How to Sell Your Ideas Better Than 99% of Your Colleagues transcript

And Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is new. >> Your ideas are better than your colleagues. You back them up with all the right facts and arguments. You present them clearly and still people nod. [music] They understand you but they don't buy the idea. One of the biggest mistakes I see smart professionals make is assuming that if the logic is strong enough then people will say yes. >> [music] >> That if they just convince people rationally they'll win.

That is a very wrong assumption and I have seen that kill many many good ideas. Logic is not the key ingredient of a winning pitch >> [music] >> as we will see in a few seconds. Hi, I'm Shanna Jenkins. I'm a leadership communication trainer and I spend a lot of my time helping very smart people solve exactly this problem. And by the end of this video you'll know exactly how to do it. So [music] this Mad Men clip contains some of the most important lessons that you can use to make your own ideas land better than 99% of your colleagues and your competitors.

Don Draper is the creative director of a famous advertising agency and in this scene Kodak has invited the agency to pitch the campaign for its new slide projector and they already have a very clear idea of how they want it positioned. So watch what Don notices. It's key. >> It's actually a hell of a gadget. It's continuous, doesn't jam. They call it the donut or the wheel. They're expecting something along those lines.

Kodak reinvented the wheel. They're going to hear that 10 times. They actually wanted to use the words research and development in the ads. If you could find a way to put the wheel and the future into something with some legs you could make me look good in that first month here. >> Let's stop there. So this is easy to miss but I think it's one of the smartest parts of the entire pitch. Duck has essentially just handed Don the answer Kodak wants.

The product is called The Wheel, and they want the ad to mention research and development, technology, the future. And Don immediately spots the problem. He says, "They're going to hear that 10 times." He understands that every agency competing for this business has received the exact same brief. And if they all follow it literally, well, Kodak is about to sit through 10 different versions of essentially the same idea.

This happens constantly in business. You receive a brief, a request for proposal, or even just a question from senior leadership, and your instinct is to answer exactly what you've been asked. But what if the client or leadership hasn't thought that through fully? What if you have a better idea or a better solution? So, I always recommend to my clients before they build that pitch to ask themselves, is there a less obvious but smarter answer?

Do I see something in the problem that my client or boss may have missed? So, did Kodak's brief miss the point? Let's see. >> Don and Taylor, I No Eastmans today, unfortunately. They're all back in lab. It's a wonderful facility, but they don't take vacations. What are they show? Slides of them working? >> [laughter] >> So, have you figured out a way to work the wheel into it? We know it's hard because wheels aren't really seen as exciting technology, even though they are the original.

Well, technology is a glittering lure. But there's the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash. If they have a sentimental bond with the product. >> So, look at what is at play here. As if it wasn't enough, the Kodak executives make their expectations very clear, exactly the road that Don doesn't want to take. Notice how he changes the angle. He recognizes that technology is a strong argument, but then he starts laying the ground for his own idea, telling them that there is something rare and even more powerful.

So, by doing that, he subtly suggests that this product deserves something more special than simply being sold as another piece of new technology. Also notice how Don speaks with authority. His voice is slow and measured. He finishes his sentences on a neutral tone, never lifting his voice at the end as if he's asking for approval or permission. His body language communicates the same confidence. His movements are controlled and his hands stay mostly in what I call the zone of authority, the space between your shoulders here and your hips.

Nothing about his delivery says, "I I hope you like my idea." It says, "I know where I'm going, just follow me." And pay attention to what comes next because Don now has to do something extremely difficult and something many of you will recognize from your own work. Convince the other party that the answer they had asked for may not actually be the best one. >> My first job, I was in-house at a fur company with this old pro copywriter, Greek, named Teddy. >> Did you notice what Don did here?

So, he could simply have said, "I think there's a more powerful way to sell this product." But then, it's Don's opinion against Kodak's. Instead, he introduces Teddy, an older, experienced copywriter that he worked with at the beginning of his career, and he presents the idea as something that Teddy taught him. So, suddenly Don isn't telling the client that they're wrong and he's right. He's sharing a lesson that he learned from somebody who knew this business long before he did.

That is a very useful persuasion technique. So, if you need to challenge the way that somebody is thinking, never make it you versus them, an adversarial debate, one's right, one's wrong. It is much easier to bring in the perspective of a respected third person. So, instead of saying, "I think we're looking at this the wrong way." you could say, "I recently came across a Stanford study showing that storytelling can be about seven times more memorable than facts alone.

So, I want to make sure we use stories here." So, speaking of storytelling, notice how Don uses it to deliver the lesson. He takes us to his very first job working with an old pro copywriter. And in a few seconds, we have a person and a story that makes us curious about what this wise old advertising man taught him. >> And Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is new. Creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion.

