How to Talk Them into Getting the “Insider’s Price” (on Practically Anything You Buy)

Never underestimate human ingenuity when it comes to getting

what you want. Many people expand the adage, "All's fair in love

and war" to "All is fair in love, war, and buying what I want." To

get a table at a posh restaurant on a busy night, using a celebrity

name is an old ploy. My favorite maître d' told me he gets a lot of

Robert De Niros phoning in a reservation. When their party of

six or eight arrives, he hears, "I'm so sorry, Rob wasn't feeling well

this evening."

One woman, frustrated when her fake celebrity name didn't

work, shouted at him, "Look, who the hell do I have to be to get a

table? I'll be anyone you want me to be, Goldie Hawn, Steffi Graf,

Fergie—just tell me." Some people try a last-minute approach.

They simply walk up to the maître d' at an overbooked restaurant,

point to any name on the reservation book and say, "That's us."

You'll witness the same cunning at overbooked hotels. Several

months ago I was checking into a popular hotel for which, fortunately, I had a confirmed reservation. A loudmouthed man in front

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How to Talk Them into

Getting the "Insider's

Price" (on Practically

Anything You Buy)

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166 How to Talk to Anyone

of me in line shouted at the desk clerk, "Whaddaya mean, no room?

I'm staying in this hotel tonight. If you don't have a room, I'm sleeping right here on the floor." His temper tantrum was not working.

"And I warn you," he continued, "I sleep in the nude!"

He got a room.

These crafty childish tactics are not recommended. Rather, I

suggest a more principled technique called "Bluffing for Bargains."

It was born one afternoon sitting with an insurance broker Mr.

Carson. He was trying to sell me a homeowner's policy. Of course

I wanted the most coverage for the least cash. Carson was a

smooth operator and he was patiently explaining to me in layman's

terms the benefits of certain riders he was pushing.

Just as he started discussing disasters like wars and hurricanes,

his phone rang. With apologies, he picked up the receiver. It was

one of his colleagues. Suddenly a metamorphosis took place before

my eyes. The sophisticated salesman became a palsy-walsy, regular, down-home kinda guy chatting it up with his old buddy about

umbrellas. I thought they were discussing the weather.

Then the conversation turned to floaters. I now assumed they

were talking about an eye problem. It took a while for me to realize that umbrella policies and floaters were part of the insurancese

they were speaking.

A few minutes later, Carson said, "Yeah, OK, so long, buddy,"

and put the phone down. He cleared his throat and again transmogrified back into the formal sales agent patiently defining damages and deductibles to a naïve client.

Sitting there listening to bafflegab like subrogation and pro

rata liability, I began to ponder, "If Carson's colleague who just

called wanted to buy insurance, he would have gotten a much

better policy, much cheaper." In practically every industry, vendors give two prices on goods or services—one to insiders and

one to you and me.

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Before I let myself get angry about this, I thought it through.

Is it unfair? Not really. If the vendor doesn't have to spend time

being salesman or psychologist answering the endless stream of

novice questions, he can afford to give his best price. Carson

wouldn't have had to take twenty minutes explaining to his colleague (as he did to me) why, if a tornado takes your house, it's

considered "an act of God." Therefore, you lose. When knowledgeable associates buy products, the vendor is happily reduced to

nothing more than a purchasing agent. For very little work, he

makes a small profit and is satisfied.

A little bit of knowledge goes a long way when you're buying

something. If you have insight into your real estate broker's bottom line, he's more apt to give you the better price. If you are facile

with the insider words caterers and car salesmen use to pad their

profits, if you're savvy to techniques moving companies and

mechanics use to bilk the unsuspecting, if you are on the lookout

for lawyers' methods of fattening fees—in short, if you know the

ropes, you will not get ripped off. You don't need to know a lot,

just a few insider terms. The pro assumes, since you are conversant in some esoteric industry terms, you also know the best deal

and rock-bottom price.

No one put it better than my housepainter, Iggy. "Sure," he

told me, "you gotta know how to talk to a painter. Not me, but a

lotta them other guys, they're gonna get whatever they can. It's only

human nature. Especially if you're a woman and you deal with 'em

smart, like I'm gonna tell you how, their hair will stand on end.

They'll say to themselves, 'Hey, dis is no babe in the woods. I better deal straight.' "

"OK, Iggy, how?"

He said, "Tell them guys, 'Look the walls need very little prepping. You're not going to have to spend much time scraping and

spackling. It's a clean job.'" Iggy told me these few sentences alone

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can save you hundreds of dollars. Why? Right away the painter

knows you know the score and that the most time-consuming part

for him is preparing the surface (prepping in painterese). Therefore, it's his biggest markup item.

"Then," Iggy continued, "when you tell 'em there will be no

cutting in [painting two colors next to each other], your price goes

down again. Be sure and tell 'em not to leave any holidays

[unpainted or sparsely painted spots] and you get a more careful

job." I'm only sorry I don't have an Iggy in every field to give me

a crash course in how to deal.

How to Deal When There's No Iggy

in Your Life

Here's how to get the best price and the best deal from anyone.

Find your Iggy Informer. If you have a friend in the business, get

the lingo from him. If not, instead of going straight to the vendor

you want to buy from, visit several others first. Talk with them.

Learn a little lingo from each.

For instance, suppose you want to buy a diamond. Instead of

going right to your favorite jewelry shop and asking dumbbell diamond questions, go to the competition. Make friends with the

salesclerk and pick up a few gems of diamondese. You'll learn jewelers say stones, not diamonds. When you're talking about the top

of the stone, they say table; the widest part is the girdle; the bottom is the cutlet. If the stone looks yellow, don't say yellow, say

cape. If you see flaws, don't say flaws, say inclusions or gletz. If you

still don't like the stone, don't say "I'd like to see something better," say finer. (Don't ask me why. That's just the way the diamond

crowd talks.)

Then, when you've got your lingo down, go to where you

want to buy. Because you now speak diamond, you get a much

better price.

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Soon you'll be asking furriers where the skins were dressed,

moving companies for their ICC performance record, and lawyers

the hourly rate of paralegals and associates. Then these folks, like

Iggy the painter, will say to themselves, "Hey, dis is no babe in the

woods—I better deal straight."

Let us now delve deeper into the world of being an insider.

This time we explore how to give your conversation partner the

sense that you share not only experiences but the heavy stuff. You

share beliefs and values in life.

Technique #43

Bluffing for Bargains

The haggling skills used in ancient Arab markets are

alive and well in contemporary America for big-ticket

items. Your price is much lower when you know how

to deal.

Before every big purchase, find several vendors—a

few to learn from and one to buy from. Armed with a

few words of industryese, you're ready to head for the

store where you're going to buy