If you watched the Amazing, Awesome Amanda Gorman, our 22-year-old National Youth Poet Laureate, at the Inauguration yesterday, then you saw an Excellent, Exciting, Example of the power of alliteration in real-time. Amanda took this literary device—the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words– to its highest level in her poem, but you don’t have to be a poet to use alliteration to advantage in your business as well. When people ask you to explain why they should hire you or what exactly you do, an initial alliterative response makes it easy for them to understand, remember, and buy into your unique value. A few business examples…
On January 6, glued to our TV sets, we watched the appalling, infuriating, and deeply unsettling attack on the State Capital by a mob of thugs. Although the facts of their actions were straightforward, people talking about the event inevitably reached for metaphors to describe what happened, once again illustrating not only the important role metaphors play in communication, but also the instinctive need we all have to frame what is new into parallel terms familiar to us. This is true in politics as well as in business. A few examples…
“One way to know you are an old dog is to stop learning new tricks!” is an old, but true, saying. And there is no better place to discover the newest “tricks” than in Top Sales World’s hot-off-the-press list of sales resources. TSW is the leading source for all things sales. (Disclaimer: I was one of the judges for the Best Sales Book category). Your time will be well spent checking these out…