Hmm. I wonder what I mean by that. Well, its raining today, so I’ll tell you about what happens yesterday. Now Chuckwagon Sally is the ranch cook, and by all accounts, she passes as the trail boss, the landlord, the owner, and the cook. Those of us that inhabit the ranch live in mortal fear of Chuckwagon Sally, because of her unique personality. I’m gonna have to explain that statement a little later on, but for right now, please accept it as true. Chuckwagon Sally can bark out over a hundred orders of things to be done at a time and we all know we’d better do them as ordered or face the terrible consequences. I suppose noone every dare attempt to teach Chuckwagon Sally that it’s better to do one thing at a time, get it done and then go on to the next project. All you have to do is visit the ranch and see a slew of 1/2 complete projects scattered around the landscape to understand. Now, don’t get me wrong, Chuckwagon Sally can cook with the best of them,, I’ll try and get her secret recipe for real Texas Chilli. After you eat it, you’ll never eat store bought Chilli again. But back to my story… Now yesterday, Chuckwagon Sally and I went to town to lay in supplies at the general store, you know Sam’s Club. Here’s where the story gets interesting. As we are walking down the isles of this general store, folks that work there are offering “free” samples of food and other items to try. It appears that they have gone to great trouble to fix a meal for the customers, I guess to show how easy it is to do, or how wonderful it will taste. I imagine they do that only on their slow moving stock, I never notice them giving out free samples on items that sell regularly. Without thinking, I reach out and sample one of the items and say a polite thank you to the clerk. The clerk goes on to tell me that they “Sams Club” is offering for sale the product I just sample. I didn’t need this item and decline to buy it. Now about this time, Chuckwagon Sally comes up to me and says,, why did you do that? Why did you take that sample? I say, well Sally it’s free and besides the clerk went to so much trouble preparing it. Well, Chuckwagon Sally immediately sets me straight. She spouts off about some principle of marketing, I didn’t know. Sally explains to me the principle of obligation used by all the great salespeople everywhere. It goes something like this, Sally explains,,, that if you accept something from someone for free, you owe them a favor. Now that didn’t make much sense, but Sally persists in her theory. Sally says, just stand over here and watch what happens.. We take up our position where we can readily see what’s going on, but are downwind of these unsuspecting folks so they won’t notice us watching. I first notice a number of people just pass by when the nice “new friend I just made” clerk offers these strangers some samples and say no thank you. But I also notice that a number of people accept this “free” gift and listen to the sales talk. That’s not so bad, I think, they listen to someone who gave them something for free and move on. Now what suprises me most are those people who actually purchase the product they probably don’t even need. Surely this principle will never work on anyone,,, yet it works suprisingly well. How many people buy the things they do not need, just because someone offered them a “free sample”? Well, next time you and your bride go to shopping for supplies, just watch,, you’ll find it amazing. No wonder Judges are always quick to say from their perch on high,, never accept anything from the litigants or lawyers, no matter how small…. But back to our adventure. Now we get back to the ranch, unload our supplies and Chuckwagon Sally gets a phone call from her sister in Georgia. It is soon apparent to us here at the ranch that Chuckwagon Sally’s sister is coming to visit the ranch over Christmas. The men and I have our immediate task before us, we must build a cabin for Chuckwagon Sally’s sister to stay in. Luckily, we just happen to be building one. Now, here’s where it gets complicated, We want Chuckwagon Sally’s sister to get the real Texas treatment. You know, all the things that might mean something to “city folk” who want to live the country life. So the men and I decide to build a 2 seater privy for Chuckwagon Sally’s sister to go along with her “rustic” cabin. Nothing but the best. For those of you “city folk” that don’t know what a privy is, I’ll tell you. It’s a outdoor toliet,, not exactly a portapotty. It’s permanent, and usually found at campsites. Anyway, Chuckwagon Sally comes over to the construction site and tells Pepe, the construction crew boss, how to build the cabin the right way, or something like that. You have to understand, Pepe is a very proud man, who takes his job very seroiusly,, Pepe actually knows how to build things and how not to build things. Something Chuckwagon Sally said must have gotten Pepe’s hockles up, because when I look at the finished privy, I notice the rough side of the board making the seat is up and the smooth side is down. You never know how uncomfortable that makes the user,,, but I suppose Pepe did. Hence my important jury lesson for today. Never be like Chuckwagon Sally in front of a jury,,, you can have all the education, understand all the psychology of people, have all the common sense and the superior intellect, even have the greatest argument, but if you piss off the jury, they’ll give you rough side up for your client. You’d better hope your lawyer knows about Chuckwagon Sally. Hope everyone has a nice day.
