INT. ROADSIDE CAFE - DAY
  
  All four are seated at a booth. The women have
  given their orders and a WAITRESS stands above
  Bobby, waiting for his:
  
     BOBBY
    (looking at his menu)
   I'll have an omelette, no potatoes.
   Give me tomatoes instead, and wheat
   toast instead of rolls.
  
  The waitress indicates something on the menu with
  the butt of her pencil.
  
     WAITRESS
   No substitutions.
  
     BOBBY
   What does that mean? You don't have
   any tomatoes?
  
     WAITRESS
    (annoyed)
   No. We have tomatoes.
  
     BOBBY
   But I can't have any. Is that what
   you mean?
  
     WAITRESS
   Only what's on the menu...
    (again, indicating  with
    her pencil)
   A Number Two: Plain omelette. It
   comes with cottage fries and rolls.
  
     BOBBY
   I know what it comes with, but
   that's not what I want.
  
     WAITRESS
   I'll come back when you've made up
   your mind...
  
  She starts to move away and Bobby detains her.
  
     BOBBY
   Wait, I've made up my mind. I want
   a plain omelette, forget the
   tomatoes, don't put potatoes on the
   plate, and give me a side of wheat
   toast and a cup of coffee.
  
     WAITRESS
   I'm sorry, we don't have side
   orders of toast. I can give you an
   English muffin or a coffee roll.
  
     BOBBY
   What do you mean, you don't have
   side orders of toast? You make
   sandwiches, don't you?
  
     WAITRESS
   Would you like to talk to the
   manager?
  
     PALM
   Hey, mack!
  
     BOBBY
    (to Palm)
   Shut up.
    (to the waitress)
   You have bread, don't you, and a
   toaster of some kind?
  
     WAITRESS
   I don't make the rules.
  
     BOBBY
   Okay, I'll make it as easy for you
   as I can.  Give me an omelette,
   plain, and a chicken salad sandwich
   on wheat toast -- no butter, no
   mayonnaise, no lettuce -- and a cup
   of coffee.
  
  She begins writing down his order, repeating it
  sarcastically:
  
     WAITRESS
   One Number Two, and a chicken sal
   san -- hold the butter, the mayo,
   the lettuce -- and a cup of
   coffee... Anything else?
  
     BOBBY
   Now all you have to do is hold the
   chicken, bring me the toast, charge
   me for the sandwich, and you
   haven't broken any rules.
  
     WAITRESS
    (challenging him)
   You want me to hold the chicken.
  
     BOBBY
   Yeah. I want you to hold it between
   your knees.
  
  The other three laugh, and the waitress points to a
  'Right to Refuse' sign above the counter.
  
     WAITRESS
   You see that sign, sir?!
  
  Bobby glances over at it, then back to her.
  
     WAITRESS (CONT'D)
   You'll all have to leave, I'm not
   taking any more of your smartness
   and your sarcasm!
  
  He smiles politely at her, then:
  
     BOBBY
   You see this sign?
  
  He reaches his arm out and 'clears' the table for
  her.

(end of scene)

Most of us, (especially if we travel a lot and eat out frequently) have secretly fantasized about violently clearing a table and storming out of a restaurant when we can’t get the service we desire. But we don’t—we suffer in silence.

Bobby tried to use logic, to get his piece of toast. But that strategy didn’t work. It occurred to me that Bobby is like lots of business people who make presentations, sales pitches, and one-on-one requests—they have their goals straight, they have their logic and their facts, but they don’t persuade the one person who has power to give them what they want.

A few months ago I went to a trendy restaurant in Manhattan with a friend. The restaurant was, by Manhattan standards, moderately priced. A simple meal for two with one drink each would run about $50. It wasn’t Burger King, but it wasn’t the Four Seasons either.

I ordered the turkey dinner which came with mashed potatoes, and string beans. The menu also featured spinach as a side dish. Since I don’t like string beans and I do like spinach, I requested a simple change of the string beans for the spinach. I reasoned that since spinach was on the menu and that string beans are of comparable cost to spinach, the substitution would be no problem. That was a logical assumption. It was also irrelevant. I didn’t get my spinach. (The side dish of spinach was an additional $4—not huge sum, but a great moral issue seemed to be at play here)

I politely requested the spinach, I begged, I beseeched.

