WHEN WORLDS COLLIDEHe showed them his blueprints with the understanding that
since they made similar products they could gauge a realistic
price. They quoted thirty cents, which he knew was grossly under
value.
"Astonished, I repeated 'thirty cents?' That gave me away. They
quickly said, 'Well, that's for the one we're showing you. Yours
would be higher.' 'How much higher?' 'It depends.. .' We went
back and forth, like a boxing match, while they tried to psyche
me out. I got the subtext, 'It's going to be cheap, but we want to
know how high we can goose you.' In the meantime, I tried not
to give them my subtext—'I'll pay much more than you quoted.''
In Korea, my friend found two types of businesses: the very
small company, like the one he ordered the wall hooks from,
and the very large company employing up to forty thousand people.
The bigger the company, the more it resembled an American
corporation, and the easier it was for him to read the subtext.
"Talk to a Korean official running a steel factory employing ten
or twelve thousand people and it's like talking to a guy from
Pittsburgh. The text and subtext are pretty much the same."
This same man did a lot of business with Taiwan. There, he
said, you can negotiate anything, but you must also be ready to
second-guess everything. "It's a country where certainty doesn't
really exist in business. Even when it's signed, you're never sure
you have a contract.
"Now big businesses like RCA and GM have their own people
working there. They would rather not have the Chinese run the
plant. The Chinese in Taiwan are skillful, very good learners,
and can be taught to do almost anything, but I hate to do business
there no matter what the saving in labor cost. Their subtexts are
always confusing.
"For example, if you want an item for thirty cents and they