Anne Miller | Make What You Say... Pay.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

From Dull to Dazzling

I was momentarily thrown by the surprise response I got when I called the operator at the W Hotel in LA this week to order a wake-up call for the next morning. She said, “Hello, Mrs. Miller. This is Terry....

“What is your wish?”

What is my wish? My immediate reaction was, “How about a 40% bounce in my portfolio, world peace, and thinner thighs?” However, I restrained myself, and, in a tone of voice that suggested I was accustomed to talking to tooth fairies every day, I simply asked for a 7AM wake-up ring the next morning.

So, this little exchange made me think about you, the readers of this blog. What would my “wish” be for business people at both large and small companies whose job it is to sell, present, or otherwise influence various groups of people? I think it would be that you get beyond the facts of your information and more creatively use language to bring your products, services, and ideas to life for your listeners. Consider these comments made by William Safire, who, until his death in 2009, was a political columnist for The New York Times, and also known for his popular “On Language” column in that paper’s Sunday magazine section.

“Suppose I’m describing the reaction of baseball fans on that unforgettable evening when Henry Aaron hit the home run that broke Babe Ruth’s lifetime record. I might say, ‘Aaron was given a standing ovation by fifty thousand fans. The tribute continued for at least five minutes.’ That’s accurate. It’s what happened. No doubt about it.

“But compare that description with this. ‘Fifty thousand fans sprang to their feet, clapping, screaming, cheering wildly in a pandemonium that went on for a full five minutes.’ That’s also what happened. Is there a difference?

"You bet there is. The first version tells what happened all right, but it doesn’t involve the listener. There’s no fire, no passion. …The second version paints a word picture that puts the listeners right in the stadium, making them part of the clapping, cheering crowd.”

Grant Them Their Wish

No matter what you sell, use the richness of language to put your listeners smack in the middle of the experience your products, services, or ideas will give them. Let them “see” what it will mean to use what you are selling. Use vivid language to describe the results of what your dry facts, features, metrics, analytics, or processes, mean to them. Let them get excited by the possibilities of that experience. In short, let them see their "business wishes" coming true when they work with you..When you do that for your listeners, then, your wishes for greater success and increased bottom-lines will come true as well

Execution is everything: Make What You Say Pay!

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News: My new bookt Make WhaT You Say Pay! is finally done! It will be available in hard copy as well as in an ebook version. As soon as the finishing touches on the website are done for it, I will let you know how you can sample some chapters and get a copy for yourself.

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Thursday, July 15, 2010

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men...

If speed and change are two key drivers of business today, then a third one must also be adaptability.

I was reminded of this recently, reading an article about Steve Jobs, “The Last Pitchman” in Bloomberg Businessweek. Jobs is known for many things: his great presentation skills, his amazingly cool products, and the almost manic secrecy and attendant drama he brings to the launch of every new Apple product. You will recall that that game plan was seriously challenged recently with the iPhone4, when a junior Apple engineer left a prototype on the then-unreleased iPhone4 in a California bar. Gizmodo, a popular tech blog got its hands on the device and broadcast the news about all its exciting features--which meant that there was little left for Jobs to reveal at the Apple launch event itself.

What was he going to do? What was he going to say?!

Jobs adapted to the totally unexpected situation by opening with the perfect Gizmodo incident quip. He said, “Stop me if you've seen this before”—and then demonstrated what he called “the most precise, beautiful thing we’ve ever designed.” His immediate and humorous acknowledgment of what had happened returned the show to Jobs and he had his audience’s undivided attention again.

Why do I bring this up?

Because I am constantly dismayed by sales people and other executives who seem to operate on automatic pilot when they fail to adapt to the cues and unexpected events that come at them during a presentation. This rigidity may come from fear, or lack of confidence, or lack of product/industry knowledge, but whatever the cause, the net result is to alienate a buyer/listener because you are basically saying "I don't care about you." Here are just three basic examples of “Failure to Adapt.”

Panicking in the face of changed needs. When a prospect says the needs have changed, some people plow through their presentation anyway, hoping that something they say will resonate. A waste of time and a demonstration to your buyer that you are not listening to him/her. It is wiser to adapt to this unexpected turn of events, put your prepared remarks/presentation away, ask what has changed, and be prepared to, again, adapt to what you hear. If you can still make your remarks work, fine. If not, ask for another meeting to present new ideas based on the changed needs.

Telling a client who expresses interest in Topic X to “wait” until you get there. Hey,who is buying and who is selling here?The client isn’t listening to your information in the order you planned? Adapt and either jump right to Topic X or re-assure the listener that Topic X will make more sense once he sees the background to it, or give a short response about Topic X and promise that you will be sure to go into greater detail in a minute. Then, check if that is all right. If it isn’t, adapt and jump to X.

Going past expected meeting time to get all your points in. You will never be punished for ending a meeting earlier than expected, but you will incur eternal wrath for keeping people at the table a minute longer than they signed on for. When time gets shortened, adapt and either pull out the salient points in the remaining time or ask for another meeting.