I did not get my spinach.

While I kept my emotions in check (I didn’t trash the restaurant a la Jack Nicholson) the waiter and management were probably smart enough to figure out that I was holding them in extreme contempt.

Bottom line—I lost. And the restaurant lost because I have never passed up an opportunity to tell others about their bad service.

Fast forward several months. I am walking past the restaurant around dinner time on a Saturday night and it starts to rain. We pop into this same restaurant, just for cover. But it’s getting late and we’re both hungry. So we figure we will give this restaurant anther chance.

This time, however, I was prepared. I had a strategy and a plan. This is what I said.

TJ (aka Bobby) “May I have spinach with my turkey dinner instead of the string beans?”

Waitress, “I’m terribly sorry, but we can’t do substitutions.”

TJ (with a pleasant, cheery tone of voice) “Is there any way you could check. I love the turkey dinner and I love your spinach.”

Waitress “I can check, but I already know that they won’t do it. You’ll have to pay for the side dish separately.”

TJ (Again with a pleasant, cheery tone of voice) “May I see the manager please?”

Enter Manager

Manager (with a disgusted look on his face) “What seems to be the problem here?”

TJ “Hello sir, I was just telling my friend what excellent food you have here. He is from out of town and I wanted to bring him here. Here is the situation. I love your turkey dinner. I love your spinach. I want to be able to give your waitress a big tip.  And I want to be able to come back here frequently and I want to be able to tell my friends to come here because of the good food and the excellent service. And I would like to have spinach with my turkey instead of string beans.”

Manager, “I’m sorry but we don’t allow substitutions.”

TJ (again in a polite and respectful manner) “Why not?”

Manager, “Because the spinach costs more than the string beans do.”

TJ “Really, that’s quite interesting. How much are string beans these days? At my grocery store the costs virtually the same as spinach.”

Manager grimaces to himself acknowledging that he was just caught in a ridiculous lie.

TJ (still smiling and resisting the temptation to call the manager a liar) “I would really appreciate it if you could give me spinach instead of string beans.”

Manager glances down at watch and is appalled to see how much time he has spent with this customer.

Manager, “OK, here’s what I’m going to do. I can’t substitute the spinach for the string beans, but I will remove the string beans and I will give you a free side order of Spinach.”

TJ (smiling graciously) “Thank you sir.”

So what happened here? In my opinion, everybody won. I didn’t feel like an abused customer, the waitress received a very healthy 25% tip (far more than the $4 difference the side dish would have cost) and the restaurant ends of with happy customers. It was a win-win-win (and no, I was not poisoned.)

Why did it happen this way? The more likely scenario is for one or both sides to become so angry that there is a stalemate and one side has to admit defeat.

1. I made a clear cut decision that I was going to keep a positive demeanor the entire time.
2. I started my conversation with the waitress and the manager by complimenting the restaurant.
3. I framed my arguments around the idea that it was my goal to make everyone happy.
4. When I was lied to (i.e. spinach cost a lot more than string beans) I didn’t lose my cool.
5. I tried to be likeable and friendly throughout.
6. I didn’t rush the decision by the manager.
7. I didn’t try to make the manager feel bad for finally giving into what I wanted.
8. I never ever raised my voice.

My strategy worked, in part because there was a logic to it, but the logic was focused on how I could make the manager and the waitress feel, not just the merits of my case. By being positive and pleasant, it would have been too difficult for the manager to have thrown me out. By never escalating my anger, timing was on my side. The manager realized he could not very well walk away from me when I was being polite. Yet, at some point, it simply was not worth his time arguing with me all night over a $4 spinach plate. So he gave in.

I wish I could tell you I came up with this strategy all by myself. But I must give credit to my colleague Jeffrey Gitomer, the world renowned sales and customer relations guru (www.gitomer.com). He told me step by step what to do and it worked.

So here are the lessons that I think are applicable to a sales presentation with a difficult client or a conversation with a colleague.

1. Keep your arguments positive.
2. Keep your tone positive.
3. Don’t be in a rush to get what you want.
4. Frame your arguments so that all parties win.
5. Get input from someone smarter than you, if you don’t get what you want the first time.

Bon appetite!

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