Or can you? One of the key building blocks* of thought is metaphor. It is also a building block in market and sales messaging. Metaphors are actually mental structures in the brain that are independent of language, but can be expressed by language to help us understand things. When used skillfully, the metaphor can be a marketing or sales persons best friend*.
I had a client stop by a project I was doing for him to test a real time sales reporting tool that his IT person had built. He wanted to see what it looked like. I told him that it wasn’t complete, and that if he looked at it, in its current stage, he would be disappointed and probably start asking for changes that we weren’t ready to implement. He insisted, and against my better judgment, I began to show him how it worked. Not more than thirty seconds into the review he stopped me and asked if it could also do service load projections.
At this point I had a choice. I wasn’t going to get side tracked* with another set of scope-creep* requirements. So I said, “No.” Then I qualified, “We’ve just built you a new house on a good foundation, framed it, and put up the sheet rock. Allow us to mud the walls. Then you can decide on what color to paint them, or whether you want to add another room.” He understood this.
Metaphors can muddy the waters* when used too often, or are over the top, or not appropriate. They can also be a spring* of clarity and help us understand complex ideas. When we activate innate metaphors in people’s brains with language, we are then communicating with the unconscious parts of the brain and often have a greater chance at influencing thought than conscious reasoning or the use of facts and logic.
* Metaphors are so prevalent in our language and thinking we don’t even realize they are present.
Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Driving Sales Through Customer Focused Marketing
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (24×7)
One add-on, remember that metaphor is VERY culturally specific and you can get in trouble if you are not careful when working with people from different cultural backgrounds. You need to be able to ‘switch off’ your use of metaphor in some situations to make sure communication works, even better if you can switch to the context your audience brings to the table (something I cannot do).