invented!!!!!” On web sites, screaming appears as TOO MANY
WORDS IN CAPITAL LETTERS, red type, and lots of fonts
and exclamation points.
According to Strunk and White, the bible of writing style:
“When you overstate, readers will be instantly on guard, and
everything that has preceded your overstatement as well as every-
thing that follows it will be suspect in their minds because they
have lost confidence in your judgment or your poise.”^2So now what? If you take out all the words in your product presentation
that are any kind of seller talk, what’s left? What could you say instead?
Well, how about telling a story? A real one? Like your own? Instead of
trying to impress someone by repeating the clichés or technobabble you’ve
heard, what if you tell your personal, authentic product story? The assump-
tion behind this strategy is this: There are others out there who will want
the product for the same reasons you did. After all, aren’t there people who
might want a product that could maybe do for them what it has for you?
Someone who feels the same way you do about wanting to, say, lose weight
without surgery? Or who wants to get rid of those irksome little aches and
pains—but without drugs? What about reaching out to them? You know,
like-minded people?
Telling your product (or service) story can be accomplished here with a
simplified two-step process. The formula is laid out in detail in my new book
If My Product’s So Great, How Come I Can’t Sell It?^3
First, go to the remembering room of your mind. (notthe impressing
room—the remembering room.) Complete this sentence: Before I started us-
ing this product, I was someone who...
Put a couple of veryspecific “befores,” such as: “Before I started using
this product, I was someone who had achy knees when I went up and down
stairs. Eight months ago I fell down the steps and hurt my knee. And ever
since I had to have therapy because it hurt so bad. My doctor gave me some
drugs, which helped, but they gave me stomach problems and I was worried
about other side effects.”
Then the formula adds a phrase like this: “Then I tried this [other] prod-
uct, and after [time period—not to exaggerate] I noticed that.. .”
So for example, here’s how this student’s remembering room script
ended up: “Before I started using this product, I was someone who had achy
knees when I went up and down stairs. Eight months ago I fell down the steps
Why Won’t They Listen to Me? 109(^2) William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style, 4th edition (Boston: Allyn
& Bacon, 2000), 73.
(^3) Kim Klaver’s new book is available at http://whowho911.com or (800) 595-1956.