“He was trying to sell me a bill of goods.”
That’s the phrase my Grandpa Jack used to indicate that someone was attempting to swindle him. A Ukrainian Jewish immigrant, Jack was a self-made man who worked his way up from sewing in a sweatshop to running his own dress business. He understood that his customers, women doing housework, wanted to wear something beautiful. So with impeccable logic he asked, “Who are the best designers?” The answer was obvious to him: “The Italians.”
Jack hired Rosa, an Italian American painter and designer who had just returned from an art tour of Paris. It was love at first sight, and he proposed to her on her first day on the job. She was hesitant, but Jack persevered and eventually sold her on the idea. Besides owing my existence to Jack’s sales abilities, I’m also indebted to him because he was a wonderful role model in many ways.
Besides his hard work, creativity, and keen sense of quality and value, he had the characteristic shared by the most wonderful leaders, what Rudyard Kipling called “the common touch.” Jack treated all his stakeholders with respect and fairness and was especially generous with his long-term employees, for whom he instituted one of the first profit-sharing programs in the garment district of the Lower East Side of New York City.
The world has changed significantly since Grandpa Jack’s time, although the importance of values like hard work, creativity, quality, value, respect, and fairness continues.
In some ways it’s harder to be sold a bill of goods today because of the accessibility of information. It’s only recently that we have been able to go online and research the actual price of an automobile, for example, so we are not in the dark when we negotiate with a salesperson. And thanks to Yelp, Tripadvisor, and other similar sites, we can read reviews of almost everything.
Yet, as technology evolves, so do the schemes of high-pressure salespeople and con artists. As the Better Business Bureau advises, “Sales scams are as old as humanity, but the Internet has introduced a whole new way to rip people off. For 100 years, BBB has been advising consumers: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. That hasn’t changed just because the scam artist is coming into your home through your computer or telephone instead of the front door.”
Scammers and con artists are more prevalent and virulent than ever. And there’s a reason they’re called “artists.” If you read Catch Me If You Can, the book based on Frank W. Abagnale’s early life as a forger and an imposter, or watched the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, you’ll marvel at the protagonist’s skill at connecting with others and understanding their needs and desires. Skills that the real Frank now uses as one of the world’s most respected authorities on forgery and fraud prevention, as a consultant to the FBI, and as a highly successful professional speaker.
What transformed Frank from a criminal purveyor of fraud into a crusader for its prevention? He says it wasn’t prison or religion but, rather, love. Frank explains that meeting his wife (they’ve now been married thirty-six years and have three children) changed his life, saying, “I was lucky enough to find someone who believed in me.”
So what’s the difference between selling ideas through the art of the con and through the art of connection?
Intention.
In Hollywood, and in Washington, DC, they say, “Sincerity is the key to success and once you can fake that you’ve got it made.” Actors earn their living by faking sincerity, and so do most politicians.
One of the secrets of success and happiness, outside Hollywood and DC, is finding what you sincerely believe will make the world a better place and selling that. This principle applies to the 10 percent of folks who earn their living directly from sales and to the other 90 percent of us who are engaged every day in attempting to get others to buy in to our ideas.
Cynics believe that “nice guys finish last,” but they forget that “the winner of the rat race is still a rat.” Cynics say, “He who has the gold rules,” but the happiest people really do live by the Golden Rule. About forty years ago I had an experience right out of a New Yorker cartoon that emphasized this point. As an enthusiastic seeker of spiritual truth, I received word that a renowned meditation master was coming to town to teach. Although the event was not publicized, I managed to discover the time and place and traveled to an obscure location. The room was over-flowing with aspirants, and the air was charged with expectation. After a preparatory period of prayer and meditation, the master appeared. I was on the edge of my prayer cushion, waiting for pearls of esoteric insight, when he proclaimed, “Don’t do bad, do good.” He then bowed and left.
Before you sell anything — anything! — consider your intention. Don’t do bad, do good! Aligning our intentions with fundamental goodness is the key to happiness, for ourselves and others. The insights and methods of sales, influence, and persuasion that we will explore are powerful and must be used only for good.
Keeping this in mind is essential, whether you’re in a professional sales job where your livelihood depends on people buying your product or service or you’re in a personal interaction where you’re aiming to, for example, persuade your partner to move to a new location or get your son to sign up for Mandarin lessons.
