The woman asks for a pound and a half of steak. Now as skilful as grocery and meat men are, at times they overcut. When this occurs, I have found there are two ways to handle this situation to make it easy for the woman to buy the overcut. In this instance, the meat man overcut the steak so that it weighed two pounds instead of a pound and a half. If he had said to the woman, in an apologeti c manner, “Is that too much?” the woman would probably have said it was. The butcher must then slice off a half pound of the meat. This is hard to do, and it is wasteful, because to sell a thin half-pound slice of steak is not easy. But the experienced butcher, when he overcuts, or overweighs, or overjudges, will always say, “46c – will that be enough?” He seldom mentions the weight – but the price, and adds that potent selling sentence, “Will that be enough?” And in this case the woman replied, as most will, “Oh, yes, that’s quite enough.” Selling Office Space While I was looking for a new office the other day, I went into 521 Fifth Avenue. I approached the rental man and told him my wants. He showed me several offices, and all the time he was making it easy for me to say “Yes.” For instance, he asked me, “Do you like this view of the Hudson River?” Who wouldn’t? I told him I did. He then took me to the other side of the building to another office and again asked me if I liked the view, this time of the East River and Long Island. I did. Suddenly he said, “Which view do you like better?” I thought for a moment. I weighed both views, and then told him that I preferred the view of Long Island. My home was there, and besides, the sun came into the office in the morning when it was least hot. “Suppose you place your application for this office, then,” said he, tactfully, upon which I suddenly realized that I was headed for a dotted line. (I rented the office facing Long Island.) You can always twist your questions and sales language or social conversations around in such a manner as to make it easy for the other person to say “Yes.” Winning Social Arguments Even in friendly arguments you can get positive responses from the other person. You repeat h is objections, and ask him, “Is that your only reason for not joining our golf club?” He tells you it is. He agrees with you. You have made it easy for him to say “Yes.” If you had said to him, “That’s a foolish reason for not joining,” he
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