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• Here's An Idea
• Tongue Twisters
• Quick Quirky Quotes
• Free Stuff!

Here's An Idea
Ideas Have to Be Sold, Not Told
by Jerry Hocutt

When I read a book, go to a seminar, or talk with someone who makes a sales call on me, I’m looking for just one idea that makes it worth my time or worth the expense.  And that’s what people tell me they look for too.

“Give me one idea.  An idea I can use now.  An idea that will get immediate results.”

That’s what they say they want.

Don’t believe it. 

They want the idea.  But the idea has to be wrapped in an entertaining package.  The naked idea isn’t good enough. 

Today, it’s as much about how the idea is presented as it is about the idea itself.  If I read a Stephen Hawking book (which I’ve tried to do several times) this space genius leaves my mind in a black hole of emptiness.  If I attend a seminar on the miracles of mathematics, it’s like being mesmerized by Merlin.  My mind is a blank slate.  Great ideas I’m sure, but they don’t have me on the edge of my seat.

All the world’s a stage

Alan Alda (Things I Overheard When Talking to Myself) was conducting an acting class.  The actor was given a glass half filled with water and told to walk across the stage.  The actor happily skips across as the audience giggles.

But then Alda takes a pitcher and fills the glass to the very brim, where there is not a millimeter of space between the glass lip and the water. 

“Now go back across the stage and don’t spill a drop.  And if you spill even one drop, your entire village will be burned to the ground and all your people killed.”

The actor’s new responsibility changes his focus.  His trip back across the stage is tortuous.  The audience is hushed.  All 600 pairs of eyes are glued on the actor’s every step.  When one drop begins to trickle down the side of the glass, the entire audience gasps. 

After the actor reaches the table on the other side, Alda asks which trip across the stage was more involving, more interesting.  He said the difference between the two identical physical actions was in the actor’s desire, the wholehearted striving, to achieve something. 

“Dramatic action started in his brain and radiated to his toes and his fingertips.  It made every motion something we couldn’t take our eyes off.”

Alda could have simply stated this idea in his talk to the audience.  But he chose to dramatize the idea so it would be burned into their memories.

Alda said the key to acting and to writing (and I think to selling) is to ask, “What is this character after?  How is he trying to get it?”

I got it

I wish I would have seen Alda’s exhibition earlier in my career. 

Doing a recent presentation before a sold out Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce crowd, I asked Alda’s questions.

“What is the audience after?  What am I after?  How do I get it?”  The change in performance had everyone emotionally attached to the presentation.  It didn’t require a radical change in what I was doing, but nuanced changes that gave the audience a stake in the outcome.  (I converted this 30-minute chamber presentation into a free webinar you can view at www.saleswebinarsondemand.com and click on the Free Webinar link.)

Now I use Alda’s technique all the time.  When cold calling, I want to know what is the prospect after?  What am I after?  How am I going to get it?  I ask the same three questions when leaving voicemails.  When closing the deal.  When writing. 

Before undertaking any projects, I look at the glass of water on my desk and ask: “What is the customer after?  What am I after?  How do I get it?”

How about you?  When selling your service or product, when checking off your laundry list of features, advantages, and benefits, how do you sell – not tell – the idea?  What do your customers want?  What do you want?  How are you going to get it?  How you answer is how you sell.

If Stu chews shoes, should Stu choose the shoes he chews?

Gobbling gargoyles gobbled gobbling goblins.

Thirty-three thirsty, thundering thoroughbreds thumped Mr. Thurber on Thursday.

Tell Me About It
“I have had more trouble with D.L. Moody than with any other man I ever met.” – D.L. Moody

Is This the Party to Whom I’m Speaking?
“Have you ever noticed that wrong numbers are never engaged?” – Steven Wright

Politicians: Take Note!
“If you get the reputation for being honest, you have 95% of the competition already beat.” – John Kenneth Galbraith

The Fall TV Reviews Are In
“America is the only country in the world that’s still in the business of making bombs that can end the world and TV shows that make it seem like a good idea.” – Bill Maher