The Dearer Man

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town the man who held the purse was very often not the man who had to answer for it.

Two thatchers in the town I have never named, the same wheat reed and the same hazel spars.
Both were honest, and both could lay a roof on a barn to stand five and twenty winters.
One quoted four and thirty pounds for the tithe barn, and would have made the better job of it.
The other quoted forty, and wrote four lines at the foot of his page that the first did not.
The steward took the dearer man, and was thanked for it at rent day.
Same trade, same reed, same barn, six pounds the wrong way. How?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two thatchers, then, in the town I have never named. Both worked wheat reed off the same four farms, both cut their spars from the same coppice, and both had roofs standing in the parish older than their apprentices. Neither was a cheap man and neither a cheat.

In the September of a wet year the estate wanted the tithe barn stripped and laid new, eleven squares of it, and the steward asked them both up to look. He had the farms, the cottages, the drains and the timber in his charge, and saw the landlord twice a year and the agent oftener.

The first thatcher walked the roof, pushed a spar into three places, found the old work sound beneath the ridge and spoiled beyond the purlin, and quoted four and thirty pounds. He would save the estate two squares, he said, by laying over what was sound, and that was quite true. He said it in the yard with his hat in his hand, meant every word, and went home.

The second walked the same roof and found the same thing. He quoted forty pounds, being less willing to lay new reed over old. Then he sat in the kitchen half an hour and wrote four lines under his figure. The measure: eleven squares and a half at the parish rate of three pounds ten the square. The reed: Michaelmas cut off the low farm, which the steward could go and see standing. The life: five and twenty years, the ridge renewed at twelve for four pounds. Then two names, the rectory barn and the mill at the ford, with the year beside each.

The steward took the second man, and not because he doubted the first. Asked straight out, he would have called the first the better thatcher. He took him because in April the agent would come down the column of the year's expenditure with a pencil, stop at forty pounds, and ask what that was. And on that morning the steward wanted to be able to say: eleven and a half squares at the parish rate, Michaelmas reed off our own low farm, five and twenty years, the man who did the rectory in fifty one. Which he did say, and the pencil moved on, and at rent day the landlord thanked him for being thorough about the barn.

The first thatcher lost six pounds of work and never knew why. He had given a good price, a true account and a kind word, and nothing whatever that the steward could carry into another room.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

Your customer is not only choosing; he is choosing what he will be able to say when somebody asks him why, and where the two differ he will take the choice he can account for over the choice he privately thinks best. A decision is not a thing that happens in one head. Most decisions of any size are made twice: once by the man in front of you, and again later, out of your sight, when he is asked why.

Who asks? On an estate, an agent with a pencil. In a company, a man who signs. With a householder, a wife or a husband, a brother who knows about roofs, a neighbour who had the same job done last year for less. The jury is almost never empty, and your customer knows it is coming. That is why he asks you to break the figure down. He is not haggling. He is gathering his defence.

Attend now to what a defence is made of, because it is not the same stuff as a good decision. It must be repeatable by a man who is not a tradesman, to people who were not there, so it is made of measures, rates, dates, named sources and other men's names. The first thatcher's case was the better on the merits, and consisted of his judgment and his hat in his hand, neither of which survives being carried upstairs. The second man's case was weaker and portable. Portable wins.

It is also the enquiry that goes quiet after a warm meeting. Nothing cooled. The man could not build the sentence, and will not say so, because the reason he gives you is the reason he has words for.

Two cautions. The first is that this force pulls toward the dull and away from the right. A buyer who must answer for himself takes the known supplier, the standard specification and the middle figure, not because they are best but because their failure is nobody's fault. If yours is the unusual offer, arguing that it is better is not your task. Making it defensible is. Give it a rate, a measure, a comparison with the ordinary way and two men who have had it already, and it moves from brave to sensible without your touching the price.

The second caution is heavier. You are writing words another man will repeat in a room you are not in, under his own name and on your authority, so write nothing you would not stand up and say beside him. A defence that collapses in the second year costs him more than the job was worth to you, and what collapses is usually the life of the work, so put the renewal in the account as the second thatcher did with his ridge. Give him a true account that happens to stand up, not an argument to win, and remember that the ending of the job will test it.

Three questions, for the week in front of you:

1. Who will ask this customer why? Name the person, not the department. If you cannot name anybody, ask him outright who else must be happy with the figure, and listen rather than reassure.
2. What is his one sentence? If he had to defend your quote in a single sentence with a measure and a figure in it, what is the sentence, and could he read it off your page rather than remember you saying it?
3. What in my offer cannot be repeated? Everything resting on my tone of voice, on his having met me, on his trusting me. That part is not worthless, but it will not travel, so it cannot be all you send.

The Answer to the Riddle

Same trade, same reed, same barn, six pounds the wrong way, and the steward thanked for it at rent day. How?

Because the cheaper man gave him a price and the dearer man gave him an answer. One was selling thatch. The other knew the steward was buying thatch and a sentence to say in April, and that the sentence was worth six pounds to a man who would otherwise have stood there with nothing but his own good opinion of a tradesman.

The verse:

He may admire your work the most and still not give the nod,
For someone comes with pencil out and asks him why he did.
So put the measure on the page and name the ones you've served,
And leave him with the answer that the asking will deserve.

Until next time. Go and take the last quote you sent, and add the three lines a customer could read aloud to somebody who was never there.

P.S. It works upon you too. Ask why you buy your materials where you buy them, and part of the honest answer will be that nobody can fault you for it. That is a reason, and sometimes a sound one, but it is not the same as the best material at the best price, and it is worth knowing which you have been paying for.

Also in the archive: The Chair by the Glass, Eleven Words in an Hour and The Yard Boot.