But he also talked about a deeper bond with the product. Nostalgia. It's delicate. But potent. >> And there it is, the lesson from an expert we should all listen to. Nostalgia. Think about the contrast. Kodak wants to put forward new technology. Don wants to sell an emotion connected to the past. And how does Kodak react to the word nostalgia? Probably the way you do. With curiosity. This is such a good example of using communication to influence.

In all likelihood, Kodak should have resisted the idea the moment Don said it. It goes against the explicit direction that they gave him. But, remember the three techniques he used to introduce it. One, he spoke with authority, with conviction. He brought in the opinion of an experienced expert instead of his own, and he delivered it through storytelling. That made Kodak curious rather than antagonistic. So, notice that for now, Don hasn't convinced them of anything.

What he has done is simply earned their curiosity. And that curiosity buys him time to continue instead of entering in an argument or poking at their defensiveness. So, let's see how he uses it. >> Teddy told me that in Greek, nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound. It's a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone. >> Now, Don starts doing something very different. So, instead of trying to convince Kodak that nostalgia is stronger, he makes them actually feel it.

Pay attention to the language. The pain from an old wound, a twinge in your heart. Did you hear any descriptions of a slide projector? Of how that piece of technology actually works? Any jargon or futuristic terms or explanations? No. And at the same time, he removes himself even further from the role of a person arguing against Kodak by showing his own vulnerability. So, the nostalgia that he's talking about is his.

He's showing photographs from his own life, his wife, his children, these special memorable moments that have already passed. And that is why emotional communication is so powerful. You see, so many of us try to persuade by winning an argument on its logical grounds. Don doesn't do that. He does the exact opposite. He takes his idea, nostalgia, and he turns it into something that the people in the room can almost feel.

They can experience this. Don did this instinctively and this can be so powerful. There have been numerous pieces of research that demonstrate that the stronger the emotional response of an audience, the more that they will take action afterwards. And if that's something you know you need to work on, I have a guide which really distills a practical framework to use storytelling to create that kind of buy-in in your own work.

So you can get that in the link below. But Don still hasn't made his final idea land. But what he does is pure mastery. Let's see. >> This device isn't a spaceship. It's a time machine. Goes backwards and forwards. Takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called the wheel. It's called the carousel. Let's just travel the way a child travels. Round and around and back home again. >> So if you noticed that it is only now that Don makes his idea land.

And he says, "This device isn't a spaceship. It's a time machine." Why is that so powerful, that line? Did you notice it? It's a sound bite. That short, sharp, catchy, memorable sentence. And he doesn't go directly from the wheel to the carousel. He first turns the wheel into something far bigger. A time machine. Something that allows you to go forwards and backwards in time. And here comes the bridge. It lets us travel the way a child travels, around and around and back home again to a place where we know we are loved.

That's what makes carousel work. All the emotion he has been building now fits inside this one word. And he says, "It's not called the wheel. It's called the carousel." And at this point you don't feel like Don has simply invented a better name. It's more like he's found the name that belongs to this new device, this projector. >> To a place where we know we are [music] loved. >> And now look at their faces. So, Don has finished and nobody says anything.

They're all speechless after this master class in emotional communication. But Don does something very special here. He plays with the silence. He has done his work. He said what he needed to. There is nothing more to add. So, he lets the silence linger. And that is something I teach a lot of my clients because used well, silence is true strength. It is a demonstration of authority and self-confidence. It is not a weakness and it's certainly not something to fill.

So, I see a lot of people who, in the same position as Don, would get very nervous about that silence. They they would start talking again and maybe explain the idea one more time or probe to see how the pitch was perceived. Don't do that. So, to sum it up, if you want to sell your ideas better than 99% of your colleagues and your competitors, here is what Don Draper just taught us. First, don't automatically give people the answer they expect.

Ask what everyone else is likely to say and see whether you can see something that they have missed. Second, if you need to challenge somebody's thinking, don't make it you versus them. Bring in another perspective, an expert, a customer, a mentor, a data point, a story to make people curious rather than defensive. Third and most importantly, don't rely only on rational, logical arguments. Don's entire pitch is a demonstration of the power of emotional communication.

Now, of course, facts matter, logic matters, but if you want people to genuinely embrace your idea, to for it to resonate or for them to have that full motivation to act, think about what you want them to feel, not just what you want them to think. Fourth, if you want people to accept a different idea, don't just give them the new answer. Help them to see the thing differently first. And finally, when your idea has landed, stop talking.

Let them process the new concept. Let the silence do the rest of the work. So, if you want to get better at storytelling to make your own ideas land, download my free guide storytelling for buy-in and check out this video next.