SUBTEXT"A subtext?"
"Exactly. A subtext that says you're pleased by the customer
pleased with your product, glad to have a chance to sell it, confident
about an order."
Once I related the idea of subtext to Jim's "sizzle" I began
going over some of the showmanship techniques he once used in
order to sell.
When he sold insurance, he stressed the subtext of the money
that the policy would provide for leisure and travel. To get that
sizzle across, he'd show his client pictures of distant, exotic
places—Hawaii, Japan, Kenya. When he sold men's suits he'd
tie a string and a weight to a button to show that it wouldn't
come off. This kind of showmanship created strong subtexts in
the client's mind—the sizzle that sold the steak.
GIVING TWO CHOICES
My six-year-old granddaughter was a bit too bright for her mother,
and hoping for some advice, my daughter consulted a psychologist:
"I can't get her to do what I tell her to."
"What you have to do with children that age," the psychologist
advised, "is give them two choices. They'll always take one."
Dubiously, my daughter tried it out one night when the child
wouldn't clean up after playing. "You have two choices. Pick up
your toys or go to your room!"
My granddaughter looked thoughtful, then said, "I don't like
either of those choices. Is there another one?"
Well, she's a bit cagier than most people. A real estate sales-
woman uses the two-choice method very successfully. She told
me about a doubtful client to whom she was showing two condos