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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

> At this point I have the feeling dell just charges you what they think they can get out of you. You push back and the price drops, I don't want to negotiate.

This is precisely the role of the sales person for something like a service, but for a physical product it is pretty egregious. There is no greater sin than leaving money on the table. There's an old story about someone offering a quote that was apparently pretty low based on reaction, so they quickly add "that was for my assistant" to give way for pushing the number higher.

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I like this version: The optician quotes the price of new glasses by saying "$100", waits to see if the customer flinches, "... for the lenses", waits again, "... each.".

> so they quickly add "that was for my assistant" to give way for pushing the number higher

I don’t understand what this means? I understand that they bumped the price. But I du not understand what is meant by it being for the assistant? Care to explain?

Not OP but the way I read it...

Electrician: "Okay, so my services start at $100/hr"

Electrician: "... for when my assistant can handle things."

Replace Electrician by whatever skilled professional you prefer.

Pretty much, except the assistant is never going to handle things and the updated fees go up to include you and the assistant. If you only ever send out your assistant, you never make money

I think you miss the point.

You price it at what you think works. There is no push back, so you make room to push the price higher.

You were happy to do it at the original price.

I didn't miss the point, I'm the one that posted the comment. I know precisely how it's used.

If you play poker, it is the equivalent of pushing 'portions' of your bet out at a time. You push the portion, observe their face and body language, and maybe push the rest.

The 'that was for my assistant' is just something they say to explain away the earlier quoted price. They are pretending that what they said wasn't the quote for this conversation, it was for another, different conversation, between the salesman and their assistant. This only works when the assistant is not in the call.

That behavior is not tolerated at any real poker table. It shouldn't be tolerated in salespeople either.

This is called string betting and will get you kicked off a table.

I wonder how effective it really is, over the long term, to generate short-term profit by consuming trust like this.

I mean this is the point of having salespeople, to maximize the amount of money you get from each customer.

This is why when I go to the price page for a product and seeing "contact our sales team for a quote" I look for an alternative.

Dell does a soft version of this by setting uncompetitive prices on the website and making you call to get the real price, although ironically that usually just means we go with a different company that simply posts a competitive price.

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