The Pain and the Fix

Antonino Calderone, a mafioso from Catania who turned state’s witness, told the story of a certain father. The man wanted to make his son a lawyer at any price. The son was a poor student. The father was advised to move him from the university in Catania to Palermo, where Giuseppe Calderone, the narrator’s brother, could pull some strings. The son got his degree. Only Giuseppe had to work so hard at it that afterwards he said: “I was the one who should have got the degree.”

Funny. Now look at the father. How much he paid, Gambetta doesn’t say. But a man who wants something “at any price” doesn’t ask the price. He finds it out later.

Here’s what you need to know about pain. It’s the only product nobody haggles over. That’s its strength. And that’s its danger, for both sides.

The Opponent Who’s Bored

Gambetta tells another story. An educated Palermitan, an opponent of the Mafia like few others. And yet after a few glasses of wine he fondly recalls Matteo Biondo, a small-time mafioso from the Vucciria quarter. Perhaps not even a made member.

They were friends and kissed each other on the cheek when they met, as friends do in Palermo. Matteo helped him settle a dispute after a car accident. When some visitors from Turin had their bags snatched, he got them back quickly. And above all he gave him such peace of mind that he could leave his car unlocked day and night, with everything in it. Then Matteo disappeared. Gambetta puts it briefly: “Sadly, Matteo eventually vanished.”

The man still hated the Mafia. But Matteo had pulled three splinters out of him: thefts, disputes, fear for his car. Against the organisation he had principles. Against the man who had taken away his own personal pain, he found none.

Let Him Do the Sums

The British researcher Neil Rackham and his team spent twelve years watching salesmen at work. More than thirty-five thousand sales calls. One finding is unwelcome news for talkers. In small deals, success depended little on how the salesman asked questions. In large ones, it depended a great deal. The winners were the ones who asked about consequences: what this problem drags along with it, whom it affects, what it costs.

The reason is simple. A figure you name, the client will dispute. A figure he arrives at himself, he’ll defend himself.

Tell a restaurant owner, “Your tablecloths are grey, you’re losing customers.” He’ll take offence and start arguing. Instead, ask who’s the first to see a tablecloth. The waiter. What does he do if it’s grey? Changes it, if there’s a spare. And if there isn’t? That’s where the owner goes quiet and remembers last Saturday. You didn’t claim anything. He told himself everything.

There’s one limit: you may only ask about real consequences. The man who uses questions to fan a spark into a fire isn’t asking any more. He’s setting fires.

The Fireman and the Arsonist

At his trial Salvatore Contorno explained why, as he told it, Cosa Nostra had been born: to help the poor and defenceless. People didn’t go to the carabinieri. They went to the “family” of their neighbourhood: a car stolen, a house burgled, “and we found those things for them”.

That’s a ready-made sales pitch: trouble, relief, guarantee. But Gambetta immediately shows the other side. The same Contorno told the judge how they used to track down the young men who made their living robbing in the neighbourhood. The capable ones they tried to make into men of honour. Thieves, too, were sometimes under protection. The man selling the medicine sometimes keeps a warehouse full of the disease.

The Night Before the Wedding

One evening, late, the manager of a hotel on the other side of town came running to us. A machine had broken down at their laundry. In the morning there was a wedding for two hundred, and the tablecloths were lying there dirty. He didn’t haggle. He said: name your price, I’ll pay whatever it is.

I was young, and in my head I’d already tripled the price list. The Don called the pressers in for a night shift and paid them double for the night. He charged the manager the ordinary price, with a night surcharge as a separate line. Nothing more.

He explained the surcharge to the manager in one sentence: at night people work, and they’re paid for the night. Not for the hotel having a wedding. Not for the manager being frightened. For the night.

In the morning I asked him why he’d left money on the table. The Don said: “Today he’ll pay whatever I say. Tomorrow he’ll remember what I said.”

They got their machine repaired, and the hotel kept its washing in-house. But a few years later that manager moved to a bigger hotel. His first call from the new place was to us.

The Bottom Line

When a man is in so much pain that he’s ready to give everything, charge for the work, not for the pain. Whoever sells the moment when the client isn’t counting gets one deal and loses the man.

And when it’s you in pain, notice the moment you stopped asking the price. Ask it on purpose, out loud. And take a good look at the man who’s taking the pain away. Why is it so easy for him to find your car? Doesn’t he happen to know the people who stole it?