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Sales Made Easy –
My Four-Word Rules For Sales Success—12 in a series.
When I ran my branding firm, our creative director, Soren, was a very talented polyglot. In addition to his native Danish, Soren spoke fluent English, French, and German. Besides those languages, his Spanish was pretty good, and he said he could also communicate in Norwegian and Swedish when necessary.
But whenever a bunch of us would go to lunch, Soren always protested that he couldn’t understand what we were talking about. Not because of his English skills but because of the allusions, observations, and colloquialisms we used. According to Soren, our conversations were so full of references to TV shows, sports analogies, comedic bits from old movies, and other cultural bric-a-brac that he was lost. Soren could speak English beautifully, but he couldn’t speak our cultural American dialect.
Sales Made Easy 12
For as long as I can remember, Miami has been called “The Big Orange.”
Despite this nickname, Miami’s not much of an orange town. That honor belongs somewhere near the state’s center, in Winter Haven, Lakeland, Arcadia, Sebring, or Bartow.
Instead, we should be called “The Big Mango.”
That’s because trees all over Miami are dripping with bright orange and purple globes every mango season. And no matter how many mangoes you eat and freeze, most trees still produce many more bushels of fruit than anyone can consume.
That’s why barely a day goes by during mango season when someone doesn’t ask, “You want some mangoes?”
If you answer yes – and why wouldn’t you? – they’ll pop open the back of their SUV and pass you a couple of grocery bags overstuffed with fresh, juicy mangoes.
This is so common that there’s a popular saying in Miami:
“People who buy mangoes at the grocery store have no friends.”
Why?
If you go to the store to buy mangoes, you must not have many friends to give them to you.
If you’re not from here, that might not make any sense to you. But it makes perfect sense to everyone who lives here.
Sales Made Easy 12
Not knowing why buying mangoes suggests your lack of social connections is the same as Soren not understanding our lunchtime conversation. We don’t just communicate with content, we also communicate through context.
Make sense? If so, I have a quick assignment for you: Go take a look at your website, brochures, presentations, and other marketing materials. You might find that they’re chock full of industry jargon and other specialized language that makes perfect sense to you but may not communicate to the people you’re trying to reach.
How can you know? It’s easy. When you’re done, simply ask a few friends to read through your materials and report back to you what they understood. You’ll be amazed to find that the things you think are perfectly obvious may make no sense to them. What’s more, the things you found clever and funny might actually be getting in the way of them understanding exactly what you’re talking about.
And now that you know you have a problem, how do you fix it? That’s easy, too.
Sales Made Easy 12
My four-word rule for Sales Success 12 will tell you exactly what to do. Be Clear, Not Clever.
Funny, good stuff! I do think you are a bit prejudiced on the mango thing because of the area that we live. I am not so sure that folks living in the urban areas like Hialeah, Miami Beach, Down/Up town, Brickell, etc.. can relate. Therefore, in this case, I think your point may, as clever as it is, perhaps is not clear to many. You may even be risking offending somebody or having them feel sorry that they don’t have friends who give them mangos.
I for one live it and totally get it, even in this challenged mango season, in which we are experiencing a mango drought. I’ve been told it’s because the rains came late and/or strong winds in May blew off many of the buds on the flowering mango trees and thus we will have a shortage which should not be construed as a lack of friends.
In the meantime, I’ve been lucky enough to have had two mango friends give me some this year and had a large juicy one for breakfast this morning. 😊
Enjoy a great mango season and keep on writing your great and enlightening stuff.
I used to tell the advertising creatives I managed that “clever” is easy. I don’t believe I ever attended a brainstorming session where I didn’t hear a dozen or more “clever” ideas.
I also used to tell them that “informative” is easy. Just read the list of ingredients on your cereal box. Quite informative (if not appetizing.)
But when it comes to strategic marketing communication, either one alone is lazy, usually banal, and probably worthless.
Clever AND informative, together – that typically takes time, thoughtful consideration, and maybe a little talent.
If I’m not “clever” enough to make my neighbor like and remember me, and if I’m not “informative” enough to let them know how much I love mangoes (and I do), then I’m probably headed to Publix.
Hah! We could have used your brilliance to inspire our creatives!!
LOL oh I can pontificate with the best of ‘em, Bruce! 🙂
Bruce,
Clever is alluring. It’s a selfish attempt to misuse the time and attention we’ve been granted.
It’s showboating at the expense of others.
Very well said David. Thank you for sharing.
Be clear, not clever. So true yet sooooo hard as I love me some clever. But I absolutely understand your point. I mean…. mangoes.