“Be sure,” as Daniel Pink, author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth about Moving Others, recommends, that “you can answer the two questions....If the person you’re selling to agrees to buy, will his or her life improve? When your interaction is over, will the world be a better place than when you began?” With these two questions you can change the world, by aligning your actions with basic goodness. Many people sell products or services that don’t meet these ethical criteria because they just don’t know any better.
Steve Lishansky, author of The Ultimate Sales Revolution: Sell Differently. Change the World, explains, “Sales must be the ultimate ethical and effective practice of communication, relationship building, influence, and ultimately the maximization of value creation.” He adds, “Done this way, it becomes a universal practice of maximizing the contribution and value you can provide another person.”
The phrase caveat emptor means “let the buyer beware,” and there’s good reason for this caution. Old-paradigm selling remains associated with, as Grandpa Jack would say, “a bill of goods.” A particular body spray will not make you a babe or dude magnet, and a highly caffeinated sugary drink won’t give you wings, but it may cause diabetes. Wearing a particular brand of shoes will not make you a better athlete, and drinking a particular brand of beer will not make you more interesting.
Many products, services, and political candidacies are sold through false promises, as this adaptation of an ancient joke illuminates. Joe, a salesman, has a heart attack and dies unexpectedly. He finds himself in the lobby of heaven, where he’s greeted by St. Peter. St. Peter explains that the afterlife is a matter of choice and offers him the opportunity to tour heaven and hell before deciding where to spend eternity.
Peter takes Joe by the hand for a quick tour of heaven. It is a tranquil place with lovely harp music and soothing golden light, populated by serene souls who are floating in a meditative state on billowy clouds.
Joe thinks it’s nice, but then he takes the elevator down to hell, where he’s greeted personally by Satan, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the “Most Interesting Man in the World.”
Satan guides Joe through a large golden door to a rollicking scene — rock bands are playing, Harleys are revving, beautiful women wearing bikinis and white go-go boots are spinning around silver poles, and taps are flowing freely with top-shelf alcohol.
After a tantalizing glimpse, Satan escorts Joe to the elevator and he’s whisked back to the lobby, where St. Peter asks Joe for his decision. Somewhat embarrassed, Joe tells Peter that heaven was pleasant but hell was what he’d always dreamed of. Peter puts Joe on the one-way elevator back to hell.
When Joe arrives he is horrified to see that the bands, drinks, and Harleys are gone, and so are the dancing girls. Instead there’s nothing except an endless display of televisions, and on every channel there’s the same pitchman trying to sell something that no one really needs.
Joe finds the Devil and asks, “What the hell is going on? When you gave me a tour it was the party of a lifetime, and now there’s nothing but this stupid TV infomercial.”
“Ahh, it’s simple,” replies Satan. “During the tour you were a prospect and now you’re a client!”
Don’t be like Satan. Always be impeccable with your word, and manage expectations by promising low and delivering high.
Before we begin to explore the most effective and ethical ways to generate buy-in to ideas, let’s consider two basic assumptions:
1. We are all in sales.
2. Effective selling is based on skills that everyone can learn.
We are all in sales, and selling is part of everyday life. As legendary motivational speaker Zig Ziglar commented, “Maybe you don’t hold the title of salesperson, but if the business you are in requires you to deal with people, you, my friend, are in sales.”
Grandpa Jack had to sell Grandma Rosa on the idea of marrying him. If you have kids, you need to sell them on the importance of doing their homework. If you have a creative idea, then you must enroll others to make it a reality. Everyone, from artists to zoologists, is engaged in selling ideas, personally and professionally.
Dan Pink makes a powerful case that sales skills are critical to our success, whatever we do: “Physicians sell patients on a remedy. Lawyers sell juries on a verdict. Teachers sell students on the value of paying attention in class. Entrepreneurs woo funders, writers sweet-talk producers, coaches cajole players. Whatever our profession, we deliver presentations to fellow employees and make pitches to new clients.”
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) offers the following synonyms for the verb to sell: promote, persuade someone to accept, talk someone into, bring someone around to, win someone over to, win approval for, persuade someone of the merits of.
Duane Sparks, chairman of the sales training firm The Sales Board, defines sales as “the use of one person’s communication skills to gain a commitment from another person.”
