Why Leaving Meat on the Bone is Necessary

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Wildflowers and Bees: A Stress-Relieving Coloring Book

It was a bit like a war when I started in business years ago. I was brought up in the produce business on a farm, trying to sell cherries, plums, corn, and other produce to wholesalers. They were brutal.

At first, I had no clue. I was also a youngster, starting most of this negotiating when I was about ten. I remember one occasion on a Friday night when the wholesaler arrived to pick up the 40 baskets of cherries he had ordered. We didn’t have any cooling systems, so they had just been picked and graded and were sitting on the floor of our farm basement.

He took one look at them and started trying to cut his price. He knew we had about 8 hours, and the cherries would be mush without a cooler. I knew he was driving them up north, about 12 hours away, and likely already had them sold. As he continued to banter and yell at the poor quality from the doorway, I just closed the door and started walking away.

I knew I’d be in deep trouble with my parents if I blew this deal, but I didn’t know what to do.

After a few seconds, he started to laugh, agreed to pay the previously negotiated price, and we loaded up his truck. He wanted to squeeze the last few cents out of me to make just a bit more money. He would always try this until one day, I told him I couldn’t sell him any more produce.  He could go somewhere else. He left laughing at me and yelling insults, but we were all better for it. We found better buyers and ways to sell our produce.

It was a typical strategy I saw in that business. Someone wins, so someone must lose.

But that isn’t necessarily the case, especially if you think of the long term.

One of the strategies I have written about is the Pizza strategy, where we buy a parcel of land and slice it into different parts, selling some while keeping the others. Just recently, I received an offer on one of those parcels and talked to the buyer's agent.

She immediately started to try to talk me down. It was a lot like the cherry buyer some 58 years ago.

I stopped her after a few seconds and said:

“Look, we both know that the home, the land, the services, and the improvements are all worth some 75 thousand more dollars than your client is paying. I am fine making $50,000 on this deal, and I think your client should also be rewarded for signing. So, let’s stop these games, be fair, and do a win-win deal.” This deal just reached an agreement today, and I don’t know if it will close, but the talk and my suggestions were respected.

The best part is that I don’t care if the deal closes. It would have been a win for the buyer and a win for my team if the buyer couldn’t see that they didn’t deserve the win.

Many times, negotiations or purchasing real estate can be a fight. But it doesn’t have to be that way if you define your win, what you want, and what is fair, leaving ample meat on the bone, as they say for the other party. It’s also a relaxing way to negotiate prices. What say you?

Wildflowers and Bees: A Stress-Relieving Coloring Book

-Different levels of detail
-Themes of Nature from our Wildflower Bee Farm
-For all Skill Levels
-Great way to relieve Stress and Anxiety
-Prints are directly from High-Quality Pictures from the Farm
-Great for Crayons, Gel Pens, Colored Pencils or Markers
-Each page is on one side only, so there is no bleeding of colours
-A perfect gift for young and old
-Deluxe Version has the actual Pictures included with each Coloring Book Page
-The Front Cover Picture of this Book is the first Picture to Color
This Adult Coloring Book, by Dr. Henry Svec (retired psychologist) and Mary Svec (Farm Photographer), uses 30 pictures from our 50-acre farm, which we are converting into nature and a honeybee sanctuary. Various wild and traditional pollinators are featured in this book while they frolic on our wildflowers. Studies have supported the notion that colouring can be a better treatment for Generalized Anxiety and Stress than conventional therapy.
For extra fun and a challenge, go to our farm site, wildflowerbeefarm.com, click on Coloring Pages and find the picture of what you are about to colour. Our deluxe edition has a picture beside each colouring page in the book to save that step.
Mary and Dr. Svec also recently published “What Grandpa Learned from His Honeybees: The Little Book to Be Smart with Your Money and Help the Environment.” Available on amazon.ca

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