A Nutshell Resume for Your Private Life (technique No 25)

The Nutshell Resume works in nonbusiness situations, too. Since the new acquaintances will always ask you about yourself, prepare a few exciting stock answers. When meeting a potential friend or loved one, make your life sound like you will be a fun person to know.

As a young girl, I wrote novels in my mind about my life. “Leil, squinting her eyes against the torrential downpour, bravely reached out the window into the icy storm to pull the shutters tight and keep the family safe from the approaching hurricane.” Big deal—Mama asked me to close the windows when it started to rain. Still, marching toward the open window, I fancied myself the family’s brave savior.

You don’t need to be quite so melodramatic in your self-image, but at least punch up your life to sound interesting and dedicated.

Technique #25

The Nutshell Resume

Just as job-seeking top managers roll a different written resume off their printers for each position they’re applying for, let a different true story about your professional life roll off your tongue for each listener. Before responding to “What do you do?” ask yourself, “What possible interest could this person have in my answer? Could he refer business to me? Buy from me? Hire me? Marry my sister? Become my buddy?”

Wherever you go, pack a nutshell about your own life to work into your communications bag of tricks.

“Here’s How My Life Can Benefit Yours”

Top salespeople talk extensively of the “benefit statement.” They know, when talking with a potential client, they should open their conversation with a benefit statement. When my colleague Brian makes cold calls, instead of saying “Hello, my name is Brian Tracy. I’m a sales trainer,” he says, “Hello, my name is Brian Tracy from the Institute for Executive Development. Would you be interested in a proven method that can increase your sales from 20 to 30 percent over the next twelve months?” That is his benefit statement. He highlights the specific benefits of what he has to offer to his prospect.

My hairdresser Gloria, I discovered, gives a terrific benefit statement to everyone she meets. That’s probably why she has so many clients. In fact, that’s how she got me as a client. When I met Gloria at a convention, she told me she was a hairdresser who specialized in flexible hairstyles for the businesswoman. She casually mentioned she has many clients who choose a conservative hairstyle for work that they can instantly convert to a feminine style for social situations. “Hey, that’s me,” I said to myself, fingering my stringy little ponytail. I asked for her card and Gloria became my hairdresser.

Then, several months later, I happened to see Gloria at another event. I overheard her chatting with a stylish grey-haired woman at the buffet table. Gloria was saying “. . . and we specialize in a wonderful array of blue rinses.” Now that was news to me! I didn’t remember seeing one grey head in her salon.

As I was leaving the party, Gloria was out on the lawn talking animatedly with the host’s teenage daughters. “Oh yeah,” she was saying, “like we specialize in these really cool up-to-the-minute styles.” Good for you, Gloria!

Like Gloria the hairdresser, give your response a once-over before answering the inevitable “What do you do?” When someone asks, never give just a one-word answer. That’s for forms. If business networking is on your mind, ask yourself, “How could my professional experience benefit this person’s life?” For example, here are some descriptions various people might put on their tax return:

Real estate agent

Financial planner

Martial arts instructor

Cosmetic surgeon

Hairdresser

Any practitioner of the above professions should reflect on the benefit his or her job has to humankind. (Every job has some benefit or you wouldn’t get paid to do it.) The advice to the folks above is

Don’t say “real estate agent.” Say “I help people moving into our area find the right home.”

Don’t say “financial planner.” Say “I help people plan their financial future.”

Don’t say “martial arts instructor.” Say “I help people defend themselves by teaching martial arts.”

Don’t say “cosmetic surgeon.” Say “I reconstruct people’s faces after disfiguring accidents.” (Or, if you’re talking with a woman “of a certain age,” as the French so gracefully say, tell her, “I help people to look as young as they feel through cosmetic surgery.”)

Don’t say “hairdresser.” Say “I help a woman find the right hairstyle for her particular face.” (Go, Gloria!)

Putting the benefit statement in your verbal “Nutshell Resume” brings your job to life and makes it memorable. Even if your new acquaintance can’t use your services, the next time he or she meets someone moving into the area, wanting to plan their financial future, thinking of self defense, considering cosmetic surgery, or needing a new hairstyle, who comes to mind? Not the unimaginative people who gave the tax-return description of their jobs, but the big winners who painted a picture of helping people with needs.

