William, who sells widgets, has been trying to get Big Winner on
the phone for weeks to see if B.W.'s company will buy his line of
widgets. Big Winner is still considering Willie's widgets and plans
eventually to return his call. However, at this point in our story,
our little hero's phone has not rung.
It just so happens, one evening Willie finds himself standing
behind Big Winner in the supermarket line.
"What good fortune!" thinks Willie.
"Oh hell!" thinks Big Winner. "I hope he's not going to hit
me with talk of his widgets at this hour."
Those who appreciate safe havens know there are two very
different endings to this story. The Willie who brings up widgets
with an "Aha, I've got you now" gleam in his eye, never gets his
call returned. Even if Big Winner preferred Willie's widgets above
all others, he would find the supermarket entrapment sufficiently
painful to punish the little loser.
However, the Willie who just says "Hello there, B.W. How
good to see you," with nary a word of widgets, shows he's a big
player, too. This Willie will most certainly get his call returned—
probably the next day—out of Big Winner's relief and gratitude
for Willie's graciousness.
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How to Know What
Not to Say in a
Chance Meeting
✰85
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Consistently create safe havens for people if you want them
to elevate you to the status of big winner. You may find yourself
dining with them, going to parties with them, getting big "hellos"
in the hall, and closing deals much faster than during business
hours. Who knows? If it's your desire, you even make yourself eligible for some heavy socializing at the top. Big winners make it
safe for each other to accept invitations to play golf, spend the
weekend in their country homes, or relax by each other's pools.
They know there will be no sharks swimming in the water, no
razor blades buried in the shrimp cocktail.
318 How to Talk to Anyone
Technique #85
Chance Encounters Are for Chitchat
If you're selling, negotiating, or in any sensitive
communication with someone, do NOT capitalize on a
chance meeting. Keep the melody of your mistaken
meeting sweet and light. Otherwise, it could turn into
your swan song with Big Winner.
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Once night, several years ago on a New York City street, I caught
a man trying to break into a car. I shouted for him to stop. Instead
of being content escaping, the burly would-be burglar decided to
retaliate. As he raced past me, he shoved me down onto the
cement and I cracked my skull against the curb.
Dizzily, I wobbled into the emergency room of a nearby hospital. Holding an ice pack against my throbbing head, I was grilled
by the emergency room triage nurse on my address, telephone, and
social security numbers, insurance carrier, policy number, ad nauseam. It's as if she had said,"The heck with your cracked skull. You
can tell me about that later. What's your insurance number?"
Don't bother me with that minutiae! All I wanted to do was
tell somebody, anybody, what happened to me. It wasn't until the
very end of her ruthless and sadistic interrogation that she asked,
"So what happened?"
I later told my sad story to a friend, Sue, a nurse who works
in admitting in another emergency room. She said, "I know. I can't
believe they print the forms that way. Injured people don't get to
tell what happened to them until the last line of the form. Sue said
getting crucial numerical details from people suffering in the ER
with broken bones and burns was a real challenge. Until, she said,
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How to Prepare Them
to Listen to You
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she switched her questioning around. She'd first ask them what
happened. They'd tell her all about it. She'd listen sympathetically.
"Then," she said, "they were only too happy to give me the information I needed."
Good bosses understand this human need to talk. Robert, a
colleague of mine who owns a small manufacturing firm, says
whenever one of his employees complains about a problem, he
never holds the griper's feet to the fire for facts first. He hears the
employee out completely. He lets him carry on about the cantankerous customer, the uncooperative coworker. "Then, after he's
gotten it off his chest," Robert says, "I get the facts a lot more
clearly."
When You Have Important Information
to Impart
Any kid working in a garage knows you can't pump more gas into
a full tank. Too much topping it off, and it splashes onto the cement.
Likewise, your listener's brain is always full of his or her own
thoughts, worries, and enthusiasms. If you pump your ideas into
your listener's brain, which is full of her own notions, you'll get a
polluted mixture, then a spill. If you want your supersupreme ideas
to flow into her tank unpolluted, drain her tank completely first.
320 How to Talk to Anyone
Technique #86
Empty Their Tanks
If you need information, let people have their entire say
first. Wait patiently until their needle is on empty and
the last drop drips out and splashes on the cement. It's
the only way to be sure their tank is empty enough of
their own inner noise to start receiving your ideas.
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Whenever you are discussing emotionally charged matters, let
the speaker finish completely before you jump in. Count to ten if
you must. It will seem like an eternity, but letting the flustered fellow finish is the only way he'll hear you when it's your turn.
"I'm Going to Make You Miserable Before
You Can Enjoy Being My Customer"
Companies that run mail-order operations could take a hint from
this technique. One reason I enjoy ordering from L.L. Bean, a
mail-order clothing and sports-equipment outfit, is they let me ask
questions about the wearable or widget I want first. They let me
ramble on with my questions about the quality, the available colors, how it looks, how it feels, how it smells, and how it works.
Then, when I'm all whacked up about receiving my four size-ten,
red-and-chartreuse, soft, odorless widgets, they tastefully ask my
credit card number.
Other companies have first grilled me on the number, the
expiration date, my customer number (which I can never find on
the back of the catalogue), and how often I've ordered from them
in the past before I even get to fantasize about the wonderful
widget I might want to buy from them. Takes all the joy out of
the purchase and sometimes kills the sale.
Top communicators do more than just let you babble on.
They use the next technique while you're in the process of dribbling down.