Eleven Words in an Hour

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town a decision taken by two people was never the sum of two opinions, and nothing has changed about that but the furniture.

Two shop fitters in one county, the same plate glass and the same brass.
Both quoted eleven pounds for a new front, to the shilling.
Both sat an hour in the same parlour with the same two partners.
One talked to the partner who was nodding, and answered him well.
The other talked to the partner who had barely spoken.
Only one was taking out a window by Saturday. Which, and why?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two shop fitters, in the town I have never named, both asked in the same week to look at the front of a grocer's shop on the market street.

The shop was kept by a brother and sister. He stood behind the counter and knew every household's order by heart. She kept the books in a back parlour that smelled of coffee and damp plaster. The front was a wreck of small sashes with sills soft as cake, and at four in November the shop was the colour of weak tea.

The first fitter came on the Tuesday and sat down with the pair of them. The brother was delighted before a word was said. He wanted the plate glass, the brass rail, the shop lit like a lamp in November, and every question he asked was answered well. The sister spoke once, to ask how many days the shop would be shut. Four at the outside, said the fitter, and he turned back to the brother. At the door he said they should think it over, and meant it kindly. In March she told him they had decided to leave it another year, and he would have told you the money was not there.

The second fitter came on the Thursday and found the same rot in the same sills. The brother said the same things, and the fitter agreed, briefly. Then he put his book away, turned his chair to the parlour table, and told the sister that she had said about eleven words in the hour, that she was the one who must find eleven pounds, and that he would sooner hear the strongest thing against the idea than go home with a maybe.

She told him, and had plainly had it ready a fortnight. Four days shut, and the four he would choose were not the four she would. Eleven pounds was the money set by for the spring account with the sugar merchant. And if the glass were slow in coming they would stand boarded up through the best fortnight of their year.

He took them in order. Two days, not four, in the slack week after the fair, and he named them. No board would come off the front until the glass was in his own yard. On the money he did what the first man had not. He could not promise her eleven pounds of trade, he said. A new front brings people to the glass rather than past the counter, so the same goods in the same places would earn little behind it. The money was worth spending only if somebody meant to dress that window every week, which was their work, not his.

Then he stopped talking. The sister asked her brother whether he would dress it every Monday if she did it every Thursday, and he said he would. She wrote the two days in the book and the deposit under them. It was not the fitter's sentence that sold the front. It was hers.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

When two people must agree, the sale is settled by the one who says least. Every hour you spend on the enthusiast is an hour spent on the person who was never going to stop you.

Two partners do not vote, they veto. Keenness and doubt do not average into half a yes, because doubt needs no majority, only silence until the meeting ends. And the quiet one is quiet for good reasons. To say before a stranger that a thing is too dear is to sound mean about money, and to say it before your own partner is to contradict him in public. One sentence avoids both at no cost, which is that they will think it over. She is keeping the peace in her parlour, and your estimate is what she keeps it with.

The silence matters because the conversation which decides your work happens after you have driven away. It is the trouble of the man who was not there, with a turn of the screw: the one carrying your argument already agreed and will carry it badly, while the one with the real objection has all evening to sharpen it against an opponent who cannot answer. The job comes back not as a no but as nothing, and you put it down to the market.

Asking for the worst of it did three things at once. It made the doubt sayable. It showed he was not frightened of it, which is the only proof a customer has that your answer is worth anything. And it took the objection out of the sister's hands as a weapon she must otherwise have used on her brother that night.

Better still is what becomes of a doubt answered honestly. It stops being a reason not to buy and becomes a condition of buying, and a condition is a plan. Hers turned into a standing arrangement to dress the window, worth more to that shop than the glass. And note who she was: not the one who wanted the thing, but the one who would live with it.

Two cautions. Ask for the doubt, never supply it. Tell a contented customer what to worry about and the worry outlasts your answer. The question is what would make this a bad idea, put to the person who has not spoken, and then your mouth shut. The second caution is that naming a doubt is not beating it. Sometimes the honest answer is that it is too dear this year, and then you offer a smaller piece of the work and leave on good terms.

Three questions, for the next quote you are waiting on:

1. Who was in the room and did not speak? Write the name down, and beside it what that person stands to lose if you are wrong.
2. What is the strongest case against me, and did I make it first? You know it already, and a customer left to invent objections invents worse ones than the true ones.
3. Who will talk about this tonight, and what with? If it is one enthusiast and a page of prices, put the difficulties in writing with your answers beside them.

The Answer to the Riddle

Only one was taking out a window by Saturday. Which, and why?

The second, because he spent his hour on the partner who had nothing to say. The first gave a fine account of himself to the one person in that parlour who was never the obstacle. A sale that two people must agree to is not won where the enthusiasm is. It is won by finding the silence and asking it a question.

The verse:

The keen one takes you by the hand and says the thing is grand,
The quiet one has said no word, and holds it in her hand.
Go find the one who has not spoken and ask her for her say,
For doubt that has been spoken of is doubt you clear away.

Until next time. Go and take the quote you are waiting on today, and before you chase it for an answer, write down the name of the person in that room who said least.

P.S. There is a cheap way to do this before you ever sit down, in one line of your reply to the enquiry. Ask who else will be weighing it up, and say you would sooner they were both there, because you would rather answer the awkward questions yourself than have them answered without you.

Also in the archive: The Shallow Keel, The Woman Who Works the End and The Buttons and the Book.