Metaphorically Selling - Answering Service Resources

Home
>
Book Reviews
>
Metaphorically Selling

Metaphorically Selling

The Big Idea

A lot of people consider selling a very difficult task. Unfortunately for them, selling is an activity that forms part of everyone's daily routine. It occurs not only at work, but also when you are at home with your family, or when you are enjoying a cup of coffee with a friend.

Types of selling include debating with your friend on what type of movie to watch, convincing your boss to adapt to a different way of management, and getting that top client to buy your company's products. You must remember that selling does not limit itself to cars, clothes or food.

In the book Metaphorically Selling, author Anne Miller explains that given time and the right method, anyone can learn how to sell, persuade and explain. By using simple metaphors and visually-enticing words, you can change your status from a poor loser to a topnotch scorer.

The Case for Metaphor

The Challenge: Getting Heard

You live in a world where people read newspapers and get bombarded by print advertisements every morning. You live in a world where large billboards fight for attention, and television commercials have become a way of life.

Since selling is an everyday occurrence, you must learn to accept that your udience has heard the very same pitch that you prepared countless times before. How then do you force a jaded audience to loosen their guard and listen to you?

First, you must learn to talk from your audience's point of view. Get your listeners to understand what it is you're selling by picking the right words. Speak their language and use words that they can relate to. Remember, you are not selling your product to yourself.

Second, don't bombard your audience with too much information. Keep in mind that you are only given a short time to make a sales pitch. It would be a fatal mistake to overwhelm your audience with too many facts and figures.

Lastly, to do justice to your product without boring your audience, it would be most helpful and advantageous to use visual words. Arming your presentation with visual words enable you to explain fully what your product is about without spoiling your audience's zeal.

What are Metaphors?

When you were a student, you were taught that a metaphor is a figure of speech. Your professor may have failed to tell you however; just how important a metaphor is when it comes to selling.

A metaphor is a way to communicate your message to any given audience in an

instant. You do this by using words that compare one thing to another. The brilliance of a metaphor is that you can easily come up with comparisons that are familiar to your audience. You can use metaphors that your audience can strongly associate with.

The best way to explain this further is to tell you what not to do. If you are speaking before a group of female activists, it is never a good idea to use metaphors extolling the triumph of men in sports.

When Do You Need Metaphors?

Without question, a metaphor is a powerful tool. In fact, metaphors will help you close a sale no matter what kind of audience you are interacting with. While you may not need to use metaphors all the time, be keen and alert when one is needed. You know you have to start firing a metaphor the moment your audience starts showing hostility. . .

This article is based on the following book:

Metaphorically Selling - A Book Summary
How to Use the Magic of Metaphors to Sell, Persuade & Explain Anything to Anyone
By Anne Miller
Chiron Associates, Inc., New York 2004
ISBN: 0-9762794-0-1
161 Page

By: Regine P. Azurin
Regine Azurin is the President of BusinessSummaries.com, a company that provides business book summaries of the latest bestsellers for busy executives and entrepreneurs.

http://www.bizsum.com "A Lot Of Great Books....Too Little Time To Read" Free Book Summaries Of Latest Bestsellers for Busy Executives and Entrepreneurs

Mailto: mailto:freearticle@bizsum.com
BusinessSummaries is a BusinessSummaries.com service.

In The News:

Book Review: Bedlam South by Mark Grisham and David Donaldson
Blogger News Network - 4 hours ago
by Simon Barrett in Book Reviews, Reviews The disorder known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) came to the forefront following the Vietnam conflict. ...

Daredevil, X-Force among this week's comic book reviews
Creative Loafing, NC - 10 hours ago
By Carlton Hargro As usual, I read a ton of comics this week; however, no book stood out as incredibly good or awful. So for this edition of Comic ...

Book Review: Bear Any Burden by Ellis M. Goodman
Blogger News Network - Dec 1, 2008
by Simon Barrett in Book Reviews, Reviews I have mixed emotions about this book. I enjoyed it a lot, much of the action takes place at the hight of the Cold ...

John Freeman
Publishers Weekly, NY - 8 hours ago
by Craig Morgan Teicher -- Publishers Weekly, 12/1/2008 In the past few years, space for book reviews has been steadily shrinking, leading some in the ...

New Book for BlackBerry Users (and Abusers) Now Available at ...
MarketWatch - 7 hours ago
CrackBerry.com is updated daily with BlackBerry news, reviews, rumors, humor, help and how-to articles, and the site features an active forum community ...

Children's Book Reviews
Publishers Weekly, NY - Nov 30, 2008
FSG/Foster, $17.95 (64p) ISBN 978-0-374-33528-1 Of interest to adults as well as children, this handsomely produced black-and-white book intriguingly ...

Book Review: New Tricks
Monsters and Critics.com - Nov 30, 2008
Perceptive readers will likely pick out the villain within the first third of the book yet donâ€™t let that dissuade you from enjoying the interactions ...

Monsters and Critics.com
Book Review: Dangerous Women
Monsters and Critics.com - Nov 30, 2008
Morris went beyond writing a simple â€œscare tacticâ€ book, he examined the often complex history that created murdering women and provides thoughtful insights ...

Monsters and Critics.com
Book Review: Operation Blue Light
Monsters and Critics.com - Nov 30, 2008
The first portion of this book is the best as it follows Chabot through his developmental years. By the end, the story deteriorates into a rambling, ...

Monsters and Critics.com
Book Review: The Reach
Monsters and Critics.com - Nov 30, 2008
By Sandy Amazeen Nov 30, 2008, 22:41 GMT When psychology grad student Jess Chambers was tapped for a special assignment by the demanding but secretive ...

book reviews - Google News

Answering Service ResourceAnswering Service Resource