Preparation Pays Off
I try to be organized, try being the operative word. After doing all the research I put it into a spreadsheet that I could sort into various ways. I was used to using spreadsheets at work for just about everything, so it was easy to set up this spreadsheet.
Once the spreadsheet was set up, I sorted it alphabetically. That didn’t seem very efficient to me, so I then sorted it by area which seemed to work for me. As I researched RVs online, I would mark them on the spreadsheets. This allowed me to narrow down the type of RV that I would look at when I started going to the showrooms. When I felt like I had narrowed it down to a number of RVs that I could handle looking at, I made a list of the RVs then looked up the showrooms that sold those types of RVs.
I then added an area to define each RV so that I knew which showroom it was located at. I could mark which requirement each RV had so that I could do a comparison of the RVs that I looked at. I would keep a separate sheet for each showroom that I visited. I printed out several sheets and put on a clipboard along with a pen and I was ready to go shopping!
Store #1 I got inside the store and started looking and I was so excited! Then I realized that I had forgotten the clipboard with the spreadsheets! Oh, well, I should be able to remember everything that I am looking at. I looked at two RVs and was not really impressed with either of them. Even so, I’m sticking with my process and fill in the spreadsheet. It was hard filling in the spreadsheet after the fact, but it was easier because the RVs didn’t have a lot of the requirements.
Store #2 I made sure to take the spreadsheet with me this time. Trying to find the requirements to mark as we are walking through the RV is difficult, then I need to rework the way I have the spreadsheet organized. Reviewed several RVs and needed to finish the spreadsheets after I left the store
Store #3 With this store the salesman said they didn’t have much in stock. The first one we looked at was a really nice RV and I just kept adding check marks to my spreadsheet. I was in love with it by the time we finished the walk through, but I didn’t let on that I liked it. I asked him how much this one would go for, it was used with 3,000 miles, and he responded that anything less than $100,000 would get laughed at. I asked what else they had to see. Nothing else came close to the number of check marks on the spreadsheet.
I compared all the RVs that I had looked at and realized the first RV at the last store had the most check marks. I called my brother to see about bluebook for RVs and then looked up the specific RV on the internet and found the RV advertised by Store #3. I then went and made my offer on the specific RV. They did laugh at me when I made my offer but didn’t laugh when I showed them their advertisement and they didn’t laugh anymore. I bought my RV because I did my research and was prepared when I went to make my offer.
Did the spreadsheet help? Definitely! By the time I started looking I knew exactly what I wanted and If I had any questions about one, I had looked at I could glance back at the spreadsheets. I even narrowed down the type of RVs/Class Cs that I wanted by using the spreadsheets. As I would look them up online, I would mark them on the spreadsheets. This was very helpful in the beginning in deciding what to look at when I went to a showroom and saved me lots of time.
”The meeting of preparation with opportunity generates the offspring we call luck.” - Tony Robbins
