TIPS: Buying/Leasing a New Car

A few things that I think worked in my favor when negotiating for a new car.

Start Early.
Negotiating pricing is much easier if you have time. Be prepared to walk out if the deal isn't exactly what you want even if they pull the books out and point out how great of a deal you are getting. I was first offered a dealership demo, 30 days later I was offered the same exact terms for a brand new vehicle. Go about car shopping early also will allow you time to visit many dealerships and get the best deal offered since you will have time to compare. Common sense I know, but some people probably don't do this just because they wait.

4-square, Middle Finger.
Many of the salespeople, especially the newer ones, will draw up a 4-square. They will get you to the terms they want by getting you to tell them the terms you want. Turn this around on them by telling them FIRST that you want to know what they want. Once they have narrowed down the terms and pricing, they will try to get you to put your initials on the 4-square. This is bullshit. It is not legally binding and only serves one purpose; to make customers feel like they must honor the deal that they agreed to. I don't do this, and I tell them up front that there is no reason for me to do so. They will BS with you about how the boss needs this. I interupt them and tell I won't sign it. This lets them know that you are experienced and are not playing games.

Take the car home, but make a few stops.
It's much easier to walk away from the deal if you don't have the vehicle. I turned down the offer by a few salespeople to take the car home when I knew I wasn't ready to decide. This is a ploy that the dealerships use to close the deal. When it's decision time, I think you may want to take the vehicle over night. Use this as last minute way to negotiate best deal pricing with the other dealerships. It's probably important that you've established contact with a salesperson at the competing dealerships to save time before you make that final visit. Make sure when you drive up that the salepeople see the borrowed vehicle. Most dealerships have big windows in the offices for the sales people. Park where they can see the car. Point it out to your sales guy when you walk in the door. They will know that you are serious and that they don't have a lot of time to win you over. Tell them that you are about to make a decision but since some bullshit reason (like "you were helpful" or "...great to work with") you wanted to give that salesperson an opportunity to beat offer. They either will or won't and you can rest assured that you got the best deal. Take the vehicle to the next dealership and repeat. The deal I finally agreed to was $70 less per month than what was offered by a competing dealership. I drove up and they saw me in the car with the dealership plates. They had told me on the phone they could beat the deal but they didn't. That's okay. It never hurts to try.

Good luck.

An Expensive Lesson to Learn

I realized something today at work. Too many ad/marketing agencies and other companies are relying on too few people to maintain some of the most important pieces of their business. That important piece is software engineering. I'm not a software engineer but I do realize their importance on the digital economy. Why don't these companies train or provide a brain dump for a handful of people to serve as a backup?

A few years ago, when I worked for ClikTO, the startup, I realized that when the last of our programmers left, our startup ruined, and we had failed by not keeping our programmers. We all were paid $10/hr and still we managed to run out of money. I have posted about ClikTO so I won't go into a lot details now, but I realized it was over when we could no longer fix or enhance the web application we had spent four years working on. Blood, sweat, and tears all for naught.

My next job was a short term contract as a project manager. I was surprised to find out that the duration of the contract was only three months. It was extended another two months because the project was not completed. Towards the end of the project, it was extended two weeks at a time. Not knowing whether or not if my next paycheck would be my last, I left to work full time for a prominent web design company. Both of the projects I worked on launched, but I have no clue how they maintain the sites as they didn't have the staff to do so when I was there.

Unfortunately, things would only get worse at my next job. While working as a project manager at this web design company in Dallas, I noticed many of the same approaches to running the business. The guys in charge kept a small, bare bones crew made up of three coders, two artists, two PMs, two sales guys, and an IA. Turnover was high, making my job as Project Manager difficult due to the inability to manage resources effectively. Coders that couldn't get the job done quickly were fired and replaced with younger, cheaper talent. This process of hiring and firing continued the entire time I worked at this company. They didn't realize that they were entrusting their business to people who lacked experience and vision. The staff was often over worked and underpaid. The rank and file had nothing to gain by sticking around. I felt hopeless as I couldn't meet project deadlines with the ever-changing staff that we had. On one of my projects, the client asked for their $30K back when they realized progress was not being made. What they didn't realize is that turnover was destroying the company. With each firing, employees that remained were forced to work longer hours. Eventually, another person would leave. A small, core group of people isn't always the most efficient approach.

It's not just small companies that suffer from poor IT management. I worked for a medical claims processing company as their webmaster. My first month I worked for the company I was not given a single task to complete. I assigned myself things to do to demonstrate my talents. Over the year I spent at this company, it seemed like more and more people were leaving as the weeks went by. I too found a better paying job and moved on. A weeks after I quit their corporate website I had designed was hacked. Visitors to the website would have been shocked had they visited the site during that time. Had the company had a backup they wouldn't have had to take down the web server for the entire weekend. They wouldn't have had to call me either.

The agency I work at now hasn't learned the valuable lesson of hiring and keeping the right talent to operate the business. Instead they shift gears and focus on other pieces of the business and ignore interactive. The software engineers have almost all left. One of them told me today that he might stick around another two months. When he leaves, the company will likely respond by contracting out some of the work. Unlike creative projects, this type of work is costly and cannot be contracted all the time. Companies have to hire some of these people so that they don't have to start from scratch each time a new project is undertaken. The company I work for observes as people leave, even conducting an exit interview. What I find odd is that they don't replace them. An entire IT team has left in the last 6-9 months. Two years ago the Interactive team was made up of 30 employees. Now the department is so small it was absorbed into another department. People cannot take vacations because they have no backup. This is a sweat shop.

If your company is a revolving door, do something to fix it. The last thing your company should want is to be known as a revolving door.