chapter3.1

At one time I rented the grand ballroom of a certain New York hotel for twenty nights in each season in order to hold a series of lectures.

At the beginning of one season, I was suddenly informed that I should have to pay almost three times as much rent as formerly.

This news reached me after the tickets had been printed and distributed and all announcements had been made.

Naturally, I didn't want to pay the increase, but what was the use of talking to the hotel about what I wanted?

They were interested only in what they wanted.

So a couple of days later I went to see the manager.

"I was a bit shocked when I got your letter," I said, "but I don't blame you at all. If I had been in your position, I should probably have written a similar letter myself.

Your duty as the manager of the hotel is to make all the profit possible.

If you don't do that, you will be fired and you ought to be fired.

Now, let's take a piece of paper and write down the advantages and the disadvantages that will accrue to you, if you insist on this increase in rent."

Then I took a letterhead and ran a line through the center and headed one column "Advantages" and the other column "Disadvantages."

I wrote down under the head "Advantages" these words: "Ballroom free."

Then I went on to say: "You will have the advantage of having the ballroom free to rent for dances and conventions.

That is a big advantage, for affairs like that will pay you much more than you can get for a series of lectures.

If I tie your ballroom up for twenty nights during the course of the season, it is sure to mean a loss of some very profitable business to you.

"Now, let's 'consider the disadvantages.

First, instead of increasing your income from me, you are going to decrease it.

In fact, you are going to wipe it out because I cannot pay the rent you are asking.

I shall be forced to hold these lectures at some other place.

"There's another disadvantage to you also.

These lectures attract crowds of educated and cultured people to your hotel.

That is good advertising for you, isn't it?

In fact, if you spent five thousand dollars advertising in the newspapers, you couldn't bring as many people to look at your hotel as I can bring by these lectures.

That is worth a lot to a hotel, isn't it?"

As I talked, I wrote these two "disadvantages" under the proper heading, and handed the sheet of paper to the manager, saying:

"I wish you would carefully consider both the advantages and disadvantages that are going to accrue to you and then give me your final decision."

I received a letter the next day, informing me that my rent would be increased only 50 percent instead of 300 percent.

Mind you, I got this reduction without saying a word about what I wanted.

I talked all the time about what the other person wanted and how he could get it.

Suppose I had done the human, natural thing; suppose I had stormed into his office and said,

"What do you mean by raising my rent three hundred percent when you know the tickets have been printed and the announcements made?

Three hundred percent! Ridiculous! Absurd! I won't pay it!"

What would have happened then?

An argument would have begun to steam and boil and sputter — and you know how arguments end.

Even if I had convinced him that he was wrong, his pride would have made it difficult for him to back down and give in.

Here is one of the best bits of advice ever given about the fine art of human relationships.

"If there is any one secret of success," said Henry Ford,

"it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own."

That is so good, I want to repeat it:

"If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own."

Thousands of salespeople are pounding the pavements today, tired, discouraged and underpaid.

Why? Because they are always thinking only of what they want.

They don't realize that neither you nor I want to buy anything.

If we did, we would go out and buy it.

But both of us are eternally interested in solving our problems.

And if salespeople can show us how their services or merchandise will help us solve our problems, they won't need to sell us.

We'll buy. And customers like to feel that they are buying — not being sold.

Yet many salespeople spend a lifetime in selling without seeing things from the customer's angle.

For example, for many years I lived in Forest Hills, a little community of private homes in the center of Greater New York.

One day as I was rushing to the station, I chanced to meet a real-estate operator who had bought and sold property in that area for many years.

He knew Forest Hills well, so I hurriedly asked him whether or not my stucco house was built with metal lath or hollow tile.

He said he didn't know and told me what I already knew — that I could find out by calling the Forest Hills Garden Association.

The following morning, I received a letter from him.

Did he give me the information I wanted?

He could have gotten it in sixty seconds by a telephone call. But he didn't.

He told me again that I could get it by telephoning, and then asked me to let him handle my insurance.

He was not interested in helping me. He was interested only in helping himself.