Are You Really Selling Your Point?

When I started work in the editorial department of a popular kids’ magazine, the company’s president decided to have a professional sales trainer teach all of us the basics of closing a deal. Those of us in editorial thought this was a waste of our time — sales is the business of our marketing and ad sales staff, not writers and editors, right?

He wasn’t Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross, but pretty close. But the president was right, and we were wrong.

We were all in the business of selling. Some of us were selling magazine space; others were selling something even more valuable: ideas.

Here are ways to make sure you’re selling and not just sharing your ideas.

Too many speakers don’t deliver speeches; they deliver book reports. You remember these from school — presentations that simply describe a subject but rarely make an argument.

Book reports can take many forms in a workplace, from status reports to internal presentations to sales pitches. In each one, information is shared and even explained, but nothing is truly proposed or sold.

One clear sign of a share is this common opening:

“Today, I want to talk a little about X.”

Is this person selling anything? Seems like they’re not, based on that introduction. Apparently, all he wants to do is throw out a few words and ideas and mix them with others’ words and ideas in the blind hope that some of them will stick and magically produce an action step.

Compare that to this seller’s opening statement:

“Today, I’m going to show you why doing X will lead to Y.”

Consider the following example:

A former client of mine was in the business of selling branded merchandise like hats, brochures, signs, and pins, all featuring a client’s logo. I asked her to give me her best sales pitch. She laid out all her products and began to describe each one:

“See this hat? This hat will never collapse, is fully adjustable, and can feature your logo permanently stitched to the front. See this pin? It can feature a three-color logo and has a magnetic backing so it won’t ruin a shirt or jacket. This banner is made from special material that will resist liquids and wrinkles, and your logo can go all over it…”

She went on like that until she had no more items to describe.

I looked at her and told her she did a great job describing these products (think: book report), but there was one thing I never heard her say:

“If you buy my services, more people will be exposed to your brand, which will bring more people to your product, which will bring you more money.”

Often, I find the easiest way to make sure you’re selling a point is to incorporate one of three “power phrases”:

The brilliance of these simple phrases is that they force the creation of a true point and, typically, a value proposition. As a result, people who use these power phrases are often seen as leaders — and eventually become them.

Insert these phrases when you communicate with your employees as well as supervisors. You’ll find your meetings ending with not just action steps but true momentum.

I visited a community fair a few months ago and beelined to a table run by my local animal shelter. Behind the table were three women, all in deep discussion about how many litter boxes you need for three cats. As I approached, they continued their conversation. Finally, I introduced myself.

“Hi,” one replied.

“So, how are things going at the shelter? Are you crowded?”

“Not too bad right now, thankfully.”

“Could you tell me about the shelter?”

She then told me where the shelter is, how many animals they have, their hours of operation, and their policies and numbers. When she was finished, she said, “Would you like a pin?”

I took the pin and left as they continued swapping cat stories.

Think of everything they could have encouraged me to do — sold me — on behalf of their driving mission:

None of those outcomes happened because they were too busy sharing– and waiting for the opportunity to fall into their laps — and not doing any selling.

This doesn’t mean every part of a presentation needs to be in the form of a sell — you can certainly provide data, stories, examples, history, humor, information, definitions, visuals and other elements that support your point. But when you hit the moment of delivering your most important takeaway, know that it deserves to be sold, not shared.

Joel Schwartzberg is the Senior Director of Strategic and Executive Communications for the ASPCA . A former national champion public speaker, Joel has been training corporate and individual clients to communicate more effectively since 2006.

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