How to talk to anyone

23.12.08

How to Talk to a Celebrity

Suppose you’ve just settled in for dinner at a nice restaurant. You look over at the next table, and who do you see? Is it really he? Could it possibly be? It’s gotta be a look-alike. No, it isn’t! It really is . . . Woody Allen. (Substitute any celebrity here: your favorite movie star, politician, broadcaster, boss who owns the company that owns the company you work for.) And there the celestial body is in the flesh, sitting not ten feet from you. What should you do?

Nothing! Big shots don’t slobber over stars. Let the luminary enjoy a brief moment of anonymity. If he or she should cast a glance in your direction, give a smile and a nod. Then waft your gaze back to your dining companion. You will be a lot cooler in the eyes of your dinner partner if you take it all in your stride.

Now, if you just can’t resist this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to press the flesh of the megastar and tell him or her of your admiration, here’s how to do it with grace. Wait until you or the luminary are leaving the restaurant. After the check has been paid and you will obviously not be taking much of his or her time, you may make your approach. Say something like, “Mr. Allen, I just want to tell you how much pleasure your wonderful films have given me over the years. Thank you so much.”

Did you pick up the subtlety here? You are not complimenting his work. “After all,” he might well ask himself, “who are you to judge whether I am a great filmmaker or not?” You can only speak from your own perspective. You do this by telling him how much pleasure his work has given you.

If it’s your boss’s boss’s boss’s boss whom the fates have sent to bask in your adulation, do the same. Do not say “Bill” or “Mr. Gates, you really run a great company.”

“Lowly geek,” he thinks, “who are you to judge?” Instead, tell him what an honor it is to work for him. Obviously this is not the moment to detail the intricacies of your improvements on image-editing software for digitizing photographs.

Then let your body language express that if Woody or Bill or the other megastar wants to leave it at that, you are happy with the exchange. If, however, the megastar is captivated by you (or has had so much liquid merriment that he or she has decided to mingle with the masses tonight), then all bets are off. You’re on your own. Enjoy! Until you pick up the first body-language sign that they would like to end it. Think of yourself as a ballroom dance student waltzing with your teacher. He leads, you follow. And he tells you when the waltz is over.

Incidentally, if the megastar is with a companion and your conversation goes on for more than a few moments, direct some comments at the companion. If the satellite is in such stellar company, he or she is probably also an accomplished person.

Felicia, a friend of mine, is a talented trial lawyer who is married to a local TV-show host.Because Tom is on television, people recognize him wherever they go, and Felicia gets ignored. Felicia tells me how frustrating it is, even for Tom. Whenever they go to a party, people gush all over Tom, and Felicia’s fascinating work hardly ever gets mentioned. She and Tom used to love going out to dinner, but now they hide out at home in the evenings.

Why? Because they can’t stand the interruptions of overly effervescent fans.

18.12.08

How to Respond When You Don’t Want to Answer (and Wish They’d Shut the Heck Up) (technique No 35)

One of my clients Barbara, a ministar in the furniture business, recently separated from her husband and business partner, Frank, a megastar in the furniture business. They suffered a long and messy divorce that resulted in them keeping the business jointly but not having to deal with each other.

Soon after the divorce, I was at an industry convention with Barbara. Since she and Frank were both beloved in the industry, people were curious about what had happened and how it affected their company. But, of course, no one dared ask outright. And Barbara was offering no explanations.

I was seated next to Barbara at the gala farewell dinner. Apparently one of her colleagues at the table couldn’t contain her curiosity any longer. During dessert, she leaned over to Barbara and in a hushed voice asked, “Barbara, what happened with you and Frank?”

Barbara, unruffled by the rude question, simply took a spoonful of her cherries jubilee and said, “We’ve separated, but the company is unaffected.”

Not satisfied with that answer, the woman pumped harder. “Are you still working together?”

Barbara took another bite of her dessert and repeated in precisely the same tone of voice, “We’ve separated, but the company is unaffected.”

The frustrated interrogator was not going to give up easily. “Are you both still working in the company?”

