I think confusion sets when you contact 10 dealerships and 9 say no (or say nothing), and one is going out of their way insisting that you come “test drive the car and work out the deal”.
Also, each make/model is different. Getting a great deal on Volvo is much easier compared to some notoriously bad makes and models with high standard MF for tier 1, low RV, no cash bonuses/rebates/incentives in existence.
One more thing to consider: the number of dealerships you can reach out to could be realistically limited to a dozen or so for a certain make/model, if you set a radius of 150 miles from your zip code (the most distance I would be willing to travel in person to pick up a car). If you throw wider net you will have to either:
A) Travel very long distance to inspect car in person before signing a lease (IMHO it’s always better to do in-person inspection of the car before you drive it off)
B) Order long distance, hope car will be in the condition you expect and pay for transportation costs (add hundreds of dollars to transaction)
The A might be necessary if you have a car to trade. You don’t want to travel 400 or 2000 miles, only to be told by dealer “My numbers were based on assessed value $X, but your car is worth $Y, so we must add the difference to your balance now”. Walking out from a dealership 2000 miles away (and/or shipping your car to it) is not the same as walking out from some place 60 miles away.
Which brings me (in my individual case) to a possibility of having to select my next car make/model based on the best deal I can get rather than the car I would really want.
I want GLE350 or 450e, but at this time I am skeptical of the prospect of getting a great deal on it anytime between now and 2025 when my current lease expires. Possibility is certainly there, MB may roll some handsome incentives between now and then, the Feds may drop interest rates and MB MF may get closer to reasonable, but it’s also possible (even likely) than none of these things will materialize. So, I would then be forced to look into other makes/models or restrict my search to strictly MB EV’s with lowest MF and highest incentives available (not a good choice for me because I genuinely detest EV cars).
But, as one poster praised pro dealers for being flexible, capable of evolving and adapting to existing conditions, a seasoned lessor may also be forced to be flexible, to evolve and adapt by setting their eyes on makes/models they would not be willing to consider under any other circumstances.
And patience, above all, is a must. Impulsive and desperate drive to get the car you want , now and here might be the worst thing to avoid.
I think that boils down to the are you shopping the deal or are you shopping the car.
Never had to chose one over other in the past 20+ years leasing cars, but may well have to, just given the conditions I can’t control or change. And I think I will go with the deal rather than a car.
I think brokers refuse to work with you if they know off the bat that they can’t deliver a deal that you want. The same thing happened to me when I contacted non-MB broker (won’t say which one) here and asked if I could pay advertised monthly lease without paying anything else on inception (they demanded taxes upfront, or to be rolled into monthly lease). They figured they wouldn’t be able to make a deal and decided to invest their time on leads they had high odds of closing.
I had better experience with MB broker here from @AutoNinjas. Rather than being ignored, I received a call and had very good 5 minute conversation where everything was laid out to me transparently and it became clear to me that what I want on GLE450e is out of reach at the moment.
Read my negotiating tactic on this thread in the first post where I talk about how I incorporated the phone.
It sounds like you told them you werent interested in what they were offering. Why be surprised that they didnt want to do business after you told them you werent interested?
No, I did not tell them that I was not interested. Since they responded to my initial inquiry and said “taxes due upfront with that advertised deal”, I asked them if I could get the advertised monthly payments with taxes included in it (and not added to monthly, on top of the advertised monthly lease). I was asked to provide some additional details (vin # of car I currently have, so they could calculate the tax credits and confirm that they would match CarMax offer), but was ghosted ever since. I didn’t follow up, to me it’s a clear sign that broker couldn’t accommodate my request or is not willing to waste time on what they know they can’t deliver.
You told them you werent interested in their offering and told them you wanted thousands more off. Is there a nicer way to tell you to pound sand than ghost you? Yah, probably, but you announced to them you werent a viable customer. Taking thousands more off isnt “accomodating a simple request”.
Did your significant other yell at you this morning, or you just have a bad morning? 
Why should anyone tell someone to pound sand? I don’t get all this emotional involvement, anger and drama when it comes to price negotiation. To me it’s simply “Yes” or “No”, and it goes both ways. I am very cool when dealer asks me $6000 above what I am willing to pay, or says “No” when I ask for more discount than they will give. I see no reason for them to be ‘nice’ about telling me to ‘pound sand’ (which implies they must be very angry with me in the first place). I am not willing to give them what they ask for, they are not willing to do the same for me. So what? Life goes on and I wish them best of luck closing what they consider viable deals. That concept should be simple enough to process.
Exactly the point.
You told them you didnt want to do business, so they didnt do business. End of story.
