By the Same Hand

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town a man who wanted a price had three ways of asking for it, and which he chose was never an accident. The tradesmen who prospered noticed it.

Two brewers in one town, the same barley and the same well.
Both had a letter one Monday from the landlord of the Swan, asking his terms.
One sent his traveller up on the Saturday to put his case face to face.
The other sent his answer back by the same hand that brought the letter.
Their terms, set side by side, were within a shilling of one another.
One of them had the Swan's trade by Michaelmas. Which, and why?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two brewers, in the town I have never named. Both had a copper and a yard full of drays, and both brewed a sound mild a working man would drink four of without complaint. Both wanted the Swan, a big house on the market side that took eleven barrels a week.

The landlord of the Swan had a brewer already and had grown tired of him. What he did about it tells you more than he meant it to. He did not walk down to either brewery, though both were close by. He waited until the house was shut, sat down in the back parlour past eleven at night, and wrote two letters by candle, asking each brewer what he would charge a barrel for mild and for best, and on what terms.

He wrote for reasons he could have listed. A brewer's traveller had once talked terms at his bar with the whole room listening, and his own brewer heard of it inside the week. He wanted figures to set beside his present invoices, which were in a drawer and not in his head. And he wanted to do the sum at the only hour he had free.

The first brewer did what he had always been told was right. Nothing beats sitting down with a man. He sent his traveller up on the Saturday, which is market day. The man arrived at noon into a full house, the landlord in his shirtsleeves with a queue three deep. He got eleven minutes in the passage by the stairs, and said all the right things in the wrong room. The landlord, who had written a letter in order not to have a brewer's man in his bar on a Saturday, had a brewer's man in his bar on a Saturday.

The second brewer read his letter twice and noticed what the first had not: that it was written late, that it was written at all, and that it asked for figures. So he sent figures, back the same day by the same hand. The price a barrel for mild and for best. The day his dray passed that door, and the hour. The terms of credit. What he did about ullage, which the landlord had not asked and every landlord wants to know.

His last sentence is the one worth copying. I am at the brewery any morning before ten, or I will come up on a Tuesday, which I take to be your quietest. Say which, and I will keep it free. Then he did nothing at all until he was asked.

The landlord read that sheet at half past eleven at night with his invoices spread out and a pencil in his hand, which is the hour and the posture he had arranged for. He asked for the Tuesday. The dray went to the Swan from Michaelmas and went for nine years. The traveller wrote in his book that the Swan was a loyal house.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

Answer a customer in the manner he asked, because the manner he chose is the first thing he has told you about the sale. He picked it to get something he wanted, or to avoid something he did not.

Consider what a written question buys the man who writes it. It buys him the hour, since he asks at midnight and reads you when he pleases. It buys him the right to read you twice, and to set you beside a rival and beside the invoice in his drawer, which no conversation allows. And it buys him the right not to decide today, which he values more than you would like.

Now see what you take back when you answer a letter with a visit. You take the hour, and hand him a decision at a time he did not choose. You take away the paper, so there is nothing to compare and nothing to show. You withdraw his permission not to decide, which does not make him decide it. It makes him say he will think about it, and a decision moved to a worse hour is out of your reach.

None of this is an argument for being slow. The man who writes at midnight still wants his answer early, and the speed of your reply is read as the speed of everything else you do. Match the manner and beat the clock, both. Nor is paper the easy road: a page saying you would be delighted to discuss his requirements is a reply that contains nothing, and worse than silence. The test is whether a man could decide on it alone.

Two cautions. Matching the manner is how you begin and not how you finish. A year's supply of ale is not settled on one sheet of paper, and a man who will only ever write has not decided. You earn the move to the other room by answering well in writing, then you ask for it, name the hour and let him grant it. The second caution is the opposite failing. Some tradesmen hide in the post because they would rather write than speak, and call it respect.

Three questions, for the week in front of you:

1. Of my last ten enquiries, how did each arrive, and how did I answer it? Rule a sheet into two columns and fill it from your records, not your memory. Mark each one where you changed the manner uninvited, and what became of the job.
2. Could my written answer be decided upon with nobody else in the room? Read the last one you sent as a stranger would. If it lacks the price, the thing, the date, what is wanted from him and how he says yes, it was a request for a conversation, dressed as an answer.
3. When I want to speak to a man, do I ask or do I simply appear? Write the sentence out now and keep it by you: the two times you are free, and the request that he name one.

The Answer to the Riddle

Their terms were within a shilling of one another. One of them had the Swan's trade by Michaelmas. Which, and why?

The second, and not on his shilling. The landlord wrote because writing gave him the quiet hour, the figures on paper and the freedom to think without a man watching his face. The second brewer handed him all three and asked for nothing until he was invited. The first sent a good man into a crowded bar on a Saturday to take all three away. Only one answered the question that had actually been asked.

The verse:

A letter asks its question at an hour the writer chose,
And looks to have its answer in the manner it arose.
Go calling, and you take away the quiet hour he made,
Write plainly, and he reads you twice, with his own figures laid.

Until next time. Go and look at the last ten enquiries you answered, and mark the ones you answered in a different manner from the one they arrived in.

P.S. The manner also tells you what a man is afraid of. One who writes late and asks for figures is afraid of being talked into something. One who telephones at eight in the morning is afraid of being too late. Answer the fear and you will rarely argue about anything else.

Also in the archive: The 9:47pm Enquiry, The Direct Message and Eight to Twelve Hundred.