Barbara, appearing not the least disturbed by the woman’s incontinent insistence, scooped the last cherry out of her dish, smiled, looked directly at her, and said in the identical tone of voice, “We’ve separated, but the company is unaffected.”

That shut her up. Barbara had shown her big winner’s badge by using “The Broken Record” technique, the most effective way to curtail an unwelcome cross-examination.

Technique #35

The Broken Record

Whenever someone persists in questioning you on an unwelcome subject, simply repeat your original response. Use precisely the same words in precisely the same tone of voice. Hearing it again usually quiets them down. If your rude interrogator hangs on like a leech, your next repetition never fails to flick them off.

17.12.08

How to talk - part 2

How to talk - part 1

How to Give Them the Bad News (and Have Them Like You All the More) (technique No 34)

In ancient Egypt, the pharaoh treated the humblest message runner like a prince when he arrived at the palace, if he brought good news. However, if the exhausted runner had the misfortune to bring the pharaoh unhappy news, his head was chopped off.

Shades of that spirit pervade today’s conversations. Once a friend and I packed up some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for an outing. As we waltzed happily out the door, picnic basket in hand, a smiling neighbor, rocking away on his porch, looked up at the sky and said, “Oh boy, bad day for a picnic. The newscast says it’s going to rain.” I wanted to rub his face in my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Not for his gloomy weather report, for his smile.

Several months ago I was racing to catch a bus. As I breathlessly shoved my handful of cash across the Greyhound counter, the grinning sales agent gushed, “Oh that bus left five minutes ago.” Dreams of decapitation!

It’s not the news that makes someone angry. It’s the unsympathetic attitude with which it’s delivered. Everyone must give bad news from time to time, and winning professionals do it with the proper attitude. A doctor advising a patient she needs an operation does it with compassion. A boss informing an employee he didn’t get the job takes on a sympathetic demeanor. Grief counselors at airports after fatal crashes share the grief-stricken sentiment of relatives. Big winners know, when delivering any bad news, they should share the sentiment of the receiver.

Unfortunately, many people are not aware of this sensitivity. When you’re weary from a long flight, has a hotel clerk cheerfully chirped that your room isn’t ready yet? When you had your heart set on the roast beef, has your waiter merrily warbled that he just served the last piece? When you needed cash for the weekend, has your bank teller gleefully told you your account is overdrawn? It makes you as traveler, diner, or depositor want to put your fist right through their insensitive grins.

Technique #34

It’s the Receiver’s Ball

A football player wouldn’t last two beats of the time clock if he made blind passes. A pro throws the ball with the receiver always in mind.

Before throwing out any news, keep your receiver in mind. Then deliver it with a smile, a sigh, or a sob. Not according to how you feel about the news, but how the receiver will take it.

Had my neighbor told me of the impending rainstorm with sympathy, I would have appreciated his warning. Had the Greyhound salesclerk sympathetically informed me that my bus had already left, I probably would have said, “Oh, that’s all right.

I’ll catch the next one.” Big winners, when they bear bad news, deliver bombs with the emotion the bombarded person is sure to have.

Big winners know how to give bad news to people. They also know how not to give any news to anyone, even when people are pressuring them. Let’s explore that next.

16.12.08

How to Avoid the World’s Worst Conversational Habit (technique No 33)

Once I was at a small dinner party given by the president of an advertising agency, Louis, and his wife, Lillian. The evening started with cocktails, followed by a gourmet meal accompanied by a selection of excellent wines. The conversation had been convivial, the cuisine delicious, and the wine very fine. And very plentiful. At the end of the evening, Louis raised his glass to make a
toast. A few wine droplets sloshed out of his glass onto the tablecloth.

A pretty young woman who was the date of a new art director named Bob giggled and said, “I can tell you’re feeling no pain.”

Shock waves went around the table. Everyone froze. The host was indeed a bit inebriated. However, alluding to Louis being a little looped, even in jest, was as though the woman had suddenly smashed the crystal chandelier above the table with her dinner plate.

One guest quickly covered the girl’s horrifying gaffe by lifting her glass and saying “None of us is. No one in the company of Louis and Lillian could ever feel any pain. Here’s to a truly wonderful evening.”