How to Know What to Say When They Ask, “What Do You Do?”

Now, 99 percent of the people you meet will, of course, ask “And what do you do?” Big winners, realizing someone will always ask, are fully prepared for the interrogation.

Many folks have one written resume for job seeking. They type it up and then trudge off to the printer to get a nice neat stack to send to all prospective employers. The resume lists their previous positions, dates of employment, and education. Then, at the bottom, they might as well have scribbled, “Well, that’s me. Take it or leave it.” And usually they get left. Why? Because prospective employers do not find enough specific points in the resume that relate directly to what their firm is seeking.

Boys and girls in the big leagues, however, have bits and bytes of their entire work experience tucked away in their computers. When applying for a job, they punch up only the appropriate data and print it out so it looks like it just came from the printer.

My friend Roberto was out of work last year. He applied for two positions:a sales manager of an ice cream company and head of strategic planning for a fast-food chain. He did extensive research and found the ice cream company had deep sales difficulties and the food chain had long-range international aspirations.

Did he send the same resume to each? Absolutely not. His resume never deviated one iota from the truth of his background. However, for the ice cream company, he highlighted his experience turning a small company around by doubling its sales in three years. For the food chain, he underscored his experience working in Europe and his knowledge of foreign markets.

Both firms offered Roberto the job. Now he could play them off against each other. He went to each, explaining he’d like to work for them but another firm was offering a higher salary or more perks. The two firms started bidding against each other for Roberto. He finally chose the food chain at almost double the salary they originally offered him.

To make the most of every encounter, personalize your verbal resume with just as much care as you would your written curriculum vitae. Instead of having one answer to the omnipresent “What do you do?” prepare a dozen or so variations, depending on who’s asking. For optimum networking, every time someone asks about your job, give a calculated oral resume in a nutshell. Before you submit your answer, consider what possible interest the asker could have in you and your work.

The Right Way to Find Out

So how do you find out what someone does for a living? (I thought you’d never ask.) You simply practice the following eight words. All together now: “How . . . do . . . you . . . spend . . . most . . . of . . . your. . . time?”

“How do you spend most of your time?” is the gracious way to let a cadaver cutter, a tax collector, or a capsized employee off the hook. It’s the way to reinforce an accomplished mother’s choice. It’s the way to assure a spiritual soul you see his or her inner beauty. It’s a way to suggest to a swell that you reside on Easy Street, too.

Now, suppose you’ve just made the acquaintance of someone who does like to talk about his or her work? Asking, “How do you spend most of your time?” also opens the door for workaholics to spout off, “Oh golly,” they mock moan, “I just spend all my time working.” That, of course, is your invitation to grill them for details. (Then they’ll talk your ear off.) Yet the new wording of your question gives those who are somewhere between “at leisure” and “work addicted” the choice of telling you about their job or not. Finally, asking “How do you spend most of your time?” instead of “And what do you do?” gives you your big cat stripes right off.

How to Find Out What They Do (Without Even Asking!) (technique No 24)

To size each other up, the first question little cats flat-pawedly ask each other is, “And what do you do? Hmm?” Then they crouch there, quivering their whiskers and twitching their noses, with an obvious “I’m going to pronounce silent judgment on you after you answer” look on their pusses.

Big cats never ask outright, “What do you do?” (Oh they find out, all right, in a much more subtle manner.) By not asking the question, the big boys and big girls come across as more principled, even spiritual. “After all,” their silence says, “a man or woman is far more than his or her job.”

Resisting the tempting question also shows their sensitivity. With so much downsizing, rightsizing, and capsizing of corporations these days, the blunt interrogation evokes uneasiness. The job question is not just unpleasant for those who are “between engagements.” I have several gainfully employed friends who hate being asked, “And what do you do?” (One of these folks cuts cadavers for autopsies, the other is an IRS collection agent.)