Adapt or die is a rule of nature. It applies equally to business relationships. The failure to adapt says more about how you view your buyer/listener than all the slides you brought in your deck.

Execution is everything. Make What You Say Pay!

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Tip: A friend recommends http://www.pdftoword.com - it's a free service that will convert pdfs to Word doc

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Thursday, July 08, 2010

And Where Were You on Christmas Day?

Lighten Up

You have to admire Elena Kagan during her Senate Supreme Court Justice confirmation hearing last week for her response to Senator Lindsey Graham’s annoying insistence on knowing where she was on Christmas Day...

At first, seemingly confused by the odd question, she began to answer seriously. Graham interrupted and repeated, “No. I just asked you where you were at on Christmas. Switching gears, Kagan replied, “You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant” – which caused the Senate Chamber to laugh and give her a round of applause. As the Washington Post noted, her response was “brilliant in its humor, timing, and the self-effacing manner in which it was delivered.”

In all the talk about how to succeed in business today, (appropriate) humor gets very short shrift. We live in tough times, stressful times. People like to—need to—laugh. If nothing else, it gets all those feel good endorphins jumping around inside them. Self-effacing, spontaneous humor is a welcome relief from what seems like deathlike intensity in business today. Moreover, even for just a moment, it endears you to your listeners. Nothing wrong with that. Former President Eisenhower put it well:

A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.

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A little short in the humor department? Rev it up at The Humor Project where they “seek to help people get more smileage out of their lives and jobs by applying the practical, positive power of humor and creativity.”

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Book Recommendation: On a different note,if you want quick ways to prep for sales calls, interviews, or other important meetings, you must read “Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling” by Sam Richter. Sam goes way beyond Google, Yahoo! LinkedIn and Facebook and shows you new sites and little known ways to get smart fast about people, companies, competition, and trends. Content is king on the web and knowledge is power with clients. Sam provides a road map to really useful web content to give you incremental knowledge that will help you leapfrog the competition.

Execution is everything: Make What You Say Pay!

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Wednesday, June 30, 2010

User Friendly Conversations

When it comes to explaining your ideas to others, think women's perfume or men’s aftershave: less is better.

People are drowning in an endless flood of facts, figures, media messages, emails, interruptions, etc. To protect themselves, they are more likely to tune you out than tune you in. Therefore, make your information as user-friendly as possible.

1. Stop putting the burden on people to figure out where you are going with your discussion and start stating your key message upfront in your discussion.

2. Stop presenting laundry lists of facts and benefits and start chunking your Information into buckets. The human brain likes to organize the world in categories. (Are you Republican or Democrat? Doctor, lawyer, Indian Chief? Jazz lover or punk rocker?) E.g.,

-There are three options: The Basic, The Advanced, & The Deluxe

-Your ad would work in any of three locations: in Fashion, Travel, or Leisure editorial

-Given your objectives, we want to look at a mix of Conservative, Balanced, & Aggressive investments

3. Stop trailing off at the end of your conversation and start to repeat your message at the end to ensure retention. People remember the last thing they hear (the old rule of primacy and recency).

If people are going to tune out most of what they hear, make sure it isn’t your message that they are blocking. Remember, it isn’t how much you say. It’s how much your listeners absorb and remember.

Time is Limited: Make What You Say Pay!

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Watch this brilliant video on getting rid of excess verbiage and gobbledygook in communication.

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Recommendation: Check out Ability Commerce for all your eCommerce software needs. Their proprietary software can be the foundation of a profitable web store and their services guide you through the complexities involved with building and maintaining a strong web presence. Contact Tom Walsh (TomW@AbilityCommerce.com / 914-318-0245) for more information.

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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Negotiating Fatal Slip of the Tongue + Webinar 6/17

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

After spending millions of her own money to win the GOP senate nomination in California, Carly Fiorina may have permanently hurt her chances of winning in 2010 by her thoughtless comment on incumbent Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer’s hair: “God, what is that?...Sooo yesterday.” A slip of the tongue can be fatal not only in politics but in negotiating as well.

Think about what you say when you open a negotiation discussion. Is it something like, “I am delighted that you want to do business with us. What do we need to do to get a final agreement”? OR, is it something like, “I am delighted that you want to do business with us and am happy to work out an agreement that works for both of us.”?

If it is the former, you may not be risking millions of dollars on the deal, but you are definitely going to get less attractive terms than you would otherwise get with the latter statement. The first statement immediately puts you in a subordinate power position. It makes you sound desperate. It invites being taken advantage of and says, “Go ahead, walk all over me.”

The second statement immediately communicates equality in power positions. It suggests that the deal could fail if it is not beneficial to you as well as to the buyer. It invites a collaborative business discussion likely to lead to a fair deal for you both. It says, “Yes, we want your business, but we have pride in the value of our services and will accept an agreement only if it recognizes that value.”

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Under pressure to lower your prices? Find out how to protect your fees and your client relationships at my "Dealing With Price Pressure "Webinar: Thursday, June 17, 1-2PM Eastern Time. $99. Bonus: Save $20 with this Promotion Code 47fbc9f6. Sign up today

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Time is Limited: Make What You Say Pay!

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