I hate selling stuff.
How about when you are selling services and you start high knowing the cheap *** is going to cry like a baby until you come down to your "real" price anyways so he thinks he just became the "bargainologist" of the year, then he asks if he can supply his own parts.
At this time I usually say the deal ender because I am already fed up with their crap and don't feel like doing anything for them at this point so I say "Do you buy a steak at Krogers, then take it to longhorn and ask the chef to grill it for you at a discount?"
Usually I walk away smiling as they are swearing or staring into oblivion>>>>>>>>>>>>LOL.
'spaz, I'm with you on this one! Having been a tech/service writer in Ithaca, NY, with it's high Asian population you get the hang of haggling. They want "the bestest" deal on everything (sorry, not being racist or anything, just realistic). I mean, come on, they spend hours on the phone calling around for oil change prices or spend hours running from shop to shop to shop seeing who's going to beat whose estimate. So, jack the price up a bit, haggle a little bit, throw a coupon on the estimate discounting to the original price...sounds dishonest, but really it's only way to do business in that town.
Had the "can I bring my own parts" thrown at me so many times..sure, but I won't warranty 'em, so if something goes wrong you have to pay me twice the labor, in full, plus the parts I'll warranty if something does go wrong. Or, sure, if you want to buy your own parts, you can buy your own tools and do it yourself, too. Sounds brutal, but I've been in that situation, too.
Or, here's the one I always liked the most: when Pop and I had our resto shop, we'd have the shopper come in a explain in detail exactly what he wanted his car to be. So I'd write the estimate, for say a complete cosmetic resto. Pull the interior, pull the engine for detail, pull the glass, all the trim, take it bare for new paint, pull the body apart to make sure edges and jambs, engine compartment, trunk are all done correctly, replace weatherstripping and badges as needed, clean everything before it went back together. I'm quoting a good 100+ hours, here. A week later same person comes back with another estimate from Joe Blow's body shop for a Maaco style paint job for a 10th of what I quoted demanding to know why I quoted so high. After explaining the differences between apples and oranges I would then tell said customer, "perhaps instead of coming here demanding to know why I'm so high, you should be going to Joe Blow and demanding to know why he's going to do the 'same' job for so cheap."