How to Win Friends and Influence People (11 page)

once. He was a shy chap, and he kept in the background.

But before leaving us, the President looked for the mechanic,

shook his hand, called him by name, and

thanked him for coming to Washington. And there was

nothing perfunctory about his thanks. He meant what he

said. I could feel that.

“A few days after returning to New York, I got an autographed

photograph of President Roosevelt and a little

note of thanks again expressing his appreciation for my

assistance. How he found time to do it is a mystery to

me ."

Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that one of the simplest,

most obvious and most important ways of gaining good

will was by remembering names and making people feel

important - yet how many of us do it?

Half the time we are introduced to a stranger, we chat

a few minutes and can’t even remember his or her name

by the time we say goodbye.

One of the first lessons a politician learns is this: “To

recall a voter’s name is statesmanship. To forget it is

oblivion.”

And the ability to remember names is almost as important

in business and social contacts as it is in politics.

Napoleon the Third, Emperor of France and nephew

of the great Napoleon, boasted that in spite of all his

royal duties he could remember the name of every person

he met.

His technique? Simple. If he didn’t hear the name

distinctly, he said, “So sorry. I didn’t get the name

clearly.” Then, if it was an unusual name, he would say,

“How is it spelled?”

During the conversation, he took the trouble to repeat

the name several times, and tried to associate it in his

mind with the person’s features, expression and general

appearance.

If the person was someone of importance, Napoleon

went to even further pains. As soon as His Royal Highness

was alone, he wrote the name down on a piece of

paper, looked at it, concentrated on it, fixed it securely

in his mind, and then tore up the paper. In this way, he

gained an eye impression of the name as well as an ear

impression.

All this takes time, but “Good manners,” said Emerson,

"are made up of petty sacrifices.”

The importance of remembering and using names is

not just the prerogative of kings and corporate executives.

It works for all of us. Ken Nottingham, an employee

of General Motors in Indiana, usually had lunch

at the company cafeteria. He noticed that the woman

who worked behind the counter always had a scowl on

her face. “She had been making sandwiches for about

two hours and I was just another sandwich to her. I told

her what I wanted. She weighed out the ham on a little

scale, then she gave me one leaf of lettuce, a few potato

chips and handed them to me.

“The next day I went through the same line. Same

woman, same scowl. The only difference was I noticed

her name tag. I smiled and said, ‘Hello, Eunice,’ and

then told her what I wanted. Well, she forgot the scale,

piled on the ham, gave me three leaves of lettuce and

heaped on the potato chips until they fell off the plate.”

We should be aware of the
magic
contained in a name

and realize that this single item is wholly and completely

owned by the person with whom we are dealing

and nobody else. The name sets the individual apart;

it makes him or her unique among all others. The information

we are imparting or the request we are making

takes on a special importance when we approach the

situation with the name of the individual. From the waitress

to the senior executive, the name will work magic

as we deal with others.

PRINCIPLE 3

Remember that a person’s name is to that

person the sweetest and most important

sound in any language.

AN EASY WAY TO BECOME A

GOOD CONVERSATIONALIST

Some time ago, I attended a bridge party. I don’t play

bridge - and there was a woman there who didn’t play

bridge either. She had discovered that I had once been

Lowell Thomas’ manager before he went on the radio

and that I had traveled in Europe a great deal while

helping him prepare the illustrated travel talks he was

then delivering. So she said: “Oh, Mr. Carnegie, I do

want you to tell me about all the wonderful places you

have visited and the sights you have seen.”

As we sat down on the sofa, she remarked that she and

her husband had recently returned from a trip to Africa.

“Africa!” I exclaimed. “How interesting! I’ve always

wanted to see Africa, but I never got there except for a

twenty-four-hour stay once in Algiers. Tell me, did you

visit the big-game country? Yes? How fortunate. I envy

you. Do tell me about Africa.”

That kept her talking for forty-five minutes. She never

again asked me where I had been or what I had seen.

She didn’t want to hear me talk about my travels. All she

wanted was an interested listener, so she could expand

her ego and tell about where she had been.

Was she unusual? No. Many people are like that.

For example, I met a distinguished botanist at a dinner

party given by a New York book publisher. I had never

talked with a botanist before, and I found him fascinating.

I literally sat on the edge of my chair and listened

while he spoke of exotic plants and experiments in

developing new forms of plant life and indoor gardens (and

even told me astonishing facts about the humble potato).

