Challenge: How do you make dry, technical explanations or serious strategic recommendations resonant and memorable beyond the basic facts so that people will feel the way you want them to feel and/or take action after listening to you? One solution: Use compelling closing metaphors to wrap up your point. Here are three examples.
Hello, everyone. After nearly ten years of posting, I find it is time to retire my ‘Make What You Say Pay!” Blog, although my monthly Metaphor Minute newsletter and my online presentation coaching and consulting work with start-ups, salespeople, marketers, and executives are all continuing full-force.
Over the years, I have appreciated your support and generous comments about the Blog, which was designed to help you open minds, close business and wow crowds, whether you sell and present one-on-one, one-to-a-group, in-person or on-line.
Again, many, many thanks for stopping by and reading what I had to say. I hope you found the posts as helpful as I enjoyed writing them.
If you missed any of these posts, below are some of the most popular (and still timely) ones from each year.
What do you spend your marketing time thinking about? When you ask life insurance marketing guru Lynn Lavender that question, she’ll tell you she spends a lot of time trying to create compelling social media posts. She knows that compelling posts strengthen her brand and help bring in business. How does she make them compelling?
“I think of creative analogies and then create a graphic that reinforces that analogy or metaphor.”
The sources for Lynn’s metaphors and analogies are all around her (and us). You just have to make the connections between them and your content. Lynn’s examples below may inspire you to do the same for your business.
When the stakes are high, strong presentation strategy is a necessity, not a luxury. That strategy was in full display this week when Ukraine’s President Zelensky addressed the U.S. Congress on Wednesday. Not to minimize the seriousness of his talk, here are three lessons for all presenters to take away from his speech.
Confused by cryptocurrencies? Baffled by the Blockchain? Bewildered by Bitcoin? You are not alone–which is why Sonia Dumas is so much in demand.
Sonia Dumas is a cryptocurrency educator who regularly shares ideas about how to leverage the digital wealth shift powered by crypto, or better known as Web 3.0. No surprise, metaphors are her go-to communication tools for explaining this complex phenomenon to clients and readers. She knows the quickest way to help people understand something new or complex is to help them “see” it and what are metaphors if not words that create instantly understood pictures in our minds?
See how she does it.
A phony check is cashed. Who wrote it? An anonymous bullying letter is found on a desk at work. Who left it there? A suspicious Last Will and Testament is contested in court. Is the signature legitimate? Plots from CSI? No. These are the daily (and fascinating) challenges faced by forensic handwriting analyst Jacqueline Joseph, who is often called in to do analyses in cases that can involve millions of dollars, jail terms, and even career life or death. In her work Jacqueline frequently uses metaphors to explain what she does.
Two people I recently coached from two different start-ups made the same error in their PowerPoint presentations, so, if you show PPTs in your online client meetings or webinars, I thought I would share this tip with you.
Two people I recently coached from two different start-ups made the same error in their PowerPoint presentations, so, if you show PPTs in your online client meetings or webinars, I thought I would share this tip with you.
As the new year begins, it is common to identify target accounts. When marketing guru Jim Nowakowski was asked what is the optimal number of leads to shoot for, he says he was reminded of this (true) story which both literally and metaphorically made his point. See if you agree and what the implications may be for growing your own business in 2022.
Do you have any idea what “synchronized organizational hardware” is or what “compatible logistical mobility” means? Do you want to know more about either? Probably not and neither does anyone else—except maybe the person who created these names. In an age of short attention spans, many choices, and increasing complexity, keeping names and processes, simple has never been more important. Business strategist and marketing guru Jim Nowakaski drives this point home in this entertaining, but quite important, post for successful business communication.
(First appeared December 2018. Still timely.)
If the holiday season is, as the song says, the most wonderful time of the year, this year, it can also be one of the most treacherous. Why? Because as we get together with our families, politics in these contentious times is likely to come up in discussion. Rare is the family (or group of friends) where everyone agrees on current events. So, how do you avoid turning political discussions into deeply entrenched battles that leave everyone bloodied, angry, and defiant?