Be Great at Defining What’s Important
In the process of transformation of ideas into reality, transformational leaders have many conversations and connect with many people. As a person of influence, a leader must develop the skill of persuasive language.
There is power in the right choice of words. But words are not the only factor. Some research shows that words are only 7% of the total communication. Words, however, are the key to connecting with the listener. The power of persuasion is an important leadership skill. The Transformational Leader influences others, not by power of position, but by power of personal influence. This makes language mastery a critical leadership skill.
My friend and colleague, Bob Circosta, teaches selling. His secret, that he reveals in his keynote presentation, is that he hates to sell. That’s true. He never, ever fails to mention this point. It’s important to point out that Bob sold over $1 billion in merchandise on the Home Shopping Network in the early days of the home shopping business. He started this journey while working as a radio personality for Bud Paxton in Florida. He sold avocado-green electric can openers they collected in lieu of advertising payment from a customer. His amazing success at this led Bud to start the world’s first home shopping channel.
Well, Bob learned that people did not get excited about features. People related to the benefits for them of a product. Bob developed what he has trademarked as the WSGAT®. It means:
What’s So Good About That?
For every feature, there is a corresponding benefit for the person listening.
Leaders talk a lot about how things work, or what makes things work, or why they thing something is great. Nobody cares. They want to know why it’s good for them.
We sell every day. We don’t think we are selling, but we are. We are convincing people to make a buying decision if they join a team, if they subscribe to our list, if they invest in our company or donate to our charity. We are convincing people to decide to do something.
We are not very good at this.
It’s time to develop a strategy and rehearse it.
Think about Bob’s simple, but very effective paradigm – define what’s so good about that.
Every week at Rotary Club meetings, people make announcements for people to volunteer for services or attend events – rarely, if ever, does anyone say what’s so good about it.
We ask people to function on teams differently – we rarely define the value of the end result.
We sell, sell, sell to make our budgets and grow our businesses, but we rarely communicate the reasons people should be connected with our product or service.
What’s it going to take to become more effective and more persuasive?
In his little book, As a Man Thinketh, James Allen says, ” We want to change our circumstances, but are unwilling to change ourselves, so we remain bound.”
It’s time to develop the script and start rehearsing…
Check out Bob Circosta: http://bobcircosta.com/
Hugh Ballou
The Transformational Leadership Strategist
Subscribe to The Transformational Leadership Strategist by Email
(c) 2012 Hugh Ballou. All rights reserved.