Louis then continued with his toast to the wonderful company, and no one was feeling pain any longer. Except Bob. He knew his date’s innocent teasing was a black mark, if not in his personnel file, on his personal file.

The next sure sign of a little cathood is teasing. Little cats go around patting their friends’ paunches and saying, “Enjoying that cheesecake, huh?” Or looking at their balding heads and saying, “Hey, hair today, gone tomorrow, huh?” They think it’s hilarious to make a quip at someone else’s expense and say “You don’t have an inferiority complex. You are inferior! Hardy har har.”

Technique #33

Trash the Teasing

A dead giveaway of a little cat is his or her proclivity to tease. An innocent joke at someone else’s expense may get you a cheap laugh. Nevertheless, the big cats will have the last one. Because you’ll bang your head against the glass ceiling they construct to keep little cats from stepping on their paws.

Never, ever, make a joke at anyone else’s expense. You’ll wind up paying for it, dearly.

15.12.08

How to Banter Like the Big Shots Do (Big Winners Tell It Like It Is) (technique No 32)

If you stepped into an elevator full of people speaking Hungarian, you might not recognize they were Hungarian unless you spoke their language. However, the minute you opened your mouth, they’d recognize you’re not Hungarian.

It’s the same with the big cats. If you overhear several of them speaking, you might not recognize they’re big cats. However, the minute you opened your mouth they’d recognize you’re not a big cat, unless you spoke their lingo.

What are some differences between a big cat’s growl and a little cat’s insignificant hiss? One of the most blatant is euphemisms. Big cats aren’t afraid of real words. They call a spade a spade. Words like toilet paper don’t scare them. Little cats hide behind bathroom tissue. If somebody is rich, big cats call it “rich.” Little cats, oh so embarrassed at the concept of talking about money in polite company, substitute the word wealthy. When little cats use a substitute word or euphemism, they might as well be saying, “Whoops, you are better than I am. I’m in polite company now and so I’ll use the nicey-nice word.”

Big cats are anatomically correct—no cutesy words for body parts. They’ll say “breasts” when they mean breasts. When they say “knockers,” they mean decorative structures that hang on the front door. And “family jewels” are in the safe on the wall.

If a big cat is ever in doubt about a word, he or she simply resorts to French. If they feel the word buttocks is debatable, derriere will do quite nicely, thank you.

Technique #32

Call a Spade a Spade

Don’t hide behind euphemisms. Call a spade a spade. That doesn’t mean big cats use tasteless four-letter words when perfectly decent five- and six-letter ones exist. They’ve simply learned the King’s English, and they speak it.

Here’s another way to tell the big players from the little ones just by listening to a few minutes of their conversation.

A Word of Warning (technique No 31)

No matter how good your material is, it bombs if it doesn’t fit the situation. I learned this the hard way during my cruise ship days. On a cruise to England I decided to give my passengers a reading of the English love poems of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. You know, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” It was a BIG hit. The passengers loved it and raved for days. I couldn’t walk out on deck without some passenger turning to me and affectionately echoing, “How do I love thee?”

Technique #31

Use Jawsmith’s Jive

Whether you’re standing behind a podium facing thousands or behind the barbecue grill facing yourfamily, you’ll move, amuse, and motivate with the same skills.

Read speakers’ books to cull quotations, pull pearls of wisdom, and get gems to tickle their funny bones. Find a few bon mots to let casually slide off your tongue on chosen occasions. If you want to be notable, dream up a crazy quotable.

Make ’em rhyme, make ’em clever, or make ’emfunny. Above all, make ’em relevant.

Naturally I got a pretty swollen head over this performance and fancied myself an eminent poetry reader. I decided to reward the passengers on the next cruise (which was a cruise to the Caribbean and didn’t go anywhere in the neighborhood of England) with my spectacular reading of the English love poems. WHAT A BOMB! Passengers avoided me on the deck for the rest of the cruise. “How did you bore me? Let me count the ways.”

14.12.08

Make ’Em Laugh, Make ’Em Laugh, Make ’Em Laugh

Humor enriches any conversation. But not jokes starting with, “Hey didja hear the one about . . . ?” Plan your humor and make it relevant. For example, if you’re going to a meeting on the budget, look up money in a quotation book. In an uptight business situation, a little levity shows you’re at ease.

