92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships by How to Talk to Anyone Page B

“What Do I Say Next?”
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    for me.” Instead of moving on to the next sensible car, Paul parroted “Right for you?” Paul’s questioning inflection signaled the prospect that he needed to say more.
    “Well, er, yeah,” the prospect mumbled. “I’m not sure it fits my personality.”
    “Fits your personality?” Paul again parroted.
    “You know, maybe I need something a little more sporty.”
    “A little more sporty?” Paul parroted.
    “Well, those cars over there look a little more sporty.”
    Aha! Paul’s parrot had ferreted out which cars to show the customer. As they walked over toward a Lamborghini on the lot, Paul saw the prospect’s eyes light up. An hour later, Paul had pocketed a fat commission.
    Want to take a rest from talking to save your throat? This next technique gets your conversation partner off and running so all you have to do is listen (or even sneak off unnoticed as he or she chats congenially away).
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    ✰ 21 How to Get ’Em Happily
    Chatting (So You Can Slip
    Away if You Want To!)
    Every father smiles when his little tyke beseeches him at bedtime,
    “Daddy, Daddy, tell me the story again of the three little pigs” (or the dancing princesses or how you and Mommy met). Daddy knows Junior enjoyed the story so much the first time, he wants to hear it again and again.
    Junior inspires the following technique called “Encore!” which serves two purposes. Encore! makes a colleague feel like a happy dad, and it’s a great way to give dying conversation a heart transplant.
    I once worked on a ship that had Italian officers and mostly American passengers. Each week, the deck officers were required to attend the captain’s cocktail party. After the captain’s address in charmingly broken English, the officers invariably clumped together yakking it up in Italian. Needless to say, most of the passengers’ grasp of Italian ended at macaroni, spaghetti, salami, and pizza.
    As cruise director, it fell on my shoulders to get the officers to mingle with the passengers. My not-so-subtle tactic was to grab one of the officers’ arms and literally drag him over to a smiling throng of expectant passengers. I would then introduce the officer and pray that either the cat would release his tongue, or a pas 82
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    How to Get ’Em Happily Chatting (So You Can Slip Away if You Want To!) 83
    senger would come up with a more original question than “Gee, if all you officers are here, who is driving the boat?” Never happened. I dreaded the weekly captain’s cocktail party. One night, sleeping in my cabin, I was awakened by the ship rocking violently from side to side. I listened and the engines were off. A bad sign. I grabbed my robe and raced up to the deck. Through the dense fog, I could barely discern another ship not half a mile from us. Five or six officers were grasping the starboard guardrail and leaning overboard. I rushed over just in time to see a man in the moonlight with a bandage over one eye struggling up our violently rocking ladder. The officers immediately whisked him off to our ship’s hospital. The engines started again and we were on our way.
    The next morning I got the full story. A laborer on the other ship, a freighter, had been drilling a hole in an engine cylinder. While he was working, a sharp, needle-thin piece of metal shot like a missile into his right eye. The freighter had no doctor on board so the ship broadcast an emergency signal.
    International sea laws dictate that any ship hearing a distress signal must respond. Our ship came to the rescue and the seaman, clutching his bleeding eye, was lowered into a lifeboat that brought him to our ship. Dr. Rossi, our ship’s doctor, was successfully able to remove the needle from the workman’s eye, thus saving his eyesight.
    “Tell ’Em About the Time You . . .”
    Cut to the