92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships (33 page)

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 Talk to Anyone

Technique #85

Chanc e Encount ers 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.

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.

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86
How to Prepare Them

to Listen to You

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 Talk to Anyone

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.
Technique #86

Empt y 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. 09 (293-342B) part nine 8/14/03 9:19 AM Page 322

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87
How to Turn Their

Anger Around (in Three

Sentences or Less)

Emo
is a word invented by Helen Gurley Brown, the grand dame of
Cosmopolitan
magazine. Emo translated is “Give more emotion!”

Once
Cosmopolitan
asked me to write an article on communicating sensitive matters (most specifically advising young women on how to make their boyfriends more passionate). I interviewed a passel of psychologists, communications experts, and sexologists. My draft came back from Cosmo all marked up with “MORE

EMO” scribbled on every page.

I called my editor and asked what it meant. She said that was Helen’s way of saying downplay all that factual stuff with the sex therapists and so-called experts. Write about the emotion the young woman feels when her boyfriend isn’t passionate enough, the emotion the accused male feels when confronted, and the emotion the couple feels about discussing their quandary. Helen Gurley Brown, a certified big winner, liked to have it all and knew just how to get it. Helen recognized, when the time is right, reject the rational and empathize with the emotions. In other words, smear on the emo.

“Oh, No! He Must Have Been Mortified!”

L.L. Bean recently smeared emo all over me. Several months ago, my friend Phil wanted to buy some trousers and asked for a rec
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How to Turn Their Anger Around (in Three Sentences or Less)
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ommendation. I dragged him to my closet to show him the quality and construction of the L.L. Bean clothes. That convinced him, and Phil ordered a pair of navy-blue dress trousers. Phil wore his brand new L.L. Bean pants for the first time on a big date with a new girlfriend at an elegant restaurant. While following the maître d’ to the cozy corner booth which he’d requested, his date happened to drop her evening bag. Phil promptly bent over to pick it up. Riiiiiiip! Right down the middle seam. Most of the diners facing Phil’s derriere mercifully looked away. A few tittered. Phil, tugging the torn seams together to blanket his buns, backed his way into the booth. The cool upholstery on his bottom the rest of the evening reminded him of his humiliation.

When I heard of Phil’s tribulations, I was furious at L.L. Bean. I immediately called one of their customer service agents. She sympathized as I told her of Phil’s ordeal, but I was still simmering. She patiently listened and even asked me details of the disaster. When I finished the long sad story, the agent said, “Oh that’s terrible. I understand, your friend must have felt awful.”

“Yes, he did,” I agreed.

“He must have been mortified!” she said.

“He definitely was,” I said, surprised at her excellent grasp of the situation.

“And you, when you heard about it. You must have felt terrible, too, especially after you’d recommended our products so highly.”

“Well, your products usually are excellent,” I said, calming down a bit.

“I’m so sorry we caused you this pain and aggravation,” she said.

“Oh,” I interrupted. “It’s not your fault.” Now I was completely appeased. “It must have just been a fluke that this one pair of pants was . . . ”

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How to Talk to Anyone

Technique #87

Echo the Emo

Facts speak. Emotions shout. Whenever you need facts

from people about an emotional situation, let them

emote. Hear their facts but empathize like mad with

their emotions. Smearing on the emo is often the only

way to calm their emotional storm.

There’s more to this story, but let me pause here to interject the Echo the Emo technique.

The clever customer service rep not only emptied my tanks and softened me up with Echo the Emo. She completely dissolved me with the next technique.

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88
How to Make ’Em Like

You (Even When You’ve

Messed Up)

The next day, UPS delivered not only the replacement slacks, but tucked into the package was a handwritten apology and a hefty gift certificate. Would I order from that company again? You bet I would. Would I recommend their clothes to someone else? You bet I would. Top customer service folks welcome mistakes because they know it gives their firm a chance to shine. Whenever you mess up and someone suffers because of it, make sure they come out ahead, way ahead. I call the technique “My Goof, Your Gain.”

Visiting an important client’s office, I once tripped on a rug and took a nose dive, making a three-point landing in a vase on her desk. My nose was spared but her vase shattered into smithereens. Two tubes of crazy glue and lots of “Where the heck does this piece go” later, the vase was back on her desk, and we agreed it looked pretty good. Nevertheless, the next day I had a messenger deliver a beautiful vase, ten times the value of the almost-totaled one, with a dozen roses in it.

Whenever we speak, my client tells me every time she looks at the new vase, she smiles. (A better “incentive gift” than a pen with your name on it, no?) The next time I visit her office, my client may hide some of her more valuable breakables. But, thanks to My Goof, Your Gain, there will be a next time.

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How to Talk to Anyone

Technique #88

My Goof, Your Gain

Whenever you make a boner, make sure your victim

benefits. It’s not enough to correct your mistake. Ask

yourself, “What could I do for this suffering soul so he or she will be delighted I made the flub?” Then do it,

fast! In that way, your goof will become your gain.

Now, suppose it’s not your boo-boo. It’s theirs. How can you make their goof your gain? Read on.

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89
How to Trap a Rat

with Class

In Japan, some citizens prefer to lose their lives rather than to lose face. In America, the same death wish exists, with one modification. The Yank dreams of the death of the mortal who made him lose face.

Why make enemies? Unless it is your obligation to catch cheaters or entrap liars, let them get away with it. Then immediately get them out of your life and the lives you’re responsible for. Even when the case is open and shut against someone—when you’ve got the rat fink trapped—leave him an escape hatch. The best example I heard of this high sensitivity was from one of my clients. She was invited to brunch at the home of a wealthy socialite known as “Lady Stephanie.” Lady Stephanie’s home was filled with beautiful objets d’art. Not the least among them was an exquisite collection of extremely valuable Fabergé eggs, which all the guests admired.

At the end of the elegant champagne brunch, my client told me she was walking out the door chatting with several other guests. Just then, Lady Stephanie sidled up to one woman leaving at the same time as my client. “Oh, I’m so happy you were admiring my Fabergé collection,” Lady Stephanie said, sliding her hand into the pocket of the guest’s mink coat and plucking out one of
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