What you like, not what everyone wants

In a carpet shop in Doha, a customer runs his hand over a pale rug and shakes his head. Nobody wants a light colour, he says. It shows every mark. Everyone wants dark.

The shopkeeper could argue. He sold three pale rugs last week, to households with no small children and a love of morning light. He could explain that there is a buyer for every colour on his walls, and that he stocks them because people ask for them.

But winning that argument would not sell anything. The customer is not really making a claim about the whole of Qatar. He is telling the shopkeeper, in the only way that came to mind, what he wants in his own sitting room.

That is useful information. It is just dressed up as a law of nature.

We all do this. We take what suits us, the speed we like, the amount of noise we can bear, the level of fuss we want around a purchase, and talk about it as though everyone shared it. It feels more persuasive that way, and it does the opposite, because it turns a request into a debate.

He is entitled to his taste, and the shop exists to serve it. But "I prefer darker ones, the children are young" can be answered in a minute. "Nobody wants light" can only be argued with.

The good shopkeeper does not take the bait. He hears the preference hiding inside the generalisation, pulls out the dark rugs, and asks how big the room is.

The customer would have been helped sooner the moment he spoke only for himself.