Mea Vita: Carpe Diem

What's the key to persuading people in public speaking and marketing pitches?

Start with the Facts

It's much easier to convince a friend, who knows you, than a group of strangers who have to evaluate you on multiple levels. When speaking publicly, each individual in a group will size you up based on many things, starting with the facts. Are your facts indisputable? Otherwise your audience will conclude your logic is non sequitur. Every single fact must be true to instill confidence in others.

"I like to tell stories and I think I'm good at it."

Do you see what I did, right there? I put forth two indisputable facts; and I did it without being overly passive. While I may be a bad storyteller, I put forth my opinion that I'm good at it. I stated an opinion that might seem like a fact to a casual observer; but if someone digs deeper into my facts, they'll realize that my comments are actually opinions.

The more active your speech, the better. Twitter is a big help with active writing. Generally speaking, the fewer words you use, the more succinct your point. Consider these three statements, conveying the same idea, from most passive to most active:

"I think I am going to go to the store."
"I decided I am going to the store."
"I am going to the store."

Active writing and speaking demonstrate a clear understanding of ideas and concepts.

Bridging Facts to Opinions

A key physiological ingredient to memory recall is adrenaline which is why people remember exactly where they were on 9/11. This "suddenness" is closely related to an epiphany, which I call bridging when it's used to get people from here to there.

Bridging starts with stating points that are closely related to what you're trying to prove, convey, or convince. It's making a series of supporting statements that people don't realize are true. If you can convince someone to believe related facts they didn't know, then your opinions will carry more weight.

For example, if I said, "The earth spins 1,000 mph," would you believe me? Is that really true? Sure, it's true, but most people don't realize it. All I need to do is help people think about it. The circumference of the earth is a bit under 25,000 miles. For easy mental math, let's say the circumference is 24,000 miles. Now, how many basic time zones are there in the world? Answer: 24, since there are 24 hours in a day. Crossing a time zone means adding or subtracting an hour. Simply divide 24,000 miles by 24 hours (24,000 miles / 24 hours) and you get 1,000 mph. Another way to think about this is each time zone is about 1,000 miles wide at the equator (time zones converge at the poles). The United States is about 3,000 miles wide; therefore, flying from NY to LA crosses three time zones and it requires adjusting our watches by three hours.

Following good scientific method principles, I provided two examples to support my statement that the earth rotates at a thousand miles per hour. I gave you a fact which required a little convincing. And then I provided the supporting proof. From here, we move into asserting our opinions, predictions, or forecasts.

Makers vs. Marketers

Die hard makers (people who make products, like engineers) tend to be poor marketers and they will focus on a product's features instead of its benefits. Keep in mind there are many ways to say the same thing without being deceptive or misleading.

Steve Jobs was great at highlighting benefits over features. Had the original iPod been marketed by another company, it might have been pitched as a 6.5 ounce MP3 music player that measured 4"  x  2.4"  x  3/4" and had 5 GB of storage. Even with an engineering background, I'd have a hard time figuring out how much music fits into 5 GB. That's why Apple pitched the iPod as "1,000 songs in your pocket." New concepts are easier to understand if you put them in a familiar context.

But, does this technique, which works on products, also work on people? Sure, but keep your message short when pitching to people and focus on the positive, not the negative.

For example, you call a plumber who completes a job for you and tells you, "That will be $75. But, if you don't pay me within ten days then I'm raising the price to $100."

Now, compare that with, "This will cost you $100, but I'll give you a $25 discount if I receive your payment within ten days."

That's the key to marketing. State a relevant, indisputable, fact that people don't realize. Then simply explain how it's true, followed by your opinion piece with a positive call to action.

One thing that motivates me to write is reading great writing. Whether I'm writing words or writing code, the ability to capture an idea and write it in an impactful way is powerful.

Hemingway – much like Apple – knew how to pare away the cruft to get to the heart of the experience.