Once, during an oppressive financial meeting, I heard a top executive say, “Don’t worry, this company has enough money to stay in business for years—unless we pay our creditors.” He broke the tension and won the appreciation of all. Later I saw a similar quote in a humor book attributed to Jackie Mason, the comedian. So what? The exec still came across as a cool communicator with his clever comment.

Big players who want to be quoted in the media lie awake at night gnawing the pillow trying to come up with phrases the press will pick up. A Michigan veterinarian named Timothy, a heavy hitter in his own field but completely unknown outside it, made national headlines when he planned to attach a pair of feet to a rooster who lost his to frostbite. Why? Because he called it a “drumstick transplant.”

I don’t know if a French woman, Jeanne Calment, then officially the world’s oldest person, was looking for publicity on her 122nd birthday. But she made international headlines when she told the media, “I’ve only ever had one wrinkle, and I’m sitting on it.”

Mark Victor Hansen, a big player in his own field but once relatively unknown outside of it, was propelled into national prominence when he came up with a catchy name for his book coauthored with Jack Canfield, Chicken Soup for the Soul. He told me his original title was 101 Pretty Stories. How far would that have gone? Soon the world was lapping up, among others, his Chicken

Soup for the Woman’s Soul, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul, Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul, Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul, plus second, third, and fourth servings of chicken soup in hardcover, paperback, audiocassette, videocassette, and calendars.

A Gem for Every Occasion

If stirring words help make your point, ponder the impact of powerful phrases. They’ve helped politicians get elected (“Read my lips: no new taxes.”) and defendants get acquitted (“If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”).

If George H. W. Bush had said, “I promise not to raise taxes,” or Johnny Cochran, during O. J. Simpson’s criminal trial, had said, “If the glove doesn’t fit, he must be innocent,” their bulky sentences would have slipped in and out of the voter’s or juror’s consciousness. As every politician and trial lawyer knows, neat phrases make powerful weapons. (If you’re not careful, your enemies will later use them against you—read my lips!)

One of my favorite speakers is a radio broadcaster named Barry Farber who brightens up late-night radio with sparkling similes. Barry would never use a cliche like “nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof.” He’d describe being nervous about losing his job as “I felt like an elephant dangling over a cliff with his tail tied to a daisy.” Instead of saying he looked at a pretty woman, he’d say, “My eyeballs popped out and dangled by the optic nerve.”

When I first met him, I asked, “Mr. Farber, how do you come up with these phrases?”

“My daddy’s Mr. Farber. I’m Barry,” he chided (his way of saying, “Call me Barry”). He then candidly admitted, although some of his phrases are original, many are borrowed. (Elvis Presley used to say, “My daddy’s Mr. Presley. Call me Elvis.”) Like all professional speakers, Barry spends several hours a week gleaning through books of quotations and humor. All professional speakers do. They collect bon mots they can use in a variety of situations— most especially to scrape egg off their faces when something unexpected happens.

Many speakers use author’s and speaker’s agent Lilly Walters’s face-saver lines from her book, What to Say When You’re Dying on the Platform.16 If you tell a joke and no one laughs, try “That joke was designed to get a silent laugh—and it worked.” If the microphone lets out an agonizing howl, look at it and say, “I don’t understand. I brushed my teeth this morning.” If someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, “Could you save that question until I’m finished—and well on my way home?” All pros think of holes they might fall into and then memorize great escape lines. You can do the same.

Look through books of similes to enrich your day-to-day conversations. Instead of “happy as a lark” try “happy as a lottery winner” or “happy as a baby with its first ice cream cone.” Instead of “bald as an eagle,” try “bald as a new marine” or “bald as a bullfrog’s belly.” Instead of “quiet as a mouse,” try “quiet as an eel swimming in oil” or “quiet as a fly lighting on a feather duster.”

Find phrases that have visual impact. Instead of a cliche like “sure as death and taxes,” try “as certain as beach traffic in July” or “as sure as your shadow will follow you.” Your listeners can’t see death or taxes. But they sure can see beach traffic in July or their shadow following them down the street.