I had a small indoor garden of my own - and he was

good enough to tell me how to solve some of my problems.

As I said, we were at a dinner party. There must have

been a dozen other guests, but I violated all the canons

of courtesy, ignored everyone else, and talked for hours

to the botanist.

Midnight came, I said good night to everyone and

departed. The botanist then turned to our host and

paid me several flattering compliments. I was “most

stimulating.” I was this and I was that, and he ended by

saying I was a “most interesting conversationalist.”

An interesting conversationalist? Why, I had said

hardly anything at all. I couldn’t have said anything if I

had wanted to without changing the subject, for I didn’t

know any more about botany than I knew about the anatomy

of a penguin. But I had done this: I had listened

intently. I had listened because I was genuinely interested.

And he felt it. Naturally that pleased him. That

kind of listening is one of the highest compliments we

can pay anyone. “Few human beings,” wrote Jack

Woodford in
Strangers in Love,
“few human beings are

proof against the implied flattery of rapt attention.” I

went even further than giving him rapt attention. I was

“hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise.”

I told him that I had been immensely entertained and

instructed - and I had. I told him I wished I had his

knoledge - and I did. I told him that I should love to

wander the fields with him - and I have. I told him I

must see him again - and I did.

And so I had him thinking of me as a good conversationalist

when, in reality, I had been merely a good listener

and had encouraged him to talk.

What is the secret, the mystery, of a successful business

interview? Well, according to former Harvard president

Charles W. Eliot, “There is no mystery about

successful business intercourse. . . . Exclusive attention

to the person who is speaking to you is very important.

Nothing else is so flattering as that.”

Eliot himself was a past master of the art of listening,

Henry James, one of America’s first great novelists, recalled:

“Dr. Eliot’s listening was not mere silence, but a

form of activity. Sitting very erect on the end of his spine

with hands joined in his lap, making no movement except

that he revolved his thumbs around each other

faster or slower, he faced his interlocutor and seemed to

be hearing with his eyes as well as his ears. He listened

with his mind and attentively considered what you had

to say while you said it. . . . At the end of an interview

the person who had talked to him felt that he had had

his say.”

Self-evident, isn’t it? You don’t have to study for four

years in Harvard to discover that. Yet I know and you

know department store owners who will rent expensive

space, buy their goods economically, dress their windows

appealingly, spend thousands of dollars in advertising

and then hire clerks who haven’t the sense to be

good listeners - clerks who interrupt customers, contradict

them, irritate them, and all but drive them from the

store.

A department store in Chicago almost lost a regular

customer who spent several thousand dollars each year

in that store because a sales clerk wouldn’t listen. Mrs.

Henrietta Douglas, who took our course in Chicago, had

purchased a coat at a special sale. After she had brought

it home she noticed that there was a tear in the lining.

She came back the next day and asked the sales clerk to

exchange it. The clerk refused even to listen to her complaint.

“You bought this at a special sale,” she said. She

pointed to a sign on the wall. “Read that,” she exclaimed.

"
'All sales are final.'
Once you bought it, you

have to keep it. Sew up the lining yourself.”

“But this was damaged merchandise,” Mrs. Douglas

complained.

“Makes no difference,” the clerk interrupted. “Final’s

final "

Mrs. Douglas was about to walk out indignantly,

swearing never to return to that store ever, when she

was greeted by the department manager, who knew her

from her many years of patronage. Mrs. Douglas told her

what had happened.

The manager listened attentively to the whole story,

examined the coat and then said: “Special sales are

‘final’ so we can dispose of merchandise at the end of

the season. But this 'no return’ policy does not apply to

damaged goods. We will certainly repair or replace the

lining, or if you prefer, give you your money back.”

What a difference in treatment! If that manager had

not come along and listened to the Customer, a long-term

patron of that store could have been lost forever.

Listening is just as important in one's home life as in

the world of business. Millie Esposito of Croton-on-Hudson,

New York, made it her business to listen carefully

when one of her children wanted to speak with her.

One evening she was sitting in the kitchen with her son,

Robert, and after a brief discussion of something that

was on his mind, Robert said: "Mom, I know that you

love me very much.”

Mrs. Esposito was touched and said: “Of course I love

you very much. Did you doubt it?”

Robert responded: "No, but I really know you love me

because whenever I want to talk to you about something

you stop whatever you are doing and listen to me.”