The traditional sales force consists of individuals with the word sales in their job titles, but now everyone, at every level, is being encouraged, and in many cases formally trained, to sell every chance they get. One of the major trends in organizations of all kinds is the development of what’s known as the “non-traditional sales force.” Sparks explains that this concept, which has been talked about for years, is now being taken seriously: “We are amazed at the range of people we are now being asked to train: doctors and nurses, accountants and lawyers, consultants, technicians and engineers, marketers, customer-service reps, product development specialists — you name it!”
In the past, aggressive sales forces were often motivated by many organizations to “sell, sell, sell,” without necessarily having to coordinate with those responsible for delivering the product or service being sold. The integration of selling and doing is a healthy development on many levels. For example, at Hillmann Consulting, a national firm engaged in environmental and construction risk management, the staff of environmental scientists and construction engineers are all learning to sell their own services, thereby aligning the accuracy of what they promise with what they can deliver. Founder Chris Hillmann comments on this “seller-doer” model:
For years, our most successful partners became doer-sellers naturally. They manage client relationships, source new contacts, and encourage new business. Of course, “doing” is the first priority of technical staff. We are not trying to make every operations team member into a salesperson. Our focus is on being a true partner to the clients we serve by encouraging our technical professionals to develop relationships and use their expertise to identify opportunities to add value to clients’ operations.
We’ve discovered that the ideal model is a collaboration between our operations team and our business development (BD) teams. If one of our technicians identifies opportunities but is too busy doing the work to effectively follow up, we encourage them to team with local BD personnel. Both groups are essential in providing a superior customer experience and expanding our business. Ultimately, at Hillmann selling is about taking a team approach to anticipating our clients’ needs and meeting them in a way that benefits the client!
Is the ability to gain commitments from others using communication skills something that everyone can develop?
Yes!
One of the myths about selling effectively is that you must be a particular personality type to excel. The notion, for example, that extroverts are best at sales is a common misconception.
Duane Sparks explains, “Most people, even many within the world of formal sales, believe that a ‘natural salesperson’ is an extrovert who has a natural gift of gab and can talk endlessly to anyone about any topic. So if you want to ‘train’ them, all you need is to pump them full of hot air from a motivational speaker.”
Sparks, whose company has trained almost half a million salespeople, emphasizes that the skills of effective selling can be developed by people, whatever their social style or Myers-Briggs profile.
What are the most important skills to develop? According to The Sales Board, “On an individual basis, presentation skills appears to offer the greatest potential for improvement [my emphasis].”
Whether you are an extrovert, introvert, analytical type, driver, reformer, or peacemaker, presenting is a skill you can learn. And great presentations are a result of making a connection with the audience. When an audience likes you, they are open to being influenced by you. It turns out that the old saying “People buy on emotion and justify with facts” is validated by contemporary research into the principles of influence.
Professional presenters are students of the principles of influence. And even if you think you’re not “in sales” or a professional presenter, it’s critically important to know the ways in which others are attempting to influence you to buy whatever they’re selling. Influence is defined by the OED as “the capacity or power of persons...to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others.” Or as “the action or process of producing effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of another or others.”
Presentations are exercises in influence. And influence is what powers your ability to sell anything, from automobiles to zucchini. Robert Cialdini, renowned as the “godfather of influence,” and the author of the classic work Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, has brought together more than sixty years of research into the science of persuasion and made it accessible and practical. He’s discovered that although most people believe they make decisions based on rational analysis, it is actually unconscious, instinctive reactions that determine how we are influenced. Cialdini has identified six universal principles that compel people to say yes to requests. As you learn these principles, you become more aware of your biases, allowing you to make better, wiser decisions. You also become much more effective in your attempts to influence others, bearing in mind the commitment to use all this powerful information for ethical, noble purposes only.
I’ve aimed to make these six principles more memorable for you by expressing them in the acronym RESALE: reciprocity, engagement, scarcity, authority, liking, and everyone.
Over the years I’ve been a guest on many online learning courses and summits, and I recently began my own online endeavor. I confess that at first I was kind of annoyed that we were always asked to offer a “free gift” as part of the effort to motivate people to sign up for these programs. But then I realized that this was one of the essential methods for connecting with people and inspiring them to participate. In the wildly crowded and highly competitive online learning space, if you’d like people to click on your link and sign up for your newsletter, then your free offering invites their nervous system to connect with yours via electronic means. The internet has made the principle of reciprocity clearer than ever — if you want to be successful in this realm, be prepared to give away lots of good stuff. It’s just the way the human brain works. Our brains are wired to drive us to return favors, and civilization is largely organized around the principle of reciprocity. After you watch a certain number of helpful free videos on the internet, you’ll eventually feel (unless you’re a psychopath) compelled to hit the Like button and then the Subscribe button, and then you’re on your way to becoming a customer (more on this below when we discuss engagement).