I replied to other poster, who said he was ignored by brokers, I didn’t make anything of it other than what I have said. The part you quoted from my reply was preceded by “I think brokers refuse to work with you if they know off the bat that they can’t deliver a deal that you want”. Is there anything in that statement that you find disagreeable? 
Note that I said nothing about anyone pounding the sand, nor did I say that “I told them I don’t want to do business with you”. By that logic, the first thing I ever do whenever I contact any dealer is “I won’t do business with you!”, because I almost never call dealer to buy the deal they advertise (which usually involves $5000 in downpayments and $8000 DAS, to get advertised lease payments)
Nice of you both to hijack thread with your petty back and forth…but maybe take it to DMs
No, i dont disagree. The point is that most people dont open the conversation with a broker by informing them theyre not interested in their offerings.
The whole discussion here is on the topic of crafting messages to the businesses youre looking to work with. If your messaging doesn’t play into that, i dont know what does.
Trusted Hackr (moderator, I guess?) took my response to OP out of context , quoted it and asserted that what I said implied something that I did not say (Note: I asked a question about taxes, I didn’t tell broker that I didn’t want to do business with them), and then suggested that broker found a ‘nice’ way to tell me to go pound the sand when they ghosted me.
Now, I understand that this forum might be a vehicle for brokers to make a living, and that forum itself may depend on support it gets from those brokers, and may be that’s the reason a ‘trusted hakr’ gets emotional and basically tells me to pound the sand to show his displeasure with my earlier comment.
But two things to note here: I didn’t even name the broker, let alone saying anything bad or disreputing about them. They ignored my inquiry, just as they did @impretzel 's , it’s a fact, but rather than bashing them for it I said I believe there is a rational reason for them to do so.
Second, if any comment (other than 100% positive and affirming of brokers) is unwelcome here, then may be it should be added to rules. I would simply ignore topics/discussions about brokers if I knew it generates wrath of trusted hakrs and can serve as grounds to censor/ban/remove me from this platform, which I find very useful and would prefer to utilize in future
Youre missing the larger point here and how it pertains to this specific topic.
Your words werent “i dont want to do business with you”, but your message was. People dont often recognize the message theyre sending.
One of the things we (or ar least I) preach to people here is to never go into a dealer and ask for quotes blindly. Part of that is because the numbers the dealer offers are irrelevant, but a huge part of it is that youre presenting the message, even if your words dont say it, that you are an uninformed consumer. You are establishing the foundation of your interaction on faulty ground.
This is the same scenario. You are establishing the foundation of your interaction and crafting your messaging influences that.
Youre missing the larger point here and how it pertains to this specific topic.
Your words werent “i dont want to do business with you”, but your message was. People dont often recognize the message theyre sending.
That’s not what I have implied or said to broker, but I understand your point, why it could be understood that way. Now, if your initial impression was that you could get the advertised monthly payment with zero at inception and broker clarified on their response that taxes were excluded, how would you proceed? Would you just say “Understood, thank you for your time” and cease further communication? Would you ask if it was possible to include taxes in advertised payment? I now try to see it from broker’s perspective. Note that the broker didn’t ignore me off the bat, even when I asked about tax inclusion and tax credits based on trade.
I was exploring a possibility of getting tax credit on assessed value and getting final numbers thereafter. Broker said they would match what CafrMax offered on my car and even asked for my vin# and latest CarMax offer on it. Only then I was ghosted, with no further feedback.
One of the things we (or ar least I) preach to people here is to never go into a dealer and ask for quotes blindly.
It worked out for me on more than one occasion, but I understand how this approach could turn out to be counter-productive when working on a ‘difficult deal’ or ‘difficult lease’, where you have to do your homework and calculate everything to the T before negotiating the deal. But in this case I wasn’t asking for the best deal, broker already laid it out. I was asking about my trade value, tax credit and what could be done about remaining tax balance.
Part of that is because the numbers the dealer offers are irrelevant, but a huge part of it is that youre presenting the message, even if your words dont say it, that you are an uninformed consumer. You are establishing the foundation of your interaction on faulty ground.
I don’t find much to disagree with this, but see above, broker laid out the numbers already, we were negotiating tax payment and confirming they would be paying assessed by CarMax value on my current lease.
This happened to me too when I went in to negotiate a Nissan Ariya. I was asking for 10% off before incentives. The sales guy started laughing when I gave him a price of $290 on a sign and drive. I politely asked him if he wanted for me to explain how I got there. Eventually he got his sales manager and we negotiated a healthy 8% discount off MSRP before incentives. When all said and done all sales folks wanted to get an Ariya at the same price I had. It’s always good to know the details behind your deal. However when negotiating in my experience SMs just want to know a monthly with DAS to make the deal happen.