became aware of a further, hitherto tacit, criterion:

• Does the car look good to me?

In my reading I also began to take notice of what the experts were saying.  While the experts would be applying different criteria and I did not have the patience to go through all the minutiae in their reviews, general consensus among experts carries some weight.  Hence:

• Has the car received generally good reviews? 

By answering these two additional questions I was able to narrow my selection to the 3 most appealing and acclaimed cars: Honda Jazz, Suzuki Swift, Toyota Yaris. 

My next step was to visit a few dealerships, take these cars for a test drive, and grill the dealers for more information.  I noted what I liked and disliked about each car and after a few test drives I had a good idea of what to look for.  Here are my notes:

Honda Jazz	Suzuki Swift	Toyota Yaris
Spacious boot (trunk) Narrow body Fuel economy not great Full-sized spare tinted windows High safety rating	Small boot (trunk) Wide body Excellent fuel economy Small spare Great around corners Excellent brakes Great acceleration	Very good fuel economy Full-sized spare High safety rating Great safety rating Good brakes Cheap to repair Mechanics love it

 At this point my list of criteria was expanded (although not yet organized) and I had a much clearer idea of what to consider.  I had the reassuring feeling of being in much greater control of the process:

1. I was no longer was paralyzed by choice, having reduced my selection to a very manageable final list;
2. I no longer felt ignorant, having researched my selection and noted each car's pros and cons; and
3. I no longer was afraid of paying too much, having ascertained the market price of my prospective cars.

I was now ready to compare the finalists in detail and was only one step away from driving a hard bargain for myself.

Next: Step 4 - Brainstorm and categorize

Step 2: Basic Research (Buying a Car)

Back: Step 1 - Basic criteria

Step 2: Do your research
With my basic criteria -- price, car type, transmission -- in hand I set out to find what sort of cars I might consider buying.  In the case of looking for cars, there are plenty of search engines that allow you to search on these (and many more) criteria, so that's what I did ...

... and got 624 matches (click to enlarge)

As you can see, there were plenty of cars that met my basic criteria, and I quickly added another criterion to my list - I sorted on mileage:

New criterion in light of initial search results: low mileage

However, I still had far too many to choose from, but I was heading (driving?) in the right direction.

Tip: Stepping back from the car example for a moment, this is not an uncommon result.  If you are lucky (or very good) your initial criteria will yield a manageable number of options.  However, if your criteria are too tight, you may not have enough (any?) results to work on, which means that you need to  keep looking and/or loosen your criteria by dropping something.  If your criteria are too loose, there will be too many results, and you will need to identify additional criteria.

At this stage there were a few things I could do to help me identify further criteria and thereby trim my results:

Some ways to cut down the list (click to enlarge)

In this case I was happy to use popular opinion as a guide, so I searched online for the most popular cars in my category:

(Chances are someone else has been looking up the same thing on Google)

And before long I had a short list of popular, highly rated cars that met my basic criteria:

Honda Jazz, Holden Barina
 

Ford Fiesta, Hyundai Accent

Suzuki Swift, Toyota Yaris

Next: Step 3 - Detailed research

Step 1: Basic Criteria (Buying a Car)

Back: Major Purchase Overview (Buying a Car)

Looking for a car can be daunting: in every category there are so many cars to choose from, and so many features.

So we'll start with something simple.

Step 1: Start with basic criteria
I might not know everything that I'll want, but I do know some things.  These explicit criteria are where I start.  Later in the process (step 3) I will uncover further criteria.

My basic criteria

• Price: $10,000 - $20,0000
• Type of car: Small
• Transmission: Manual

 And, just for fun, let's use bCisive Online to show why these are important to me:

bCisive Online map of my basic criteria (click to enlarge)

Expert tip: Since there is no "Criterion" box in bCisive Online, I simply edited the heading of the "Requirement" box to get the required effect.

Next: Step 2 - Basic research

Tutorial: Major Purchase Overview (Buying a Car)

Back: Introduction & Contents

For the purposes of this tutorial, we are going to dive into a major purchase example, buying a car.

Please note that many of the steps that we go through will be applicable to other purchases, and to other kinds of decisions.

Objective
The first thing that we need to do is set an objective.  Here's mine:

Choose the best car for me, and get a good price.

Process
Next, we need a process (or steps) to achieve our objective.  Here's my process for buying a car:

1. Start with basic criteria, however vague.
2. Do some basic research: look online, and shortlist 5 or 6 cars that match my basic criteria.
3. Detailed research: Choose 3 cars that particularly appeal to me, and test-drive them; this helps me to expand my criteria and shortlist the leading cars.
4. Analysis: Brainstorm all of the criteria that come to mind in light of my detailed research and use bCisive Online to easily arrange and categorize them. 
5. Evaluation: Perform a detailed comparison of the leading cars by ranking them in each criterion and category, possibly with the assistance of an expert.* 
6. Use my now detailed knowledge of the best cars, to drive a hard bargain for my preferred car.

*Note: if all leading candidates are ruled out during step 4, I will need to revisit (and loosen) my criteria.

Advantages
For me this process has the advantage of addressing what seemed like the major obstacles in achieving my objective:

1. Paralysis by choice: there are so many cars to choose from
2. Feeling of ignorance: I am not a car buff, and I needed to learn more about the differences between the various cars, and which differences I cared about
3. Fear of paying too much: I want to be well-equipped to haggle with the car dealers, once I have made my choice

Naturally, your preferred process may well be different depending on personal style and the details of the situation.  Fortunately bCisive Online is flexible; it does not mandate any particular process, so you can go with whatever works best for you.  Please feel free to use my process as a starting point.

Next: Step 1 - Basic criteria