Additionally, millions of talented and accomplished women have chosen to devote themselves to motherhood. When the cruel corporate question is thrust at them, they feel guilty. The rude interrogation belittles their commitment to their families. No matter how the women answer, they fear the asker is only going to hear a humble “I’m just a housewife.”

Big boys and big girls should avoid asking, “What do you do?” for another reason: their abstinence from the question leads listeners to believe that they are in the habit of soaring with a high-flying crowd. Recently I attended a posh party on Easy Street. (I suspect they invited me as their token working-class person.) I noticed no one was asking anyone what they did—because these swells didn’t do anything. Oh, some might have a ticker tape on the bed table of their mansion to track investments. But they definitely did not work for a living.

The final benefit to not asking, “What do you do?” is it throws people off guard. It convinces them you are enjoying their company for who they are, not for an crass networking reason.

Technique #24

What Do You Do—NOT!

A sure sign you’re a Somebody is the conspicuous absence of the question, “What do you do?” (You determine this, of course, but not with those four dirty words that label you as either a ruthless networker, a social climber, a gold-digging husband or wife hunter, or someone who’s never strolled along Easy Street.)

How to Talk Like a VIP

Welcome to the human jungle. When two tigers prowling through the jungle chance upon one another in a clearing, they look at each other. They freeze. Instinctively they calculate, “If our staring came to hissing—came to scratching—came to clawing—who would win? Which of us has the stronger survival skills?”

Tigers in the wilderness differ little from the urban upright animals inhabiting the corporate jungle (or singles jungle or social jungle). Humans start the process by looking at each other and talking. In the business world, while smiling and uttering “How do you do?” “Hello,” “Howdy,” or “Hi,” they are, like tigers, instinctively, instantaneously, sizing each other up.

They’re not calculating the length of each other’s claws or the sharpness of their teeth. They’re judging each other on a weapon far more powerful to survival as they have defined it. Humans are judging each other’s communications skills. Although they may not know the names of the specific studies first proving it, they sense the truth: 85 percent of one’s success in life is directly due to communications skills.13

They may not be familiar with the U.S. Census Bureau’s recent survey showing employers choose candidates with good communications skills and attitude way over education, experience, and training.14 But they know communications skills get people to the top. Thus, by observing each other carefully during casual conversing, it becomes almost immediately evident to both which is the bigger cat in the human jungle.

It doesn’t take long for people to recognize who is an “important” person. One cliche, one insensitive remark, one overanxious reaction, and you can be professionally or personally demoted. You can lose a potentially important friendship or business contact. One stupid move and you can tumble off the corporate or social ladder.

The techniques in this section will help ensure that you make all the right moves so this doesn’t happen. The following communications skills give you a leg up to start your ascent to the top of any ladder you choose.

How to Always Have Something Interesting to Say (technique No 23)

You’ve heard folks whine, “I can’t go to the party, I haven’t got a thing to wear.” When was the last time you heard, “I can’t go to the party, I haven’t got a thing to say?”

When going to a gathering with great networking possibilities, you naturally plan your outfit and make sure your shoes will match. And, of course, you must have just the right tie or correct color lipstick. You puff your hair, pack your business cards, and you’re off.

Whoa! Wait a minute. Didn’t you forget the most important thing? What about the right conversation to enhance your image? Are you actually going to say anything that comes to mind—or doesn’t—at the moment? You wouldn’t don the first outfit your groping hand hits in the darkened closet, so you shouldn’t leave your conversing to the first thought that comes to mind when facing a group of expectant, smiling faces. You will, of course, follow your instincts in conversation. But at least be prepared in case inspiration doesn’t hit.

The best way to ensure you’re conversationally in the swing of things is to listen to a newscast just before you leave. What’s happening right now in the world—all the fires, floods, air disasters, toppled governments, and stock market crashes—pulverizes into great conversational fodder, no matter what crowd you’re circulating in.

It is with some embarrassment that I must attribute the following technique to a businesswoman in the world’s oldest profession. For a magazine article I was writing, I interviewed one of the savviest operators in her field, Sidney Biddle Barrows, the famed Mayflower Madam.

