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Technique #42
Cle ar “Customs”
Before putting one toe on foreign soil, get a book on
dos and taboos around the world. Before you shake
hands, give a gift, make gestures, or even compliment
anyone’s possessions, check it out. Your gaffe could gum
up your entire gig.
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There are some excellent books on international customs.
You’ll find the names of a few in the notes.
17–19
Don’t be like another hapless colleague of mine who almost
blew a big business deal with a Brazilian. Just before signing the
contract, he gave the OK sign with his thumb and forefinger. Lit-
tle did he know he was telling his new business partner to go have
intercourse with himself. You never know until it’s too late.
Now we come to where being an insider shows immediate,
tangible, and calculable rewards. And where being an outsider
really hurts—right in your pocket or purse.
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How to Talk to Anyone
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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, fortu-
nately, I had a confirmed reservation. A loudmouthed man in front
165
How to Talk Them into
Getting the “Insider’s
Price” (on Practically
Anything You Buy)
✰
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Copyright 2003 by Leil Lowndes. Click Here for Terms of Use.
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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 sleep-
ing 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, regu-
lar, 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 real-
ize 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 trans-
mogrified back into the formal sales agent patiently defining dam-
ages 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, ven-
dors 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 col-
league (as he did to me) why, if a tornado takes your house, it’s
considered “an act of God.” Therefore, you lose. When knowl-
edgeable 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 bot-
tom 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 conver-
sant 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 bet-
ter deal straight.’ ”
“OK, Iggy, how?”
He said, “Tell them guys, ‘Look the walls need very little prep-
ping. 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
How to Talk Them into Getting the “Insider’s Price”
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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). There-
fore, 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.
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