Hare Krishnas have understood this for many years. Once they place a “free” flower in your hand, the chances of your placing some change or bills in their donation box goes up significantly. When you receive a fortune cookie or a mint with your check at a restaurant, you are much more likely to leave a generous tip. The free samples of cheeses or cookies at the grocery store aren’t just there to see if you like them; those who enjoy free samples usually buy more groceries. In wine stores, sales go way up when there’s a free tasting. In Japan this principle is one of the most salient aspects of the culture. Rituals of reciprocal gift giving and the exchange of favors, known as giri, are strong drivers of everyday behavior and serve as the theme for many works of literature, art, and drama.
Cultural anthropologists posit that human societies have been able to survive and thrive by creating “webs of indebtedness” that bind people in cooperative networks, promoting adaptation through interdependent labor, trade, and mutual consideration and support. Giving offers an intrinsic pleasure to healthy humans and inspires the recipient to want to give in return. As Lao Tzu advised, “If you would take, you must first give, this is the beginning of intelligence.”
Nicholas A. Christakis, physician and author of Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society, explains, “It is the spread of the good things that vindicates the whole reason we live our lives in networks. If I was always violent to you or gave you germs, you would cut the ties to me and the network would disintegrate. In a deep and fundamental way, networks are connected to goodness, and goodness is required for networks to emerge and spread.”
Many professional presenters use the principle of reciprocity effectively to promote their enterprises. Victoria Labalme, a successful keynote speaker, delights her audience members and prospective clients with the clever gift of branded lip balm, which she gives out liberally. Research suggests that the most effective gifts are those that are unexpected, memorable, and personalized. It’s one thing if the conference you attend gives everyone a pen, for example, with the conference name and theme on it, but that same gift has much more effect if it has the recipient’s name on it as well.
Although there’s a strategic and tactical element to reciprocity, the most successful practitioners are those who genuinely focus on the welfare of others but are creative and efficient in the way they provide help and support.
Another consistent element of human behavior is that once we engage with a proposition through some form of spoken or written commitment, we are much more likely to follow through with it. In other words, most people’s sense of self-worth and identity is tied to the notion that they will be consistent with what they’ve said or done in the past, especially if they’ve said or done it in public. Small actions or a few words of affirmation for a proposition organize the nervous system toward future actions and affirmations of a given behavior.
For example, if someone representing a campaign for safe driving knocked on your door and asked you to allow them to erect a large wooden billboard on your front lawn, you, like most of the folks in the study Cialdini cites, would probably decline. But what if ten days earlier someone had stopped by and asked you to place a small postcard for the same campaign in one of the front windows of your home? The people who were engaged in this way first were much more likely to agree to have the billboard erected. By agreeing to place the small card in their window first, the homeowners became engaged with the campaign and were four times more likely to say yes to the signage than those who were asked cold.
The most influential public speakers make consistent use of this principle. One of the simplest ways of doing this is to poll your audience by asking for a show of hands, inviting your audience to engage with a proposition you would like them to affirm. When conducting training sessions, finish by asking people to write down the most important things they’ve learned and how they intend to apply them; then get them to share what they’ve learned and their plans for application in small groups; then ask each person to stand up and express their learning and commitment to application. This deepens their engagement with what they’ve learned, and the public commitment makes it much more likely that they will follow through with it.
It’s 2:30 AM and you can’t sleep, so you turn on the television and find yourself contemplating purchasing a blanket with sleeves; a can’t-miss, get-rich-quick house-flipping or real-estate scheme; a proactive approach to eliminating acne, shredding your abs, or empowering your whole life to fulfill all your dreams and goals; or maybe just a superefficient frying pan grill, slicer-dicer, or Bass-o-Matic. Almost everyone has experienced the hypnotic effect of the infomercial. One aspect of that hypnosis is always an appeal to “act now!” Why? Because “supplies are limited.” And, if you place your order in the next fifteen minutes, you’ll get “free overnight shipping.” Then the ticking clock appears on your screen. Of course, these infomercials run many times a day, for many days, but whatever the product, we always must “act now” so we don’t miss out and call within the next fifteen minutes so we don’t have to pay for shipping. But wait, there’s more! “For a limited time only,” we can get two of whatever they are pushing for the price of one, if we “hurry.”