When I first began writing fiction I read Hemingway's short stories for inspiration. The first one I read was The Snows of Kilimanjaro where he vividly described a scene without explaining the details.

...he and the British observer had run too until his lungs ached and his mouth was full of the taste of pennies...

This description hit me like a ton of bricks. In this single sentence I understood Hemingway's writing style. When someone's shooting at you the adrenaline deep in your throat tastes exactly like copper pennies. Hemingway had seen combat – he knew what adrenaline tasted like – so there's no need for him to explain it.

The West Wing: "You tasted something bitter in your mouth. It was the adrenaline. The bitter taste was the adrenaline."

A reference to the bitter taste of adrenaline is also seen in an episode of The West Wing. Josh Lyman is in denial about his PTSD after being shot. A Yo Yo Ma performance triggers a PTSD episode and a psychologist jump starts Josh's counseling session by telling him about the bitter taste.

Writing workshop

It's pure chance I came across Joyce Maynard's writing workshop, last spring, that lead me to her home in Mill Valley to work on my writing. There's nothing better than being taught by a woman who's earned her living as a writer her entire adult life. I'm writing this piece, today, because, yesterday, she pointed out that even the best writers have to handle rejection. And it's through Joyce I feel a connection to Hemingway since she lived with J.D. Salinger and Salinger met with Hemingway during WW II.

Joyce Maynard on the far right.

Joyce Maynard just got married.

This past May I attended Joyce's writing workshop at her home in Mill Valley about 20 minutes north of San Francisco. It was a day long affair where Joyce, along with seven of us, reviewed and commented on our manuscripts. While having lunch on her deck, which overlooks Mount Tamalpais, she pointed out the regrettable reality that her fame is too closely tied to the fact that she lived with J. D. Salinger – the recluse author of The Catcher in the Rye – for the better part of a year while writing her first book. Prefacing her bio with this makes it seem she's riding Salinger's coattails which couldn't be further from the truth. Her initial fame, that caught the eye of J. D. Salinger, was a feature article she wrote for The New York Times magazine, An 18-Year-Old Looks Back On Life, while a freshman at Yale.

Joyce Maynard's kitchen.

I've never attended a writing workshop before Joyce's. Although I've published paid and unpaid journalistic articles, interviews, and blog posts, I wanted to work on improving my writing ever since sticking my toe in the waters of fiction writing, last summer. Although Joyce has written fiction, her true talent is the personal narrative.

I don't recall exactly how I discovered Joyce's workshop other than it percolated to the top of my Google search results. I sent off an e-mail to Joyce with great timing. She promptly responded even though she was at her rural place in Guatemala on Lake Atitlán for her ten day writing workshop with limited Internet access. After a few e-mail exchanges I was signed up for her May workshop.

Joyce taught me more about writing in one day than I had learned anywhere else.

Joyce showed me how to quickly detect when there's a story to be told:
"I used to do ________ but now I do ________."
Every time I filled in those two blanks with my real life experiences I had a story to tell.

My manuscript autographed by Joyce Maynard.

A key point she taught me was to write personal narratives that only I could write. She said, "Don't be a reporter. Tell the story that only you can tell." This concept was new to me since much of my paid writing was exactly that: reporting. Very quickly, with each one of us at her workshop, she could figure out the story behind the story. As I listened to each writer's backstory I noticed myself leaning in to hear more. As Joyce asked me a few questions about my manuscript I realized where my deeper, more personal, and interesting story really was. She even gave me a resounding opening line for my manuscript rewrite.

I clearly understood her lessons; especially about how we should use symbols in our writing. Her biggest point that hit home with me was to write less, not more, much like my favorite author, Ernest Hemingway. Leave out small, unimportant details, and let your reader conclude how to get from point-A to point-B. The idea isn't to shut out your readers, but leave out just enough to pull them in like a mystery novel.

At the workshop, Joyce told me about her upcoming wedding plans and I've been following her updates ever since.