The chronic kicker, even the most violent critic, will

frequently soften and be subdued in the presence of a

patient, sympathetic listener - a listener who will he silent

while the irate fault-finder dilates like a king cobra

and spews the poison out of his system. To illustrate:

The New York Telephone Company discovered a few

years ago that it had to deal with one of the most vicious

customers who ever cursed a customer service representative.

And he did curse. He raved. He threatened to tear

the phone out by its roots. He refused to pay certain

charges that he declared were false. He wrote letters to

the newspapers. He filed innumerable complaints with

the Public Service Commission, and he started several

suits against the telephone company.

At last, one of the company’s most skillful “trouble-shooters”

was sent to interview this stormy petrel. This

“troubleshooter” listened and let the cantankerous customer

enjoy himself pouring out his tirade. The telephone

representative listened and said “yes” and

sympathized with his grievance.

“He raved on and I listened for nearlv three hours,”

the “troubleshooter” said as he related his experiences

before one of the author’s classes. “Then I went back

and listened some more. I interviewed him four times,

and before the fourth visit was over I had become a

charter member of an organization he was starting. He

called it the ‘Telephone Subscribers’ Protective Association.'

I am still a member of this organization, and, so

far as I know, I’m the only member in the world today

besides Mr. ----.

"I listened and sympathized with him on every point

that he made during these interviews. He had never had

a telephone representative talk with him that way before,

and he became almost friendly. The point on which

I went to see him was not even mentioned on the first

visit, nor was it mentioned on the second or third, but

upon the fourth interview, I closed the case completely,

he paid all his bills in full, and for the first time in the

history of his difficulties with the telephone company he

voluntarily withdrew his complaints from the Public

Service Commission.”

Doubtless Mr. ----- had considered himself a holy

crusader, defending the public rights against callous exploitation.

But in reality, what he had really wanted was

a feeling of importance. He got this feeling of importance

at first by kicking and complaining. But as soon as

he got his feeling of importance from a representative of

the company, his imagined grievances vanished into

thin air.

One morning years ago, an angry customer stormed

into the office of Julian F. Detmer, founder of the Detmer

Woolen Company, which later became the world’s

largest distributor of woolens to the tailoring trade.

“This man owed us a small sum of money,” Mr. Detmer

explained to me. “The customer denied it, but we

knew he was wrong. So our credit department had insisted

that he pay. After getting a number of letters from

our credit department, he packed his grip, made a trip to

Chicago, and hurried into my office to inform me not

only that he was not going to pay that bill, but that he

was never going to buy another dollar’s worth of goods

from the Detmer Woolen Company.

"I listened patiently to all he had to say. I was tempted

to interrupt, but I realized that would be bad policy, So

I let him talk himself out. When he finally simmered

down and got in a receptive mood, I said quietly: ‘I want

to thank vou for coming to Chicago to tell me about this.

You have done me a great favor, for if our credit department

has annoyed you, it may annoy other good customers,

and that would be just too bad. Believe me, I am far

more eager to hear this than you are to tell it.’

“That was the last thing in the world he expected me

to say. I think he was a trifle disappointed, because he

had come to Chicago to tell me a thing or two, but here

I was thanking him instead of scrapping with him. I assured

him we would wipe the charge off the books and

forget it, because he was a very careful man with only

one account to look after, while our clerks had to look

after thousands. Therefore, he was less likely to be

wrong than we were.

“I told him that I understood exactly how he felt and

that, if I were in his shoes, I should undoubtedly feel

precisely as he did. Since he wasn’t going to buy from

us anymore, I recommended some other woolen houses.

“In the past, we had usually lunched together when

he came to Chicago, so I invited him to have lunch with

me this day. He accepted reluctantly, but when we came

back to the office he placed a larger order than ever

before. He returned home in a softened mood and, wanting

to be just as fair with us as we had been with him,

looked over his bills, found one that had been mislaid,

and sent us a check with his apologies.

"Later, when his wife presented him with a baby boy,

he gave his son the middle name of Detmer, and he

remained a friend and customer of the house until his

death twenty-two years afterwards.”

Years ago, a poor Dutch immigrant boy washed the

windows of a bakery shop after school to help support

his family. His people were so poor that in addition he

used to go out in the street with a basket every day and

collect stray bits of coal that had fallen in the gutter

where the coal wagons had delivered fuel. That boy,

Edward Bok, never got more than six years of schooling

in his life; yet eventually he made himself one of the

most successful magazine editors in the history of American

journalism. How did he do it? That is a long story,

but how he got his start can be told briefly. He got his