Technique #23

The Latest News . . . Don’t Leave Home Without It


The last move to make before leaving for the party— even after you’ve given yourself final approval in the mirror—is to turn on the radio news or scan your newspaper. Anything that happened today is good material. Knowing the big-deal news of the moment is also a defensive move that rescues you from putting your foot in your mouth by asking what everybody’s talking about. Foot-in-mouth is not very tasty in public, especially when it’s surrounded by egg-on-face.

Sidney told me she had a house rule when she was in business. All of her female “independent contractors” were directed to keep up with the daily news so they could be good conversationalists with their clients. This was not just Sidney’s whim. Feedback from her employees had revealed that 60 percent of her girls’ work hour was spent in chatting and only 40 percent in satisfying the customers’ needs. Thus she instructed them to read the daily newspaper or listen to a radio broadcast before leaving for an


How to Always Have Something Interesting to Say 91

appointment. Sidney told me when she initiated this rule, her business increased significantly. Reports came back from her clients complimenting her on the fascinating women she had working for her. The consummate businesswoman, Ms. Barrows always strove to exceed her customers’ expectations.

Ready for the big leagues of conversation? Let’s go.

How to Come Across as a Positive Person (technique No 22)

Often people think when they meet someone they like, they should share a secret, reveal an intimacy, or make a confession of sorts to show they are human too. Airing your youthful battle with bed-wetting, teeth grinding, or thumb sucking—or your present struggle with gout or a goiter—supposedly endears you to the masses.

Well, sometimes it does. One study showed that if someone is above you in stature, their revealing a foible brings them closer to you.12 The holes in the bottom of presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson’s shoes charmed a nation, as did George H. W. Bush’s shocking admission that he couldn’t stomach broccoli.

If you’re on sure footing, say a superstar who wants to become friends with a fan, go ahead and tell your devotees about the time you were out of work and penniless. But if you’re not a superstar, better play it safe and keep the skeletons in the closet until later. People don’t know you well enough to put your foible in context.

Later in a relationship, telling your new friend you’ve been thrice married, you got caught shoplifting as a teenager, and you got turned down for a big job may be no big deal. And that may be the extent of what could be construed as black marks on an otherwise flawless life of solid relationships, no misdemeanors, and an impressive professional record. But very early in a relationship, the instinctive reaction is “What else is coming? If he shares that with me so quickly, what else is he hiding? A closetful of ex-spouses, a criminal record, walls papered with rejection letters?” Your new acquaintance has no way of knowing your confession was a generous act, a well-intentioned revelation, on your part.

Technique #22

Ac-cen-tu-ate the Pos-i-tive

When first meeting someone, lock your closet door and save your skeletons for later. You and your new good friend can invite the skeletons out, have a good laugh, and dance over their bones later in the relationship. But now’s the time, as the old song says, to “ac-cen-tu-ate the pos-i-tive and elim-i-nate the neg-a-tive.”

So far, in this section, you have found assertive methods for meeting people and mastering small talk. The next is both an assertive and defensive move to help spare you that pasty smile we tend to sport when we have no idea what people are talking about.

Play It Again, Sam (technique No 21)

“Encore!” is what appreciative audiences chant when they want another song from the singer, another dance from the dancer, another poem from the poet, and in my case, another storytelling from the officers. Encore! is the technique you can use to request a repeat story from a prospect, potential employer, or valued acquaintance. While the two of you are chatting with a group of people, simply turn to him and say, “John, I bet everyone would love to hear about the time you caught that thirty-pound striped bass.” Or, “Susan, tell everyone that story you just told me of how you rescued the kitten from the tree.” He or she will, of course, demure. Insist! Your conversation partner is secretly loving it. The subtext of your request is “That story of yours was so terrific, I want my other friends to hear it.” After all, only crowd pleasers are asked to do an Encore!

Technique #21

Encore!

The sweetest sound a performer can hear welling up out of the applause is “Encore! Encore! Let’s hear it again!” The sweetest sound your conversation partner can hear from your lips when you’re talking with a group of people is “Tell them about the time you . . .”

