When you’re in school, everything seems pretty theoretical. Sure, you learn formulas and theories, but it doesn’t seem like you could ever use them to find real-world deals and get discounts on things they need anyway. But that’s exactly what finance majors do every day. As a finance major, you’ll hone your skills analyzing and investing in companies, which makes it super useful for finding deals and giving discounts as an adult. In this article we’ll show how finance majors negotiate a discount on almost anything.

Determine Value and Demand

Before you negotiate, you need to know what something is worth. If you’re buying something, you need to know what it’s worth to the seller. If you’re selling something, you need to know what it’s worth to the buyer. One of the best ways to determine the value of something is to find out how much someone else is paying for it. To do this, you could try to find out how much a used version of something you’re interested in would cost. An example of this is by looking for the average price of auto leads and then find a used model of the same car. That way you’ll know what it’s worth used.

Find the Seller’s Weakness

Once you know what something is worth and how much someone is paying for it, you can use that information to your advantage in negotiations.

But rather than just saying “I’ll pay this much,” try to find out what the seller is worried about. What is he or she desperate to get rid of? What has been taking up space and not selling? Why is the seller in a rush to sell? Then, you can try to offer the seller something that will make him or her more desperate to sell. If there’s something the seller is in a rush to sell, you could try offering to buy it now.

Set a Deadline and Be Decisive

Now that you’ve found the seller’s weakness, you can use that to your advantage by setting a deadline. If there’s something that the seller is desperate to get rid of, try setting a deadline for when you will buy it.  You can also try being decisive about the price you’re willing to pay. Rather than saying something like “I’d like to pay about this much” or “I’d be willing to pay around this amount,” you can be decisive by saying something like “I’ll pay this amount” or “I’ll pay this price.”