A short YouTube clip by Chris Koerner (uploaded April 12, 2024) in which he recounts a college anecdote about selling used cars and describes a negotiation technique called the “silent walk around”: silently inspecting a customer’s trade-in to prompt the owner to devalue it in their own mind, often lowering their expected price by about $2–3K.
Back in college, I sold used cars for two weeks. And, yes, it was as shady as you could imagine. But I did learn one thing that was genius. It was called the silent walk around. I was taught that when a customer brings their trade in to be valued, I would slowly walk around it, running my finger along each scratch, touching each blemish each dent, sometimes going, hmm. But never saying a word. As I'm doing this, the customer is silently devaluing their own car in their own head. By the time I actually get to the price, they've talked themselves down two to three grand.
