Why does the average person so ignorant?

The English language is the common language which separates us all. It never ceases to amaze me how we English speakers abuse the language. This  blog is both a blog and smile maker in one. I hope you enjoy it.

Common English Gaffes:

Private school:
No trespassing without permission.

Hotel bedroom, Japan
Guests are requested not to smoke or do other disgusting behaviours in bed.

Doctor’s surgery, Rome:
Specialist in women and other diseases.

Cocktail lounge, Norway:
Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.

Hotel air conditioner instructions, Japan:
Cooles and heates: if you want condition of warm air in your room, please control yourself.

Zoo, Hungary:
Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.

Restaurant, Nairobi:
Customers who find our waitresses rude ought to see the manager.

Car rental brochure, Tokyo:
When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigour.

River highway:
Take notice: when this sign is under water, this road is impassable.

Poster:
Are you an adult that cannot read? If so, we can help.

Restaurant:
Open seven days a week, and weekends too.

Got comments or questions ? Just leave your comments here.

The Art of Persuasive Communication

Have you ever wished you could share information in a way that really motivates the listener to act, to buy or to use you and your services? It’s not secret. It’s just The Art of Persuasion.

The Art of Persuasive Communication

There are volumes written on the subject, but let’s break it down to 3 basic components.

First, what is your unique proposition or point you are trying to get across? Want a travel agent to carry your package or use your service? You need to prepare some valid reasons why your service, product, package AND why YOU are worth more or will bring a higher return. Do NOT tell the people listening to you all the details or all the facts. EVERY travel supplier will do that and you will just another lump of ‘something’ in the rojak.  Instead, focus on what the listener will get out of using your services or how much more they can make with you; how much easier it will be to resell your product or service. For example:

What can you do that no others can do?

What have other travel buyers loved about what you are offering? Who is paying more for similar offers in the industry but getting less?

How will the listener end up with more money, time, power, love, praise, joy, satisfaction or recognition by listening to you and buying what you are offering?

For example, we worked with Cragun’s Resort and Conference Centre in the USA. Their #1 complaint from travel agents was that they had no golf course while their top 5 competitors each owned a course. We got them thinking and in we determined that guests staying at one of their competitors needed 5 to 10 minutes to drive to the golf club from their lodging. For Cragun’s, it took them 5 minutes to 18 minutes to drive to ANY of their competitor’s club houses.  In an instant, they went from not having a golf course to offering 5 of the best courses at a discount. Their growth was exponential. They now bought out a competitor and built two more Trent Jones golf courses on that site.
Spending a few minutes to several hours thinking about what you have to offer and coming up with tangible answers will help you form a better and more unique proposition. If you can’t think of a unique proposition, you will never be able to persuade an intelligent buyer.

The second point is that communication is about both listening and presenting. Talking too fast, too slow or too much, can ruin a presentation. Likewise, emphasizing the wrong points or not emphasizing the key points can be disasterous. If you want to persuade others to use your service, work with you, support your team or follow your lead, think SET: Show – Emotion – Tell.

SHOW what you want to get across visually. PowerPoint®, posters, pictures, props, brochures, video. ANYTHING visual. 35% of the population are visual learners and will be persuaded if you can show them visually what you want them to agree to.

Then TELL the listener the reasons why it makes sense. Explaining every slide, graph, prop in detail, but not minutia. 25 % of population are persuaded in auditory terms.

Connect the SHOWING and TELLING with EMOTIONAL stories or reasons to trigger a response. “The last person I shared this with ended up with a nice ang bao to bring home to his family because…” Catch the drift on emphasizing some personal profit someone else received and if visuals and the words support the EMOTION, you have a pretty good chance of persuading the listener.

The third point, in ‘sales terminology’ is simply to, “ask for the order.” Never say, `What do you think?` That is cerebral. You want them to act. Best: “Then, with your approval, I will go forward with this so we can begin making you money; improving your selection; helping you win market-share; improve team morale as soon as possible.” It is assumptive and closes the communication.

Caution: Do not accept, “Let me think about it.” or “I will take it under consideration.” These are the same as NO! If someone wants to think about it, say, “Wouldn’t it be better to think about it while I am here so if you have any questions, I can share the reasons why you should…?”  or, from my friend Jeff Thull, “In other words, NO!” It is usually as hard for someone to say `no` as it is to say `yes`. If they say `no`, always ask `why` and push for specifics. If they have a valid reason, at least you know why. If not, it gives you another reason to push again for their agreement.

Learn the secrets of argumentation and persuasion to ensure results.

How to Get Support for Your Ideas

Here are 3 suggestions on how to get support for your ideas:

Input: Did you ever notice how parents often blindly support their children? Giving birth and devoting countless hours to raising a child will do that to you. If you want people to support your ideas, you must allow them to go through child birth and rearing their young.

The birthing process of ideas involves input, planning and nurturing. The rearing process is pruning and watching pet projects take root and grow. The sooner and the longer you get people involved in the planning  and implementation of a project, the more they will `mother’  it, buying into its potential.

Immediate Benefits: `Achieve our team targets and the boss will get a fat increment (raise) and a promotion.` Does that sound like a motivator? For the boss maybe but not the team which needs to see immediate benefit for their efforts.

Compare that with, `Achieve our team targets and ALL of us will get a trip to X and a check for $Y PLUS individual efforts will be recognized by an additional $Z bonus.`The individuals have a reason to excel and to see that the team succeeds.

A mentor of mine in the 1970`s Clem Peterson, owned Century Manufacturing. He told me many times his sales people made a lot more money than he did. He was HAPPY to support his sales people this way; one reason he was a multi-millionaire.

Asking: Being asked instead of being told is the third way to get support. Many top performers are more than willing to help their organisation grow knowing in the long run it will help them too. Unfortunately bosses are busy and many times do not take the time to ASK them to perform but TELL them.  

Which sounds better to you?
1. Our goal is to reduce overhead by 21% this quarter while increasing market share by 8.5%. Get busy and do it please.

2. It is a tough goal to reach, but if we can reduce overhead by 21% and increase market share by 8.5%, that would be the catalyst for us to become industry leader in 2-years time. Do you think we can accomplish these targets and are you willing to work to achieve it?

Simply asking people instead of telling them gives you a lot more support and gives them the motivation as they feel treated with respect.

Getting worker input, showing them immediate benefits and asking for their participation are three very effective strategies to get support on projects and for achieving goals.

Smile Makers : 10 Odd thoughts to ponder.

1. A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a workstation.

2. If quitters never win, and winners never quit, who came up with, `Quit while you are ahead`?

3. What hair colour do they put on the driver`s licenses of bald men?

4. How much deeper would oceans be if sponges did not live there?

5. Clones are people TWO.

6. Go ahead and take risks… just be sure that everything will turn out okay.

7. No one ever says, `It is only a game,` when their team is winning.

8. As I said before, I never repeat myself!

9. Ever wonder what the speed of lightning would be if it did not zigzag?

10. Nostalgia is not what it used to be.