You are quoting for installation of a new kitchen in a house. Do you:
- Give a detailed cost breakdown of every item in the quotation?
- Give a rough breakdown of the cost?
- Give the total figure and try to avoid giving a cost breakdown?
You have set up a business that is beginning to do well and you need help to manage the growing demand for your product. Talking to a good friend of yours and your family’s, you find that he is interested in changing his current job and you decide he would make a good manager in your business. You talk to him about what you expect and how he would fit in, and decide on his starting remuneration. Everything is agreed and he is ready to start. Do you:
- Summarize what you have agreed to in a legal contract?
- Leave it as is as you have already agreed verbally
You have just found out that the new computer equipment you ordered has arrived and what you thought included ‘installation’ actually means that they plug each one into an electric socket, no more than two metres away and switch them on, when what you required by installation from the ‘installer’ was for the computers to be set up as a networked group in twenty locations about the building. Do you:
- Accuse the seller of misleading you?
- Tell the ‘installer’ to take the machines away?
- Call the seller’s office to request a re-negotiation of the contract?
Further Discussion Questions
- Have you ever been asked for or given out a cost breakdown? How does your experience compare to the advice given for #1?
- Have you ever worked with friends or family? What advice can you give us on this issue?
- Have you ever tried to renegotiate something? What was the good or service involved? What was the final result?