Having read some excellent posts from Guy Kawasaki and noting how ubiquitous his name is in marketing circles, I bought this book with high expectations. It did not meet my expectations.
The book reminded me of one of those food sampler baskets you get at Christmas. A few items are very nice, most are palatable but forgettable, and some are kind of funky, to put it kindly. Let’s call them the good, the average, and the ugly.
Just one more question…
One of the easiest mistakes for a presenter to make is to use language that your audience does not understand. Two of the most common ways to do this are using specialized jargon and using sports analogies. However, there is another problem which was brought home to me during today’s presentations class: the use of terms that only your generation understands.
I was telling the group that a good way to keep their presentations concise is to front-load their message by giving the headline and then the key points first, and then adding additional detail as necessary—just as a newspaper article is written. One of the participants said, “What’s a newspaper?” Of course, she said it tongue-in-cheek, but then she added seriously that many of her peers do not read newspapers, and haven’t for a long time. So, my analogy did not have the effect I thought it would have.
What are you proud of? When you go home and talk about what you did that day, what do you say? If you were to run into a respected former teacher, what would you talk about?
Pride is one of the most powerful motivators in human endeavor. People will do things that are against their objective self-interest because of it; they will dare great things because of it; they will persevere in the face of pain, exhaustion and ridicule for it; they will die for it.
Pride resides in the top of Maslow’s pyramid, in esteem and self-actualization needs. Pride is the bedrock of intrinsic motivation, which is the only way you can truly “persuade” someone—all else is merely a commercial transaction.
In business, “An intrinsic feeling of pride based on the relentless pursuit of worthwhile endeavors is a lasting and powerful motivating force,” as Jon Katzenbach reminds us in Why Pride Matters More than Money.
Such a powerful tool should definitely be in your toolbox for persuasive speeches, but its very power means that it must be handled with extreme care.
There are many sources of pride. It can be individual pride, such as rising to a challenge, or sticking with personal values in spite of sacrifice, or doing the right thing for other people, or professional pride in work well done.
For speakers, group pride is even more important than individual pride, because our success as a species is a direct result of our ability to work collectively. In addition, the specialization inherent in a modern economy means that getting things done almost always requires group effort.
History if full of magnificent examples of pride appeals. Themistocles appealed to personal and Athenian pride and convinced its richer citizens to build the triremes that saved western civilization at Salamis. More recently, Churchill used it masterfully in his “Finest Hour” speech. JFK told us that we choose to go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
One of the best—albeit fictional—examples is Henry V’s speech before the battle of Agincourt—but when Shakespeare is your speechwriter, how can you go wrong?
Probably nowhere is the pride appeal more commonly used than in sports, however. The pre-game speech is practically a requirement for any self-respecting sports movie. You can easily lose yourself in the countless examples to be found on YouTube, so for those pressed for time, I suggest this one: Forty Inspirational Speeches in Two Minutes.
More seriously, when you examine those speeches, they contain several basic elements:
First, the purpose of the pride appeal is not really to motivate your listeners; it is to remind them of the reason they need to motivate themselves. You can do this by reminding them of what they have achieved and earned through sacrifice and hard work, and what makes them special. But you can’t stop there, because that can lead to complacency or arrogance. The essence of persuasion is making your audience aware of a gap that they feel they have to close. And by stressing that all eyes are on them, it leaves them no choice but to rise to the occasion.
The gap can be a positive one, such as they have come this far but they are capable of more, or their hard work has earned them this opportunity to take the final step: From Miracle on Ice, “Great moments are born from great opportunity, and that’s what you have here tonight. That’s what you’ve earned here tonight.”
The gap may be a negative one: those guys out there want to take that away from you. From Rudy, “No one comes into our house and pushes around.”Because losses tend to loom larger in our minds than equivalent gains, negative framing can be very effective. Scaring—or even shaming—your audience can be very effective, but only if they have confidence that they can deal with the threat. In We Are Marshall, the coach tells his team that the other team is bigger, faster, and more experienced…but they don’t have the heart that the Marshall players have.
Extensive use of the word we: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers…” This word draws a circle that brings you and the audience together and makes everyone feel special, and united in their determination.
A call to action: up to this point you have revved up the engine; it’s time to point your audience in the right direction and let them go. They will do the rest.
Keep in mind that the emotional power of the pride appeal means it must be handled with great care. Dale Carnegie said, “The appeal to pride if done skillfully, has a force only a trifle less potent than TNT.” By implication, it can backfire if done clumsily. Make sure you know your audience and strike the right tone.
