Practical Eloquence Blog |

Book Recommendation: It’s Not All about “Me”

By Jack Malcolm / 2.5.2014 / 2 Comments

One of the key themes of this blog is outside-in thinking, so it’s no surprise that a book entitled, It’s Not All About Me: The Top Ten Techniques for Building Quick Rapport with Anyone, caught my attention.

As an FBI agent, Robin Dreeke used these techniques to gain quick rapport in order to get people to open up to him, sometimes revealing far more than they expected to. I doubt many of my readers are trying to cultivate undercover informants, but it’s a useful skill to have in sales and just about any persuasive communication.

Many of the techniques will be familiar to the average reader of this blog, and many are common sense, albeit of the kind which we need to constantly reinforce and practice to turn them into productive habits. Examples are #5, suspending your ego so you don’t always have to win or be right, and #6, validating others to make them feel important, particularly by improving your listening attitude and skills.

But there are also many useful tips which were new to me (and I’ve read a lot on the topic, ranging from beginning with Dale Carnegie, through Daniel Goleman and most recently to Neffinger and Kohut), especially since the book is filled with anecdotes illustrating the use of each technique in real life. One example is technique #1, establishing artificial time constraints. When you approach a stranger to strike up a conversation, they generally feel uncomfortable because they don’t know how much of their time you’re going to take up. You can sometimes get people to put down their guard if you show or tell them up front that you’re only going to take up a quick bit of time.

It’s possible that some of these things could be seen as “manipulative”, but that depends on your intent. If you genuinely take an interest in the other person and have their best interests in mind, using the techniques will leave them feeling better for having talked to you, and that is a win for all concerned.

To put this book into the larger context of the sales world, the publication of The Challenger Sale ignited a debate about the relative effectiveness of challenger selling vs. relationship selling. While I personally give a slight edge to challenger selling, I don’t see any reason at all that they should be mutually exclusive. Relationships may not be all-important in B2B sales[1], but they certainly are important, and you don’t have to be disliked to deliver challenging insights about the customer’s business. Besides, if they like you, they are more likely to listen in the first place.

[1] As the old saying goes in sales: “If you want a friend, get a dog.” I have two, so what does that say about me?

Presentations

Ditch the Logos

By Jack Malcolm / 2.4.2014 / 1 Comment

How many times have you seen a sales presentation where the slides were plastered with so many different logos and designs that you feel like you’re watching a car race? The marketing people will hate me for this, but I recommend that you remove your corporate logos whenever possible from your sales presentations, because they don’t do what you want them to do and they can even sap your persuasiveness.

The unspoken premise behind prominently featuring logos is that there is some correlation between persuasiveness and the number of logo-to-eyeball strikes. What can it hurt to have your corporate name imprinting in their minds while you’re talking? That kind of reasoning is why the average Westerner sees 3,000 corporate logos a day, according to The Economist. If that ubiquity worked as intended, why would a recent poll involving 700 brands reveal that over 90% of them could disappear and no one would care?

The same article noted that trust in brands has been diminishing for three decades, which in my opinion is caused by the sheer overload of commercial art on our consciousness. It has to spark some sort of unspoken resistance. The minute someone starts touting themselves we go into a defensive mode. Sure, there are some brands that buck the general trend, but chances are yours isn’t one of them.

In addition, Richard Mayer’s studies have shown that the removal of extraneous visual elements can improve retention and transfer up to 105%.[1] So if you want your listeners to remember and act on your message when they make a decision, it might help, and it certainly won’t hurt, to take off anything that does not directly contribute to the message you intend to deliver.

If your logo can’t convey a brand identity during your presentation, what can? Here’s a novel idea: how about the presence, professionalism and knowledge of the presenter?

[1] Multimedia Learning, Richard E. Mayer, p. 143.

Uncategorized

Short Term Gain, Long Term Pain

By Jack Malcolm / 2.3.2014 / No Comment

It only hurts for a little while

I had one of those moments this weekend that vividly reminded me of something salespeople know is true but often don’t do a good enough job of reminding their customers.

I rolled out the bottom section of our dishwasher to load some dishes but didn’t pay close attention to what I was doing, because I was startled by a loud crash as the whole section jumped its tracks and rolled onto the floor.

My wife came running into the kitchen attracted by the first noise, which was of course immediately followed by some forcefully expressed choice words. My first coherent sentence was “This thing is a piece of crap! That’s what I get for not spending a little more for the next level up.”

Then the thought hit me that if I had paid a premium for the dishwasher when I bought it, the pain of the higher price might have lasted until I paid the credit card bill, but that’s the last time I ever would have thought about it. Yet, because I made the cheap decision, I’m reminded of it almost every day. The pain lingers in the form of dissatisfaction, frustration and workarounds. I didn’t know it at the time, but paying a lower price once continues to cost me now.

It’s obviously a simple point, but one that we need to constantly remind our customers (and ourselves) every time they’re tempted to try to save a little in the short run by compromising on the things that will cost them much more in the long run. Short term gain, long term pain.

Presentations

The Hard Core Method to Make Over a Broken Presentation

By Jack Malcolm / 1.31.2014 / 1 Comment

I was once asked to work with a team of engineers who were slated to deliver presentations at an upcoming conference. I asked to see their existing slide decks before I showed up and was dismayed to see that they averaged 863 words per presentation for a 30 minute talk. Every presentation contained tons of information but very little explanation, and almost no persuasion.

So when they showed up for the workshop, expecting to deliver their presentations and get a few cosmetic suggestions for changes, I made them start from scratch and do a complete makeover. I told them to craft a 3-minute version of their 30-minute presentations. Although they almost mutinied, they finally agreed to humor me and set to work. They struggled, but the exercise got them to strip out everything that was not central to their message, and clearly exposed the structure of their logic. At the end of that exercise, they were feeling pretty good about themselves—until they heard their next assignment: to craft a 30-second version.

If you’re remodeling an existing structure, occasionally “a little putty and paint will make it what it ain’t”. But sometimes the existing structure is so flawed that your only hope is to tear it down to its foundation and frame and start over. What’s the best way to do this? Envision a scenario where you show up for your presentation and the key decision maker tells you that he unexpectedly has to leave for the airport, so could you please give him the two minute version? What would you say and how would you say it?

The core message is not that hard if you look at it as the answer to two questions in the listener’s mind:

What do you want me to do?
Why should I?

If you can get it down to a crisp, hard core, building it back to a much longer presentation is easier to do, as you add stories, compelling evidence, and “nice-to-knows”. But this time, everything fits, and everything you add is in support of the one simple message.

What if you can’t get it down to a hard core message? Call in sick.