Try to make your similes relate to the situation. If you’re riding in a taxi with someone, “as sure as that taxi meter will rise” has immediate impact. If you’re talking with a man walking his dog, “as sure as your dog is thinking about that tree” adds a touch of humor.

How to Use Motivational Speakers’ Techniques to Enhance Your Conversation

They say the pen is mightier than the sword. It is, but the tongue is even mightier than the pen. Our tongues can bring crowds to laughter, to tears, and often to their feet in shouting appreciation. Orators have moved nations to war or brought lost souls to God. And what is their equipment? The same eyes, ears, hands, legs, arms, and vocal chords you and I have.

Perhaps a professional athlete has a stronger body or a professional singer is blessed with a more beautiful singing voice than the one we were doled out. But the professional speaker starts out with the same equipment we all have. The difference is, these jaw-smiths use it all. They use their hands, they use their bodies, and they use specific gestures with heavy impact. They think about the space they’re talking in. They employ many different tones of voice, they invoke various expressions, they vary the speed with which they speak . . . and they make effective use of silence.

You may not have to make a formal speech anytime soon, but chances are sometime (probably very soon) you’re going to want people to see things your way. Whether it’s persuading your family to spend their next vacation at Grandma’s, or convincing the stockholders in your multimillion-dollar corporation that it’s time to do a takeover, do it like a pro. Get a book or two on public speaking and learn some of the tricks of the trade. Then put some of that drama into your everyday conversation.

12.12.08

How to Avoid Sounding Like a Jerk (technique No 30)

Do you remember that scene from the movie classic Annie Hall where Diane Keaton is first meeting Woody Allen? As she’s chatting with him, we hear her private thoughts. She’s musing to herself, “Oh I hope he’s not a jerk like all the others.”

One of the quickest ways to make a big winner think you are, well, a jerk, is to use a cliche. If you’re chatting with a top communicator and even innocently remark “Yes, I was tired as a dog,” or “She was cute as a button,” you’ve unknowingly laid a linguistic bomb.

Big winners silently moan when they hear someone mouth a trite overworn phrase. Oh sure, just like the rest of us, big winners find themselves feeling fit as a fiddle, happy as a lark, or high as a kite. Like the rest of humanity, they consider some of their acquaintances crazy as a loon, nutty as a fruitcake, or blind as a bat. Because many of them work hard, many of them are as busy as a bee and get rich as Croesus.

Yet would any of them describe themselves in those words? Not in a coon’s age! Why? Because when a big winner hears your cliche, you might as well be saying, “My powers of imagination are impoverished. I can’t think of anything original to say, so I must fall back on these trite overworn phrases.” Mouthing a common cliche around uncommonly successful people brands you as uncommonly common.

Technique #30

Don’t Touch a Cliche with a Ten-Foot Pole

Be on guard. Don’t use any cliches when chatting with big winners. Don’t even touch one with a ten-foot pole. Never? Not even when hell freezes over? Not unless you want to sound dumb as a doorknob.

Instead of coughing up a cliche, roll your own clever phrases by using the next technique.

11.12.08

In Defense of the Quickie

There are times, I discovered, when the quick put-on smile works. For example, when you want to engineer the acquaintance of someone to whom you have not had the opportunity to be introduced. (In the vernacular, that’s “pick them up.”)

The smile’s pickup power was proven for posterity by solemn researchers at the University of Missouri. They conducted a highly controlled study titled “Giving Men the Come-On: Effect of Eye Contact and Smiling in a Bar Environment.”15 (I kid you not.) To prove their hypothesis, female researchers made eye contact with unsuspecting male subjects enjoying a little libation in a local drinking establishment. Sometimes, the female researchers followed their glance with a smile. In other cases, no smile.

The results? I quote the study: “The highest approach behavior, 60 percent, was observed in the condition in which there was smiling.” That translates into layman’s English: “The guy came over 60 percent of the time when the lady smiled.” Without the smile, he “made the approach only 20 percent of the time.” So, yes, a smile works for those who wish to pick somebody up.

However, in situations where the stakes are higher, try The Flooding Smile from the first section and now The Exclusive Smile.