It’s fun to laugh about this, and Saturday Night Live and other shows have had lots of material for satire over the years, but despite the seemingly obvious manipulation, this strategy, appealing to our sense of scarcity, actually works. If it’s hard to get, we want it. If there’s less of it, we want more of it.
The regions of our brain concerned with survival make us more susceptible to any sales pitch suggesting that supplies are “limited” or “available for a limited time only.” The scarcity principle is also commonly known as FOMO: the fear of missing out.
When I began my career as a speaker, and a prospective client would call me to inquire about engaging me, somehow I knew instinctively — an ability most likely inherited from Grandpa Jack — that I needed to act as though I was busy and had to “check my calendar.” Of course, this principle has to be applied judiciously and requires good timing and finesse, especially in the realm of dating. Social psychologist Jeremy Nicholson, known as the Attraction Doctor, emphasizes that in relationships, and in business, playing hard to get requires a balancing act: “On the one hand, seeming too eager might be taken as desperate, possibly lowering the perception of your value to a romantic partner. On the other, appearing too aloof could result in that prospect giving up. The key is demonstrating that you are selective — showing a potential partner that they have a unique and special opportunity to be with you, while also providing enough encouragement so they continue their efforts.”
Nicholson explains how that same principle is at work in business: “If you communicate to your boss or to a potential employer that you are desperate for an opportunity, they might try to take advantage of you. Acting disinterested, however, may lead them to pass you up for someone who seems more engaged and motivated. Just as in dating, the key is communicating your selectivity but also letting them know you are seriously considering their proposal.”
Whenever you enter a room with other people in it, whether it’s a restaurant, an auditorium, or a conference room, part of your brain, the limbic system, is monitoring your status, your place in the social hierarchy. We unconsciously respond to many different signals of status, from a person’s height and how symmetrical her face is and how stylish her clothing, to subtler cues like body language and accent. Moreover, the same part of the brain that automatically assesses our status relative to others also compels us to comply with the directions or suggestions of those we perceive to be higher in the hierarchy.
In a wine store, for example, people are much more likely to buy a wine with a “shelf talker” touting a high rating from a recognized critic. Unethical purveyors sometimes use ratings from bogus sources or post a shelf talker praising another vintage besides the one for sale and count on the potential customer’s lack of diligence in catching the discrepancy. People tend to follow the lead of those whom other people have deemed expert. This influences behavior in everything from selling fine wine to getting people to commit crimes.
As we discussed in chapter 5, when giving a formal public presentation it’s a good idea to have a well-respected, authoritative person introduce you. Authority is also conveyed by the way you dress, stand, and move, your voice tone and choice of words, and most important, by your clarity and presence.
Many years ago I was swimming in a beautiful pond in southern Virginia on the campus of Sweet Briar College. I thought I was alone until, a few feet away from where I was floating, a woman popped up from below the water and looked around. I guess she thought she had the pond to herself as well, and we both looked surprised. She then looked right at me and inquired, “Friend or foe?” We both laughed and continued to swim.
Just as we assess our status relative to others, we also determine quickly whether they are threats or allies, friends or foes. And when we perceive someone as a friend or potential friend, when we like them, we are much more susceptible to their influence. How do we determine whether someone is likable? Research suggests that this depends on a few key elements, including a sense of commonality. In other words, we tend to like people who are like us and are often suspicious of those who seem different. We also tend to like those who seem to share our goals and values and who demonstrate cooperative behavior, and we are also influenced by positive things that people say about us. Compliments and even obvious flattery often make others more amenable to whatever it is you’d like them to do.
In public speaking the audience determines your likability through a number of different cues, beginning with your body language and voice tonality. If you walk onto the stage or to the front of the room in a relaxed, upright, and confident manner, if you smile and greet the audience in a genuine way, you create the conditions for effective influence.
Psychologist Nalini Ambady showed subjects thirty-second-long videotapes of professors presenting to their classes. The subjects were asked to rate the effectiveness of each teacher after the brief viewing. The results were astonishing — the subjects’ ratings, based on what the researchers called thin-slice judgments, correlated almost exactly with the ratings obtained from students after a full term of lectures. Further research demonstrated that subjects offered accurate evaluations after viewing video segments less than ten seconds in length. Ambady attributes this remarkable ability to read and instantly interpret body language to “evolutionary adaptation, the need to figure out who friends and foes were.”