Whenever you’re at a meeting or party with someone important to you, think of some stories he or she told you. Choose an appropriate one from their repertoire that the crowd will enjoy. Then shine the spotlight by requesting a repeat performance.

The added benefit of this technique is that, once you’ve got them up and running with their conversation, you can sneak off and find more interesting company!

One word of warning: make sure the story you request is one in which the teller shines. No one wants to retell the time they lost the sale, cracked up the car, or broke up the bar and spent the night in jail. Make sure your requested Encore! is a positive story where they come out the big winner, not the buffoon.

The full beauty of this technique will hit you like a happy thunderbolt the first time you use it with someone who is telling a long and wearisome tale. You simply tiptoe away and let the bore spin the story on and on with your friend. (Of course, your friend may never speak to you again. But that’s not germaine to this chapter!)

The next technique deals with sharing some positive stories of your life.

“Tell ’Em About the Time You . . .”

Cut to the next captain’s cocktail party. Once again I was faced with the familiar challenge of getting officers to mingle and make small talk with the passengers. I made my weekly trek to the laconic officers’ throng to drag one or two away and, this time, my hand fell on the arm of the ship’s doctor. I hauled him over to the nearest group of grinning passengers and introduced him. I then said, “Just last week Dr. Rossi saved the eyesight of a seaman on another ship after a dramatic midnight rescue. Dr. Rossi, I’m sure these folks would love to hear about it.”

It was like a magic wand. To my amazement, it was as though Dr. Rossi was blessed instantly with the tongues of angels. His previously monosyllabic broken English became thickly accented eloquence. He recounted the entire story for the growing group of passengers gathering around him. I left the throng that Dr. Rossi enraptured to pull another officer over to an awaiting audience.

I grabbed the captain’s stripe-covered arm, dragged him over to another pack of smiling passengers and said, “Captain Cafiero, why don’t you tell these folks about the dramatic midnight rescue you made last week?” The cat released Cafiero’s tongue and he was off and running.

Back to the throng to get the first officer for the next group. By now I knew I had a winner. “Signor Salvago, why don’t you tell these folks how you awakened the captain at midnight last week for the dramatic midnight rescue?”

By then it was time to go back to extract the ship’s doctor from the first bevy and take him to his next pack of passengers. It worked even better the second time. He happily commenced his Encore! for the second audience. As he chatted away, I raced back to the captain to pull him away for a second telling with another throng. I felt like the circus juggler who keeps all the plates spinning on sticks. Just as I got one conversation spinning, I had to race back to the first speaker to give him a whirl at another audience.

The captain’s cocktail parties were a breeze for me for the rest of the season. The three officers loved telling the same story of their heroism to new people every cruise. The only problem was I noticed the stories getting longer and more elaborate each time. I had to adjust my timing in getting them to do a repeat performance for the next audience.

How to Get ’Em Happily Chatting (So You Can Slip Away if You Want To!)

Every father smiles when his little tyke beseeches him at bedtime, “Daddy, Daddy, tell me the story again of the three little pigs” (or the dancing princesses or how you and Mommy met). Daddy knows Junior enjoyed the story so much the first time, he wants to hear it again and again.

Junior inspires the following technique called “Encore!” which serves two purposes. Encore! makes a colleague feel like a happy dad, and it’s a great way to give dying conversation a heart transplant.

I once worked on a ship that had Italian officers and mostly American passengers. Each week, the deck officers were required to attend the captain’s cocktail party. After the captain’s address in charmingly broken English, the officers invariably clumped together yakking it up in Italian. Needless to say, most of the passengers’ grasp of Italian ended at macaroni, spaghetti, salami, and pizza.

As cruise director, it fell on my shoulders to get the officers to mingle with the passengers. My not-so-subtle tactic was to grab one of the officers’ arms and literally drag him over to a smiling throng of expectant passengers. I would then introduce the officer and pray that either the cat would release his tongue, or a passenger would come up with a more original question than “Gee, if all you officers are here, who is driving the boat?” Never happened. I dreaded the weekly captain’s cocktail party.

One night, sleeping in my cabin, I was awakened by the ship rocking violently from side to side. I listened and the engines were off. A bad sign. I grabbed my robe and raced up to the deck. Through the dense fog, I could barely discern another ship not half a mile from us. Five or six officers were grasping the starboard guardrail and leaning overboard. I rushed over just in time to see a man in the moonlight with a bandage over one eye struggling up our violently rocking ladder. The officers immediately whisked him off to our ship’s hospital. The engines started again and we were on our way.

The next morning I got the full story. A laborer on the other ship, a freighter, had been drilling a hole in an engine cylinder. While he was working, a sharp, needle-thin piece of metal shot like a missile into his right eye. The freighter had no doctor on board so the ship broadcast an emergency signal.

International sea laws dictate that any ship hearing a distress signal must respond. Our ship came to the rescue and the seaman, clutching his bleeding eye, was lowered into a lifeboat that brought him to our ship. Dr. Rossi, our ship’s doctor, was successfully able to remove the needle from the workman’s eye, thus saving his eyesight.

Parroting Your Way to Profits

Parroting is also a can opener to pry open people’s real feelings. Star salespeople use it to get to their prospect’s emotional objections, which they often don’t even articulate to themselves. A friend of mine, Paul, a used-car salesman, told me he credits a recent sale of a Lamborghini to Parroting.

Paul was walking around the lot with a prospect and his wife, who had expressed interest in a “sensible car.” He was showing them every sensible Chevy and Ford on the lot. As they were looking at one very sensible family car, Paul asked the husband what he thought of it. “Well,” he mused, “I’m not sure this car is right for me.” Instead of moving on to the next sensible car, Paul parroted “Right for you?” Paul’s questioning inflection signaled the prospect that he needed to say more.

“Well, er, yeah,” the prospect mumbled. “I’m not sure it fits
my personality.”

“Fits your personality?” Paul again parroted.

“You know, maybe I need something a little more sporty.”

“A little more sporty?” Paul parroted.

“Well, those cars over there look a little more sporty.”

Aha! Paul’s parrot had ferreted out which cars to show the customer. As they walked over toward a Lamborghini on the lot, Paul saw the prospect’s eyes light up. An hour later, Paul had pocketed a fat commission.

Want to take a rest from talking to save your throat? This next technique gets your conversation partner off and running so all you have to do is listen (or even sneak off unnoticed as he or she chats congenially away).

How to Never Need to Wonder, “What Do I Say Next?” (technique No 20)

Moments arise, of course, when even conversationalists extraordinaire hit the wall. Some folks’ monosyllabic grunts leave slim pickings even for masters of the Be a Word Detective technique.

If you find yourself futilely fanning the embers of a dying conversation (and if you feel for political reasons or human compassion that the conversation should continue), here’s a foolproof trick to get the fire blazing again. I call it “Parroting” after that beautiful tropical bird that captures everyone’s heart simply by repeating other people’s words.

Have you ever, puttering around the house, had the TV in the background tuned to a tennis game? You hear the ball going back and forth over the net—klink-klunk, klink-klunk, klink . . . this time you don’t hear the klunk. The ball didn’t hit the court. What happened? You immediately look up at the set.

Likewise in conversation, the conversational ball goes back and forth. First you speak, then your partner speaks, you speak . . . and so it goes, back and forth. Each time, through a series of nods and comforting grunts like “um hum,” or “umm,” you let your conversation partner know the ball has landed in your court. It’s your
“I got it” signal. Such is the rhythm of conversation.


“What Do I Say Next?”

Back to that frightfully familiar moment when it is your turn to speak but your mind goes blank. Don’t panic. Instead of signaling verbally or nonverbally that you “got it,” simply repeat—or parrot—the last two or three words your companion said, in a sympathetic, questioning tone. That throws the conversational ball right back in your partner’s court.

My friend Phil sometimes picks me up at the airport. Usually I am so exhausted that I rudely fall asleep in the passenger seat, relegating Phil to nothing more than a chauffeur.