Review Your Repertoire of Smiles (technique No 29)

If your job required you to carry a gun, you would, of course, learn all about the moving parts before firing it. And before taking aim, you would carefully consider whether it would murder, maim, or merely wound your target. Since your smile is one of your biggest communications weapons, learn all about the moving parts and the effect on your target. Set aside five minutes. Lock your bedroom or bathroom door so your family doesn’t think you’ve gone off the deep end. Now stand in front of the mirror and flash a few smiles. Discover the subtle differences in your repertoire.

Just as you would alternate saying “Hello,” “How do you do,” and “I am pleased to meet you” when being introduced to a group of people, vary your smile. Don’t use the same on each. Let each of your smiles reflect the nuances of your sentiment about the recipient.

Technique #29

The Exclusive Smile

If you flash everybody the same smile, like a Confederate dollar, it loses value. When meeting groups of people, grace each with a distinct smile. Let your smiles grow out of the beauty big players find in each new face.

If one person in a group is more important to you than the others, reserve an especially big, flooding smile just for him or her.

How to Make Them Feel You “Don’t Smile at Just Anybody”

Have you ever seen those low-budget, mail-order fashion catalogues that use the same model throughout? Whether she is engulfed in a wedding gown or partially clad in a bikini, her face sports the same plastic smile. Looking at her, you get the feeling if you rapped on her forehead, a tiny voice would come back saying “Nobody’s in here.”

Whereas models in more sophisticated magazines have mastered a myriad of different expressions: a flirtatious “I’ve got a secret” smile on one page; a quizzical “I think I’d like to get to know you but I’m not sure” smile on the next; and a mysterious Mona Lisa smile on the third. You feel there’s a brain running the operation somewhere inside that beautiful head.

I once stood in the receiving line of the ship I worked on, along with the captain, his wife, and several other officers. One passenger with a radiant smile started shaking hands down our line. When he got to me, he flashed a shimmering smile, revealing teeth as even and white as keys on a new piano. I was transfixed. It was as though a brilliant light had illuminated the dim ballroom. I wished him a happy cruise and resolved to find this charming gentleman later.

Then he was introduced to the next person. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his identical glistening grin. A third person, the same grin. My interest began to dwindle.

When he gave his fourth indistinguishable smile to the next person, he started to resemble a Cheshire cat. By the time he was introduced to the fifth person, his consistent smile felt like a strobe light disturbing the ambience of the ballroom. Strobe Man went on flashing everybody the same smile down the line. I had no further interest in talking with him.

Why did this man’s stock shoot high in my ticker one minute and plummet the next? Because his smile, although charming, reflected no special reaction to me. Obviously, he gave the same smile to everybody and, by that, it lost all its specialness. If Strobe Man had given each of us a slightly different smile, he would have appeared sensitive and insightful. (Of course, if his smile had been just a tad bigger for me than for the others, I couldn’t have waited for the formalities to be over to seek him out in the crowded ballroom.)

10.12.08

Comm-YOU-nicate Your Compliments (technique 28)

Comm-YOU-nication also enriches your social conversation. Gentlemen, say a lady likes your suit. Which woman gives you warmer feelings? The woman who says, “I like your suit.” Or the one who says, “You look great in that suit.”

Big players who make business presentations use Comm-YOU-nication to excellent advantage. Suppose you’re giving a talk and a participant asks a question. He likes to hear you say, “That’s a good question.” However, consider how much better he feels when you tell him, “You’ve asked a good question.”

Salespeople, don’t just tell your prospects, “It’s important that . . . . ” Convince them by informing them, “You’ll see the importance of. . . . ”

When negotiating, instead of, “The result will be . . . ” let them know, “You’ll see the result when you. . . .”

Starting sentences with you even works when talking to strangers on the street. Once, driving around San Francisco hopelessly lost, I asked people walking along the sidewalk how to get to the Golden Gate Bridge. I stopped a couple trudging up a hill. “Excuse me,” I called out the window, “I can’t find the Golden Gate Bridge.” The pair looked at each other and shrugged with that “How stupid can these tourists get” look on their faces. “That direction,” the husband mumbled, pointing straight ahead.