In addition to walking onstage with a poised, upright posture and a smile, it’s a good idea to greet your audience at the beginning of your talk in a sincere and friendly manner. If, for example, you say “good morning” like you mean it, instead of in the formal and dull way that people often do this, and you pause for a moment, people in even the largest audiences will usually respond with a welcoming greeting in return. Then, whenever appropriate, connect with the audience by sharing an observation about something you have in common with them and by complimenting them in a genuine and playful way. (Remember the example from Ankara, Turkey, cited in chapter 4.)
If everyone else is doing it, talking about it, or buying it, then our brains make us want to do it, talk about it, or buy it, too. The limbic system drives pack behavior. I call it the principle of “everyone,” which is really a variation of the principle of authority. As Cialdini notes, people are more likely to follow through and do the exercises prescribed by a physical therapist who displays her diploma in her office than they are by one who doesn’t. Why are we influenced when we see a diploma from a recognizable institution — evidence that a degree or advanced degree has been conferred by that institution? It is because we are experiencing that institution’s authority, which is conferred on it by society so that it can confer its authority onto individuals. And the evidence demonstrates that it affects us more than we may realize. People will tend to look to the actions of others for direction or confirmation, especially when they feel uncertain. In Berlin, Germany, it’s exceedingly rare for a pedestrian to cross against the traffic light, but in Manhattan almost everyone does it, even many visitors from Berlin, but only after they look around and notice that everyone else is doing it. This is also why your news feed on the social media sites you follow highlights phenomena that are “trending.” If it’s popular, if everyone is doing it, or if we can be led to believe that everyone’s doing it, then our limbic system leads us to feel more comfortable doing it, too, and vice versa.
Nicholson notes that this principle operates in our intimate relationships as well:
Individuals tend to look at what other people are doing to help provide information about a particular decision, especially when that decision is complex and hard to evaluate, and the choices are unclear. Picking the right romantic partner is one of those complex and confusing decisions. Given that, rather than evaluating all the romantic options available, some daters decide to focus on popular partners as more desirable to them as well (known as Mate Choice Copying). Fortunately you don’t need to be a celebrity to have this dynamic work in your favor. For example, just being seen out with an attractive friend (who could possibly be construed as a potential romantic partner), or posting a picture with them on your dating profile, can give your own desirability a boost in the eyes of others, too.
For public speakers this principle means that you will be more effective in generating support for your message, idea, proposition, or proposal if you can demonstrate that it is popular. In business presentations this principle comes to life in what companies call “benchmarking” or “best practices.” If you can present data proving that your counterparts in other organizations are doing something that you want your audience to do, then they are much more likely to do it.
If you supercharge RESALE with PROPAR you’ll make your message unforgettably influential. Think of others’ needs and offer something positive and unexpected to inspire reciprocity. Get them engaged with your proposition. Let them know that it is special and scarce. Cite research or endorsements from trusted sources to appeal to the sense of authority. Generate liking by being friendly, expressing commonalities, and giving compliments. And remember that if you don’t know what to order in a restaurant, your server is trained to respond to your question about what she recommends by saying: “Well, the everyone burger is our most popular item.”
Then, organize your presentation so that you emphasize what you want the audience to remember at the beginning (primacy), repeat your key points (repetition), tell a story or do a demonstration (outstanding), and get your audience engaged with questions real and rhetorical and with examples that are evocative for them (personal association), and then emphasize your key points with a call to action at the end (recency).
If the Buddha gave sales presentations, he would be aware of the ways in which the human mind is conditioned to remember and be influenced and would always use this understanding with compassion and a commitment to benefit others.
There’s one last secret of mastering the art of public speaking that, more than any other, can help you overcome fear: free yourself from egotism as you prepare to speak. How? There are many different paths and methods, but the simplest is to form an intention and express it. This is sometimes called prayer, but it doesn’t have to be religious. Find an invocation that works best for you to facilitate a sense of surrendering the ego and aligning with a higher purpose.
My favorite pre-presentation invocation comes from A Course in Miracles:
You can do much on behalf of your own healing and that of others if, in a situation calling for help, you think of it this way:
I am here only to be truly helpful.
I am here to represent Him Who sent me.
I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, because He Who sent me will direct me.
I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me.
I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal.