We'll Make Millions. What's Your Name?

The basic concept is to break the mold. They are working in a store, they sell clothes or shoes, and they are bored out of their minds. When a guy walks in with something totally out of the ordinary, they are immediately put off balance and allowed to leave the Employee mindset. If that same person connects with them, he can easily close a number or date.

A friend and I were out recently and passed a store in whose window were naked mannequins with silver hearts around their private parts. I laughed and said we should go in and try to buy them. My friend said let's do it.

So we opened the door and walked in, spotted HB_Yoga, and I immediately opened:

Me: Hey, we saw those heart shaped silver things, where can we buy them ?

HB: Heart shaped, what ?

Me: Outside in the stand, we want those heart shaped silver things on the mannequins.

HB: (Bursts out laughing.) We don't sell those.

Me: That's false advertising. You have to sell them, they would be super popular.

HB: (Laughs.)

Me: Does your company have a way of submitting ideas ? We should totally submit it as an idea.

HB: Yeah, we do, actually. (She walks to the other side of the store and takes out a form.)

Me: This is wonderful, I'm sure they'll sell really well, we could be really rich.

Friend: Why would we give it to them when we can make our own ?

Me: (Laugh.) He's so right, we should start our own company instead of giving it to them. With eBay and Twitter we'll be unstoppable. We'll make millions. What's your name?

HB: (Gives her name.)

Me: You, me, and my friend should start our own.

HB: I guess if we have a string to tie them it could work.

Me: Or we could use Potassium Iodine, human glue.

HB: Wait, Potassium Iodine? That doesn't glue, it's the thing you put on before surgery.

Me: It does glue. Are you a nurse ? (Neg.)

HB: Maybe when it dries. I'm actually a Researcher.

Me: What field ?

I ignore the test and talk about how one university was very competitive and people weren't very nice, but another has a program that focuses more on working as a team (DHV). She tells me she's from Barcelona, and she is new here and trying to meet people (hint).

I notice her co-worker checking out the conversation (protection of her reputation). The coworker is almost done with her clients. I tell her we need to go, we have to go to dinner.

Me: Give me your number and we'll talk some more.

HB: Great. (Enters her number.)

Me: (Talk a little more, then tell her we have to go, and we leave.)

It would have been better to stay in set a little more after we got the number to build on it. But I felt the rapport was very strong, she was very enthusiastic, made comments about how cool it was that we came in and asked about this stuff, how most people are boring, how she's new to the city and she is trying to meet new people ... these were all hints to me.

The interaction was extremely smooth. I went from funny to serious in very smooth transition and used active listening to hook on the fact that she knew what Potassium Iodine was (very critical for building rapport).