You have to know your audience. Individuals and groups take pride in different things. Once a competitor of mine tried to appeal to the national pride of his audience (his compatriots), and it backfired on him because they took pride in their globalism. Before a presentation, do your homework, research their history, but also test your initial findings against reality. For example, you might find the company’s vision and values on their web site, only to find that when you appeal to those during your presentation that the listeners are very cynical about them. Get someone from the target group to give you inside information on what people are proud of and what they will respond to.
Strike the right tone. In general, it’s better to undershoot than to overdo it. It does not have to be the chest-beating pride you see in sporting events. Even a subtle reminder of what they stand to gain or lose can spur powerful emotions, but overdoing it might cause people to be embarrassed and react against your efforts. For a humorous example of what happens when you don’t connect check out Bluto’s speech in Animal House.
In closing, let me remind you what is at stake for all of us who have been given the privilege of addressing an audience to move them to worthwhile action. Through hard work, long preparation, knowledge and passion, we have earned the opportunity to make the world a better place. All eyes are on us. Let’s make them proud.
Do you believe it’s important to ask questions during a sales call? How many questions do you typically ask? What do you ask about? How does it work for you? Do you see any downsides? Do you think prospects appreciate your questions or do they get tired of them? Do you have questioning fatigue yet?
No one believes more strongly than I do in the power and usefulness of questions during the persuasive process, and those who’ve been through my sales questioning module might think I’ve gone daft when I say this, but I also believe it’s possible to have too much of a good thing. Asking too many questions can limit the transfer of information and the productivity of the conversation, and foster a defensive and even adversarial atmosphere.
Questions are not an end in themselves; they are a means to an end. Besides extracting information, the ultimate purpose of questions in a sales call (or any persuasive attempt) is to lead the prospect to the conclusion that they need your solution. You do this by guiding the conversation towards gaps in their current situation, exposing the costs of not taking action, and jointly agreeing on an approach. Think of the conversation as a dance, in which you guide your partner; it’s not a wrestling match in which you are trying to impose your will on them.
To mix in another metaphor, asking too many questions during a persuasive conversation is like stepping on the brakes and making a large turn of the steering wheel any time you want to turn the conversation. As with a car, when it’s rolling in the right direction, a slight pressure on the wheel will nudge it back on course without losing momentum. These slight nudges often take the form of simple open-ended statements and brief probes rather than elaborate open-ended questions.
When the conversation turns into a question and answer session, it can limit the productivity of the conversation because the client may turn passive—like a sulky teenager they will simply give you what you ask for (if that) and nothing more. So, unless you ask exactly the right questions you’re going to leave a lot at the table.
How to use “non-questions” to guide the conversation
There is nothing wrong with preparing an extensive questions list before a call, but don’t get so attached to your questions that you have to ask every one as written. Sometimes a very good first question will get the prospect talking and then you can move the conversation along from there. Your open and closed prepared questions are two indispensable tools in your persuasive toolkit, but they’ll work even better when you add these others:
Begin with a value proposition and agenda. Some of the most productive and profitable sales calls I’ve ever been on involved the customer talking for most of the call with very few questions from me. They gave me the information I needed and more importantly said the things aloud that convinced them they needed my solution. The best way to make this happen is by making it clear to them up front what you hope to accomplish from the meeting—for their benefit—and how you will proceed. The value proposition lets them know they may have a problem/opportunity and you have a solution, and the agenda describes a logical topic flow that will get them there.
Another useful tool is a brief “pre-summary” of what you know about their situation, which you can use to prime the pump and let them add or correct as necessary. You might say, “In order to save you time, would it be OK to give you a brief summary of what I’ve learned about your situation and let you add to it as necessary?”
You can also have a nice change of pace by using open-ended statements instead of questions. Instead of asking the question directly, say “I wonder how it would help if you could…”, “I’m curious about…”
A variation of the open-ended statement is a polite command. “Tell me about your…”
There is an entire set of tools under the rubric of reflective listening[1] that comprise a low-key way of guiding the conversation, including:
Simple silence works surprisingly well. Often the best part of an answer is what the client says after their initial answer. When you have an extensive question list you’ll be tempted to note the answer and go on to the next question. But if you leave room at the end of the answer, even just a second or two of silence, you may be surprised what else comes out.
Of course, it’s also possible to overdo the non- questions. Ideally, you want to mix things up so the conversation stays fresh.
Changing something as fundamental as your conversational style is hard, so just try to be conscious of using variety in the ways you gain information and guide the conversation. I wonder what a difference it would make in your next sales call…
[1] Experts in motivational interviewing, which is a process that clinical psychologists use to guide clients to their own conclusions, typically use a 2:1 ratio of reflective statements to questions.
