Page 12 - How To Sell Yourself

Introduction 11
The keyboard, monitor, e-mail, fax, modem, and recording are in. The voice is out. So when we do communicate by mouth, it often comes out exactly like “small talk.”
• “Hi.”
• “How ya doin’?”
• “Nice to see you.”
• “What’s new.”
• “I saw Joe yesterday.”
• “Right.”
• “Uh huh.”
It all sounds like the typical greeting on an elevator first thing in the morning. I call it “the non-greeting greeting.”
The lack of animation that has snuck into “small talk” now dominates the world of spoken communication. And our role models offer little or no help. Pay attention to the way the politi- cian or the CEO delivers a speech. The way the correspondent reads the news on television. The way the “expert” analyzes in the public forum. Or worst of all, the way the movie star delivers lines. If you pay attention, you’ll notice how little color, enthusi- asm, or vividness are communicated. It all sounds exactly like “small talk.” A keyboard kind of dullness has taken over the whole world of communication. It’s not unusual that when a TV reporter says, “Three thousand people are missing in the flood,” the words come out exactly as though they were, “I had a rotten cup of cof- fee on my way to work.” Monotony reigns supreme.
A presidential radio address is a big snore.
The weatherperson speed-reads copy and may as well be re- citing the phone book.
I’ve been at more than one meeting and heard corporate CEOs say, “We’re delighted with the results this year,” and it came out exactly as if they’d said, “I’m having a serious digestive problem this morning.”
So why are we bothering to speak? What are we trying to say and why can’t we say it right? How can we get our audience to pay attention and take away the message we’re trying to deliver? After all, if we can’t do it right, why bother?
To answer these questions let’s go back to the first sentence of this book, to my definition of communication. “Communication is