How to Know What Not to Say in a Chance Meeting

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.

317

How to Know What

Not to Say in a

Chance Meeting

✰85

09 (293-342B) part nine 8/14/03 9:19 AM Page 317

Copyright 2003 by Leil Lowndes. Click Here for Terms of Use.

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.

09 (293-342B) part nine 8/14/03 9:19 AM Page 318

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,

319

How to Prepare Them

to Listen to You

✰86

09 (293-342B) part nine 8/14/03 9:19 AM Page 319

Copyright 2003 by Leil Lowndes. Click Here for Terms of Use.

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.

09 (293-342B) part nine 8/14/03 9:19 AM Page 320

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.