92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships (19 page)

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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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 04 (143-170B) part four 8/14/03 9:18 AM Page 168

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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
bet-
ter
,” 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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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.

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.

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✰PARTFIVE

How to Sound

Like You’re Peas

in a Pod

“Why, We’re Just Alike!”

If you squint your eyes and look up carefully at a flight of birds, you’ll see finches flying with finches, swallows soaring with swallows, and yellow birds winging it with yellow birds. The avian apartheid escalates. You’ll never see a barn swallow with a bank swallow, or even a yellow bird hanging out with a yellow finch. Somebody said it shorter: Birds of a feather flock together. Happily, humans are smarter than birds. In one respect, at least: we have brains capable of overcoming bias. Really smart human beings work together, play together, and break bread together. Does that mean their comfort level is high? Well, that depends on the human being. Our purpose here is not to examine the absurdity of apartheid. It is to leave no stone unturned in making sure people are completely comfortable doing business or pleasure with you.

It has been proven beyond a doubt, people are most receptive to those they feel have the same values in life. In one study,
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individuals were first given a personality and beliefs test.20 They were then paired off with a partner and told to go spend time together. Before meeting, half the couples were told they were very similar in beliefs to their partner. The other half were told they were dissimilar. Neither statement was true.

However, when quizzed afterward on how much they liked

each other, partners who believed they were similar liked each other a lot more than the couples who thought themselves to be dissimilar, demonstrating we have a predisposition toward people we believe are just like us. We are most comfortable giving our business and friendship to those we feel share our values and beliefs in life. To that end I offer six techniques to create sensations of similarity with everyone you wish. Along with making more profound rapport with customers, friends, and associates, using the following techniques develops a deeper understanding and empathy with people of all races and backgrounds. It also opens doors that might otherwise be closed to you.

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✰
44
How to Make Them

Feel You’re of the

Same “Class”

Just like the finch flaps its wings faster than the gliding eagle, people of different backgrounds move differently. For example, Westerners used to the wide-open plains stand farther from each other. Easterners, systematically sardined into subways and crowded busses, stand closer. Asian Americans make modest movements. Italian Americans make massive ones.

At teatime, the finishing-school set genuflects and gracefully lowers derrieres onto the sofa. When the ladies reach for a cup, they hold the saucer in one hand and the cup in the other, pinkie ever so slightly extended. Folks who never finished any manners school make a fanny dive in the middle of the sofa and clutch the cup with both hands.

Is one right? Is the other wrong? No. However, top communicators know when doing business with a derriere-dipping pinkie extender or a fanny-plopping, two-fisted mug grabber, they darn well should do the same. People feel comfortable around people who move just like they do.

I have a friend who travels the country giving an outrageous seminar called “How to Marry the Rich.” Genie was once in a Las Vegas casino when a television reporter asked if she could tell the real rich from the great pretenders.

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“Of course,” Genie answered.

“All right,” challenged the reporter. “Who is the wealthiest man in this room?” Convened at the next table were three men in tailored suits (Hayward of Mayfair, London, no doubt), handmade shirts (Charvet of Place Vendôme in Paris, no doubt), and sipping scotch (single-malt Laphroaig from the Scottish island of Islay, no doubt). The reporter, naturally, assumed Genie would choose one of these likely candidates.

Instead, with the scrutiny of a hunting dog, Genie’s eyes scanned the room. Like a trained basset hound, she instinctively pointed a long red fingernail at a fellow in torn jeans at a corner table. She murmured, “He’s very rich.”

Flabbergasted, the reporter asked Genie, “How can you tell?”

“He moves like old money,” she said. “You see,” Genie went on to explain, “there’s moving like old money. There’s moving like new money. And there’s moving like no money.” Genie could tell the unlikely chap in the corner was obviously sitting on big assets and all because of the way he moved.

Technique #44

Be a Copycl ass

Watch people. Look at the way they move. Small

movements? Big movements? Fast? Slow? Jerky? Fluid?

Old? Young? Classy? Trashy?

Pretend the person you are talking to is your dance

instructor. Is he a jazzy mover? Is she a balletic mover?

Watch his or her body, then imitate the style of

movement. That makes your conversation partner

subliminally real comfy with you.

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They’re Buying You, Too

If you’re in sales, copy not only your customer’s class but the class of your product as well. I live in a section of New York City called Soho, which is a few blocks above the famous-for-being-trashy Canal Street. Often, clutching my purse tightly and dodging the crowds on Canal Street, I’ll pass a pickpocket-turned-salesmanfor-the-day. He furtively looks around and flashes a greasy handkerchief at me with a piece of jewelry on it. “Psst, wanna buy a gold chain?” His nervous thief ’s demeanor alone could get him arrested.

Now, about sixty blocks uptown, you’ll find the fashionable and very expensive Tiffany’s jewelry store. Occasionally, clutching my fantasies of being able to afford something therein, I stroll through the huge gilt doors. Imagine one of the impeccably dressed sales professionals behind the beveled glass counters furtively looking around and saying to me, “Psst, wanna buy a diamond?”