After one especially exhausting trip some years ago, I flung my bags in his trunk and flopped onto the front seat. As I was dozing off, he mentioned he’d gone to the theater the night before. Usually I would have just grunted and wafted into unconsciousness. However, on this particular trip, I had learned the Parroting technique and was eager to try it. “Theater?” I parroted quizzically.

“Yes, it was a great show,” he replied, fully expecting it to be the last word on the subject before I fell into my usual sleepy stupor.

“Great show?” I parroted. Pleasantly surprised by my interest, he said, “Yes, it’s a new show by Stephen Sondheim called Sweeney Todd.”

“Sweeney Todd ?” I again parroted. Now Phil was getting fired up. “Yeah, great music and an unbelievably bizarre story. . . .”

“Bizarre story?” I parroted. Well, that’s all Phil needed. For the next half an hour, Phil told me the show’s story about a London barber who went around murdering people. I half dozed, but soon decided his tale of Sweeney Todd’s cutting off peoples’ heads was disturbing my sleepy reverie. So I simply backed up and parroted one of his previous phrases to get him on another track.

“You said it had great music?”

That did the trick. For the rest of the forty-five-minute trip to my home, Phil sang me “Pretty Women,” “The Best Pies in London,” and other songs from Sweeney Todd—much better accompaniment for my demi-nap. I’m sure, to this day, Phil thinks of that trip as one of the best conversations we ever had. And all I did was parrot a few of his phrases.

Technique #20

Parroting

Never be left speechless again. Like a parrot, simply repeat the last few words your conversation partner says. That puts the ball right back in his or her court, and then all you need to do is listen.

Salespeople, why go on a wild goose chase for a customer’s real objections when it’s so easy to shake them out of the trees with Parroting?

Sell Yourself with a Top Sales Technique (technique No 19)

Several months ago at a speaker’s convention, I was talking with a colleague Brian Tracy. Brian does a brilliant job of training top salespeople. He tells his students of a giant spotlight that, when shining on their product, is not as interesting to the prospect. When they shine the spotlight on the prospect, they make the sale.

Salespeople, this technique is especially crucial for you. Keep your “Swiveling Spotlight” aimed away from you, only lightly on your product, and most brightly on your buyer. You’ll do a much better job of selling yourself and your product.

Technique #19

The Swiveling Spotlight

When you meet someone, imagine a giant revolving spotlight between you. When you’re talking, the spotlight is on you. When the new person is speaking, it’s shining on him or her. If you shine it brightly enough, the stranger will be blinded to the fact that you have hardly said a word about yourself. The longer you keep it shining away from you, the more interesting he or she finds you.

How to Enthrall ’Em with Your Choice of Topic—Them

Several years ago, a girlfriend and I attended a party saturated with a hodgepodge of swellegant folks. Everyone we talked to seemed to lead a nifty life. Discussing the party afterward, I asked my friend, “Diane, of all the exciting people at the party, who did you enjoy talking to most?”

Without hesitation she said, “Oh by far, Dan Smith.”

“What does Dan do?” I asked her.

“Uh, well, I’m not sure,” she answered.

“Where does he live?”

“Uh, I don’t know,” Diane responded.

“Well, what is he interested in?”

“Well, we really didn’t talk about his interests.”

“Diane,” I asked, “what did you talk about?”

“Well, I guess we talked mostly about me.”

“Aha,” I thought. Diane has just rubbed noses with a winner.

As it turns out, I had the pleasure of meeting Big-Winner Dan several months later. Diane’s ignorance about his life piqued my curiosity so I grilled him for details. As it turns out, Dan lives in Paris, has a beach home in the south of France, and a mountain home in the Alps. He travels around the world producing sound and light shows for pyramids and ancient ruins—and he is an avid hang glider and scuba diver. Does this man have an interesting life or what? Yet Dan, when meeting Diane, said nothing about himself.

I told Dan about how pleased Diane was to meet him yet how little she learned about his life. Dan simply replied, “Well, when I meet someone, I learn so much more if I ask about their life. I always try to turn the spotlight on the other person.” Truly confident people often do this. They know they grow more by listening than talking. Obviously, they also captivate the talker.