Still lost, I called out to the next couple I encountered. “Excuse me, where’s the Golden Gate Bridge?” Without smiling, they pointed in the opposite direction.

Then I decided to try Comm-YOU-nication. When I came upon the next strolling couple, I called out the window, “Excuse me, could you tell me where the Golden Gate Bridge is?”

“Of course,” they said, answering my question literally. You see, by phrasing the question that way, it was a subtle challenge. I was asking, in essence, “Are you able to give me directions?” This hits them in the pride button. They walked over to my car and gave me explicit instructions.

“Hey,” I thought. “This you stuff really works.” To test my hypothesis, I tried it a few more times. I kept asking passersby my three forms of the question. Sure enough, whenever I asked,
“Could you tell me where . . .” people were more pleasant and helpful than when I started the question with I or where.

Technique #28

Comm-YOU-nication

Start every appropriate sentence with you. It immediately grabs your listener’s attention. It gets a more positive response because it pushes the pride button and saves them having to translate it into “me” terms.

When you sprinkle you as liberally as salt and pepper throughout your conversation, your listenersfind it an irresistible spice.

I’m sure when they recover the flight box from the Fall of Man under a fig leaf in the Garden of Eden, it will convince the world of the power of the word you. Eve did not ask Adam to eat the apple. She did not command him to eat the apple. She didn’t even say, “Adam, I want you to eat this apple.” She phrased it (as all big winners would), “You will love this apple.” That’s why he bit.

Comm-YOU-nication Is a Sign of Sanity

Therapists calculate inmates of mental institutions say I and me twelve times more often than residents of the outside world. As patients’ conditions improve, the number of times they use the personal pronouns also diminishes.

Continuing up the sanity scale, the fewer times you use I, the more sane you seem to your listeners. If you eavesdrop on big winners talking with each other, you’ll notice a lot more you than I in their conversation.

The next technique concerns a way big winners are silently you-oriented.

Comm-YOU-nicate When You Want a Favor

Putting you first gets a much better response, especially when you’re asking a favor, because it pushes the asker’s pride button. Suppose you want to take a long weekend. You decide to ask your boss if you can take Friday off. Which request do you think he or she is going to react to more positively? “Can I take Friday off, Boss?” Or this one: “Boss, can you do without me Friday?”

In the first case, Boss had to translate your “Can I take Friday off ?” into “Can I do without this employee Friday?” That’s an extra thought process. (And you know how some bosses hate to think!)

However, in the second case, “Boss, can you do without me Friday,” you did Boss’s thinking for her. Your new wording made managing without you a matter of pride for Boss. “Of course,” she said to herself. “I can manage without your help Friday.”

How to Be a “You-Firstie” to Gain Their Respect and Affection

“SEX! Now that I have your attention. . . . ” Two-bit comics have been using that gag from the days when two bits bought a foursquare meal. However, big winners know there’s a three-letter word more potent then SEX to get people’s attention. That word is YOU.

Why is you such a powerful word? Because when we were infants, we thought we were the center of the universe. Nothing mattered but ME, MYSELF, and I. The rest of the shadowy forms stirring about us (which we later learned were other people) existed solely for what they could do for us. Self-centered little tykes that we were, our tiny brains translated every action, every word, into, “How does that affect ME?”

Big winners know we haven’t changed a bit. Adults camouflage their self-centeredness under a mask of civilization and politeness. Yet the human brain still immediately, instinctively, and unfailingly translates everything into terms of “How does that affect ME?”

For example, suppose, gentlemen, you want to ask a colleague, Jill, if she would like to join you for dinner. So you say to her, “There’s a really good new Indian restaurant in town. Will you join me there for dinner tonight?”

Before answering, Jill is thinking to herself, “By ‘good’ does he mean the food or the atmosphere or both?” Her reverie continues, “Indian cuisine, I’m not sure. He says it’s good. However, will I like it?” While thinking, Jill hesitates. You probably take her hesitation personally, and the joy of the exchange diminishes.

