Meghan called.  She was a high school senior, my daughter’s friend and highschool classmate.  She had a summer job selling for the CutCo Knife Company, and wanted to make a presentation to us in our home. 

I said, “Yes,” although my wife was uncomfortable that she might have to say, “No,” to Meghan.  So she arranged to be out of the house when Meghan arrived.

On the appointed evening, Meghan carried her hefty sales case through the front door and set up on the dining room table.   While she was unpacking her wares, she asked me if I would please get her a glass of water.  I did, and when I returned to the dining room and sat down, she asked me to get the knives we currently used and bring them in.

I went back to the kitchen and returned with the knives.  When she was all set up, she asked me, “How would you describe your current knives?”

“Old, dull and inadequate,” I said.

“Why do you say that?” she asked.  I described how hard it was to keep them sharp, how some of the blades were so old they were worn thin, and how some of the blades wobbled in their handles.

 She pulled a length of rope from her case, and asked me to cut it with my sharpest knife.

“My sharpest?  That’s not saying much,” I said, taking my grandfathers old carving knife that was probably a good 70 years old.  It had a hardwood handle.

Meghan held the rope down on a cutting board that she pulled from her bag.  “Count the movements back and forth,” she said. 

 I began to saw.  It took fourteen saws.

“Now hold it down for me,” she said.  She picked up one of her new knives from a wooden block.  I grabbed one of the lengths and held it down.  “You’re stronger than I am, but count the saws it takes me with this knife,” she said.

 It took her four.

“Let me try that,” I teased her, as if she had done something slick.  I took the knife from her while she held the rope down on the cutting board.  Expecting it to be difficult, I pressed hard with the new knife and sawed through the rope in two strokes.

 I was impressed.

Meghan asked me to bring my best pair of kitchen scissors to the table.  They were also old, and could not make a dent on the rope.  She got out her CutCo scissors, and not only cut through the rope with ease, she also cut a penny in half.

I was pretty much sold.  She gave me information about the steel and the handles.  She showed me the different sets I could buy.  My wife came home and I called her in to the dining room.  She sat down reluctantly, and I asked Meghan to do the rope trick.  She had my wife count the strokes, etc. etc. and I saw my wife change from skeptic to true believer in a matter of seconds.

“Do the scissor trick,” I said.  Meghan cut the rope and the penny.  I saw Sharon’s eyes wander over to the full set of kitchen knives displayed on the table in a butcher block case.

We ended up buying all the kitchen knives and a set of 12 steak knives.  They remain in their butcher block on the kitchen counter seven years later.
                                                         ______

Selling by telling is what most of us do.  But selling by doing is more powerful because it’s active and experiential.  You could say that conversation is also experiential (in that we experience it) but words are more likely to get caught in the filters of the mind and not reach the muscles.  

I know of one law firm that goes to major corporations who are shopping for a new legal advisor, and begins by saying, “We can do the March of a Thousand Slides, or we can have a discussion about your issues so you can get a feel for what it’s like to work with us.” 

More often than not, the clients look at each other and choose to have the discussion.   

An active audience is more likely to be moved than a passive.  Hitler knew this, unfortunately, and had his followers do their “Sieg heils,” throughout his speeches. 

Meghan was trained by a very successful company.  She got me to do things—bring water, bring knives.  She got me to say things, “Old, dull and inadequate.”  She had me cut rope, and compare the old with the new.  It was sensational—literally sensational—in that it gave me a sensation, like driving a new car after you’ve been driving your old one for 10 years.

Plus, she was Meghan, my daughter’s friend, and the daughter of my friend Merrill.  She was in a strong position to win my business. 

According to Robert Cialdini and others, there are at least 25 proven Principles of Persuasion.  Meghan may have invoked 7 in her brief visit to our dining room. 

What can we as business speakers, and as sales professionals, learn from this exchange?  Stay tuned for more. 

A few years ago, I had a procedure done in a doctor’s office in which a small camera at the end of a tube was inserted into my body for the purpose of observing the inside of my bladder (you can imagine through which aperture.)  I have never been so terrified in my life.  I was trembling and could not stop .  I was out of my mind with anxiety.

A nurse stood next to me where I lay and held my hand.  She patted my head.  She rubbed my chest.  I held her hand with my two hands and put my cheek on her hand so she wouldn’t pull away, holding it for dear life.

“You’re gong to be fine,” she kept saying.  “Shh…” she said, stroking my forehead.  She spoke to me in such a way that she recognized my fear without embarrassing me..

When it was over, she got me up off the table, and walked me naked across the floor.  She sat me down on a chair where I continued to shake.  She got me a paper cup of water and held it up to my lips and tipped the cup gently so I could drink.  She handed me my clothes, but I couldn’t put them on.  My body was rigid with anxiety.  She dressed me, helped me stand and balanced me with concentrated watchfulness.

