Читать книгу The Obvious: Everything You Need to Know to Succeed - James Dale - Страница 24

It’s hard. When you hear a problem, you want to make it go away. With words – Let me explain. It’s really like this I promise. Got it. Done. No problem. But the problem is still there. It’s just buried under a barrage of language. Next time you face an issue, next time your reflex reaction is to say something … don’t. Not a sentence, not a word, not a grunt. Just imagine you have a mute button and push it. Close your mouth. The mere silence will communicate that you’re taking the issue seriously. What isn’t said can be as powerful as what is.

McDonald’s is famous for their all-powerful ad campaigns – slogans, songs, promotions, in every medium, 24/7 – based on the belief if they sell hard enough and loud enough, we’ll all buy it. They should have lowered their volume enough to hear the stampede to the salad bar, granola bars, yogurts, fruits, and bottled waters. They’d have realized sooner that some people in the family, the car, or the office group don’t want deep-fried, high-fat, super-sized, mega-meals. And if you don’t have something else for those people, you run the risk of losing the rest of the people. So they had to play an expensive game of menu catch-up.

A simple test: You’re invited to present your product line to a new customer. Before you even begin, he tells you his last vendor’s goods often arrived late, didn’t measure up to specs, and came in over budget. Then he tells you that all salespeople over-promise. Your lips part, your tongue is poised, your brain is composing rebuttals: Not us. Not my company. Not my products. Whoa. Close your mouth. Look him in the eye. Wait. What’s the message? You hear him. You’re not like other vendors. Not talking, not selling, not promising, and just absorbing the situation, the issue, or the problem is the first step to solving it.