Suppose, instead, you had said to her, “Jill, you will really love this new Indian restaurant. Will you join me there this evening for dinner?” Phrasing it that way, you’ve already subliminally answered Jill’s questions and she’s more apt to give you a quick “yes.”

The pleasure-pain principle is a guiding force in life. Psychologists tell us everyone automatically gravitates toward that which is pleasurable and pulls away from that which is painful. For many people, thinking is painful.

So big winners (when they wish to control, inspire, be loved by, sell to people, or get them to go to dinner) do the thinking for them. They translate everything into the other person’s terms by starting as many sentences as they can with that powerful little three-letter word, you. Thus, I call the technique “Comm-YOU-nication.”

9.12.08

Oh, I Must Have Been Boring You (technique No 27)

I waited weeks for the opportunity to try it out. Finally the moment presented itself at a convention. A new contact began telling me about her recent trip to Washington, D.C. (She had no idea that Washington was where I grew up.) She told me all about the Capitol, the Washington Monument, the Kennedy Center, and how she and her husband went bicycling in Rock Creek Park. (Momentarily I forgot I was keeping my mouth shut to practice my new technique. I was genuinely enjoying hearing about these familiar sights from a visitor’s perspective.)

I asked her where she stayed, where she dined, and if she had a chance to get into any of the beautiful Maryland or Virginia suburbs. At one point, obviously pleased by my interest in her trip, she said, “You sound like you know a lot about Washington.”

“Yes,” I replied. “It’s my hometown, but I haven’t been back there in ages.”

“Your hometown!” she squealed. “My goodness, why didn’t you tell me? I must have been boring you.”

“Oh, not at all,” I replied honestly. “I was enjoying hearing about your trip so much, I was afraid you’d stop if I told you.” Her big smile and barely audible “Oh gosh” let me know I had won a new friend.

When someone starts telling you about an activity he has done, a trip she has made, a club he belongs to, an interest she has—anything that you share—bite your tongue. Let the teller relish his or her own monologue. Relax and enjoy it, too, secretly knowing how much pleasure your conversation partner will have when you reveal you share the same experience. Then, when the moment is ripe, casually disclose your similarity. And be sure to mention how much you enjoyed hearing about his or her shared interest.

Technique #27

Kill the Quick “Me, Too!”

Whenever you have something in common with someone, the longer you wait to reveal it, the more moved (and impressed) he or she will be. You emerge as a confident big cat, not a lonely little stray, hungry for quick connection with a stranger.

P.S.: Don’t wait too long to reveal your shared interest or it will seem like you’re being tricky.

How to Not Sound Anxious (Let Them Discover Your Similarity)

Tigers prowl with tigers; lions lurk with lions; and little alley cats scramble around with other little alley cats. Similarity breeds attraction. But in the human jungle, big cats know a secret. When you delay revealing your similarity, or let them discover it, it has much more punch. Above all, you don’t want to sound anxious to have rapport.

Whenever someone mentions a common interest or experience, instead of jumping in with a breathless, “Hey, me, too! I do that, too” or “I know all about that,” let your conversation partner enjoy talking about it. Let her go on about the country club before you tell her you’re a member, too. Let him go on analyzing the golf swing of Arnold Palmer before you start casually comparing the swings of golf greats Greg, Jack, Tiger, and Arnie. Let her tell you how many tennis games she’s won before you just happen to mention your USTA ranking.

Several years ago, I was telling a new acquaintance how much I love to ski. He listened with interest as I indulged in a detailed travelogue of places I’d skied. I raved about the various resorts. I analyzed the various conditions. I discussed artificial versus natural snow. It wasn’t until near the end of my monologue that I finally had the sense to ask my new acquaintance if he skied. He replied, “Yes, I keep a little apartment in Aspen.”

Cool! If he’d jumped in and told me about his ski pad right after I first told him how much I liked skiing, I’d have been impressed. Mildly. However, waiting until the end of our conversation—and then revealing he was such an avid skier that he kept an Aspen ski pad—made it unforgettable.

Here’s the technique I call “Kill the Quick ‘Me, Too!’ ” Whenever people mention an activity or interest you share, let them enjoy discussing their passion. Then, when the time is right, casually mention you share their interest.

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