I never knew her name, but to this day I can see her face and hear her voice.  To me she was an angel of mercy, and I’m sure she is still out there like an angel, ministering with unflinching tenderness to wimps like me.

As a student of human communication, and the president of a small New Jersey consulting firm, I am interested in the behaviors that create trust, because much of leadership, salesmanship, and interpersonal influence depend on the communicator creating trust with her listeners.    While year after year nurses are rated as the most trusted of all professions, the pharmaceutical industry is about as trusted a Big Oil, Big Tobacco, and Big Government

Lance Armstrong is alive today thanks to pharma. Magic Johnson is alive today thanks to pharma. My neighbors Donna, and Lucy are alive today thanks to pharma. Bob and Liddy Dole are enjoying themselves, thanks to pharma. For these people, and millions of others, the pharmaceutical industry has been a savior. Its remarkable rise to power during the last half of the 20th Century is paralleled only by the meteoric rise of the personal computer and the internet.  A staggering number of people alive today owe their lives to the medicines developed and distributed by pharma.  The industry not only saves lives:  It improves the quality of life for many chronically ill people, provides millions of high paying jobs, and leads the way to new discoveries that will benefit future generations.  Pharma is a savior—day after day.

But then why is pharma named in survey after survey as one of the least trusted industries in the country?  And what can the industry do to regain the trust it has lost?

Please read Charlie Green’s blog posting at www.trustedadvisor.com about this issue.  I have also copied it into a blog posting here on my site.

Charlie suggests that recovery starts with radical honesty and self-reflection.  What do you think?

Traveling to a foreign country, we will have trouble communicating with the locals if we don’t speak their language.  We may also have trouble reading their facial expressions.

Hillary Elfenbein of the University of California at Berkeley has done a study looking at local “facial dialects.”  As a management consultant, she used to notice that her colleagues were having a hard time with signals coming from people from different backgrounds–signals as basic as whether it was their turn to speak in a meeting.

In a recent paper in Emotion, she put her “facial dialect” theory to the test by comparing French speakers in Quebec to those from the African nation of Gabon.  Reflexive responses such as fear and disgust showed the least regional variation, while serenity, contempt, sadness, happiness, shame, and anger showed the most.

And in tests of recognition–on average, in-group members have about a 10 percent accuracy advantage–the expressions with the greatest cross-cultural differences proved the hardest for outsiders to interpret.

Now the U.S. Department of Defense has picked up on her work, and seeks ways to train soldiers to read expressions and gestures specific to Middle Eastern cultures.

Says Elfenbein, “This is something that can really help as our society becomes increasingly diverse.”

It can also help those of us who work in large, diverse business settings.  And when presenting, we must also be mindful of our facial dialect.

I have rarely seen a presenter in the business world whose facial dialect needs to be reined in.  Most of us need to be more expressive.  After all, there are people in the back row who want to see on your face what the information means to you.

One of my consulting firm clients came to me with a problem that surprised me.  Although they hire the most accomplished students from the most competitive colleges and B-schools, the firm is concerned about their unwillingness to speak up at meetings during their first two years.

I recognize that it’s human nature to sit back in a new setting to observe how people behave and learn how to calibrate your style to be most effective.  In fact, the film Tweleve Angry Men is a perfect example of this.  The character played by Henry Fonda is inconspicuous in the beginning, and only asks questions as he begins to participate in the deliberations of the jury on which he is serving.

I further recognize that when one is surrounded by bright, confident, assertive people, each one older and more experienced than the next, (some of whom are your bosses) it is only natural to be cautious in what you say.

Nevertheless, if you are being paid for your ability to think and communicate your thinking, you’re not doing your job if you remain silent throughout the meeting.  This client of mine told me that one of the senior executives at his client company asked, “Who was that guy you had at the meeting?  He never said anything?  Why was he there?”

This kind of overly-cautious behavior can slow down the development of good client relations because it can undermine the trust the client has placed in the consulting firm.

What can we do to help younger people feel comfortable enough to speak up in meetings with more senior colleagues, and with clients who have vastly more experience?

Here are a few ideas beyond telling the shy and the silent that if they don’t talk they’re in big trouble.

1. Become a better listener
2. Become a better questioner
3. Trust your mind.
4. Refrain from thinking while others are talking.  Just listen.  Thoughts will come.
5. Fear is misplaced attention.  Focus on what’s being said.
6. Don’t try to be the smartest person in the room.  State the obvious.
7. Dare to be dull.  Get out of the “Impressing” business.
8. Recognize that what seems obvious to you may be a revelation for others.
9. Agree and add.  You don’t have to find something to disagree with.
10. Ask questions if you don’t understand or you need clarification.
11. Enter the fray.  Get grass stains on your knees.  Have an experience.