The Demonstration

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town, on fair day, when the field is full and every man in it has three hours to make his year.

Two men draw crowds at the same fair,
Both hold them fast, both hold them there.
One shows his wares and lets them go,
One says: this line, three shillings, so.
Same goods, same crowd, same summer sun.
Which cart went home still full? Which none?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two demonstrators at the fair outside the town I've never named, and their goods, in the old chorus, were equally good. Same sort of contrivance for the kitchen, same price, both men well liked.

The first was the better performer, and it is worth insisting on that, because this is not a story about a dull man losing to a showman. He was funny, and quick, and he knew his thing inside out. He drew forty people and held them for twenty minutes, and at the end he thanked them warmly for their attention and said he hoped they had enjoyed it and that they would find him here all day.

The crowd applauded and dispersed. Two came over and bought.

He did it again at eleven, and at two, and by evening he had a hoarse throat, a great deal of goodwill, and eleven sales. He went home tired and satisfied and told his wife the crowds had been marvellous, which they had.

What had happened, forty people at a time, was this. Each of them had watched, enjoyed it, half decided, and then been released into a field containing a hog roast, a fiddler and a man selling ribbons. There is no moment in that field when a woman who half wants a thing will stop and reconsider it, because the fair does not permit reconsidering. He had built the wanting perfectly and then left every single person to organise the buying themselves, at a time of their own choosing, in a crowd.

The second man was the poorer performer. Fewer jokes, plainer speech, and he held his crowd for twelve minutes rather than twenty. But he finished every demonstration the same way, in the same words, and he never once left it out:

Three shillings each. Form a line at this end of the cart, please. I have forty with me today and when they are gone I pack up, and I shan't be back this side of Michaelmas.

Then he stopped talking and stood by the cart end and did not fill the silence.

Watch what those three sentences do, because it is not persuasion, and it is not pressure either. He named the price, so nobody has to ask and feel foolish. He named the physical act, so a woman who wants one knows what her feet are meant to do, which sounds absurd until you have watched forty people stand still because nobody told them. And he named the reason to do it now rather than after the hog roast, in the manner of the draper's three days, honestly, because he really did have forty and really was leaving.

Nine or ten bought at every demonstration. Same goods, same price, worse patter.

And here is the part that stayed with me. Asked afterwards, the first man said he had never wanted to be the sort of fellow who pushes. He thought his goods should speak for themselves. What he had actually done was make forty people want a thing and then, out of politeness, refuse to tell them how to get it.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

The wanting and the buying are two separate pieces of work, and almost everybody does the first and stops. You may explain beautifully, prove everything, answer every objection, and still lose the sale to nothing more than the absence of a sentence telling a willing person what to do next. The gap between those two jobs is where most of the trade in this country quietly dies, and it dies unrecorded, because a person who half wanted something and drifted away never tells you they were nearly yours.

The reason it is left out is almost always good manners. Asking plainly feels like pushing; letting the work speak for itself feels dignified. But consider it from the other side of the cart: a woman who has decided she would like one, and does not know the price, or where to stand, or whether she may interrupt, is not being spared anything. She is being made to do the awkward part herself, and most people, faced with an unclear next step in public, do the easiest available thing, which is nothing at all.

So the ask has three parts and wants all three. The action, named as a physical thing a person can picture: stand here, ring this number, reply to this message with the word yes. The price, stated, because an unnamed price is an obstacle disguised as discretion, exactly as the price behind the form taught you. And a reason it should happen now rather than later, which must be true, since a false one is worth less than none and costs you your name besides.

Then say it and stop. The silence after the ask belongs to the customer, and the seller who fills it with more explaining has taken the decision back off the table and returned to demonstrating, which is the comfortable part.

Three questions, and check the last thing you sent before answering:

1. Where does your last sentence leave them? Read the final line of your quote, your page, your letter, your conversation. If it is a thank you, a hope, or an invitation to get in touch, you have finished the demonstration and gone home. Rewrite it as one instruction.
2. Could a stranger say what to do, and what it costs, in one breath? Hand it to somebody who does not know your trade. If they cannot answer both, your customers cannot either, and they will not ask, they will simply drift into the field.
3. What is your true reason to act now? The real one: the diary filling, the price changing, the season closing, the number you actually have. Say that. If there genuinely is not one, say the plain version instead and do not invent an urgency, since a manufactured deadline is a debt you pay later at a very poor rate.

The Answer to the Riddle

Which cart went home still full?

The better man's. He was funnier, he held them longer, and he sold eleven where his rival sold sixty, because he had done all the difficult work of making people want a thing and then declined, out of politeness, to do the easy work of telling them how to have it. The crowd was never the problem. The wanting was never the problem. The whole difference was three sentences at the end of a demonstration, and a willingness to stand still afterwards without saying anything.

The verse:

You made them want it, held them fast,
Then let them wander off at last.
Name price, name place, name why today,
Then close your mouth and let them pay.

Until next time. Go and rewrite the last line of whatever you send most often, so that it names the action, the price and the reason to do it this week.

P.S. Watch yourself for the softening that creeps in at the end: if you'd like to, no pressure at all, whenever suits. Each is added to spare the customer and every one of them removes a little more of the instruction, until what remains is a warm feeling and nobody moving.

Also in the archive: The Draper's Three Days, The Fourteen-Page Proposal and The Direct Message.