Page 220 - ConvinceThemFlip

convince them in 90 seconds or less
Gil Gerard, an eighty-two-year-old patent attorney, was
e-mailing his daughters in France, San Francisco, and
Prague; was looking up some of his old protégés on the
Internet; and had even given a couple of inventors some
patent advice on an inventors’ website. Now Penny had
her story, so she took her big idea and hit every journalist
she could find with her ten-second commercial: “Teenage
tech support for surfing seniors.”
She used the story of Gil and his teenage teacher to
show what her program was doing for the community—
both young and old. She wasn’t trying to sell anything. She
didn’t say that she needed computers or volunteers, but
she did show all three of the key aspects of convincing:
credentials, logic, and emotion. And soon she had more
computers, teenage teachers, and corporate donors than
she knew what to do with.
Staying “Top of Mind”
Businesses spend billions on advertising, public rela-
tions, and publicity each year to keep themselves and
their products at the forefront of public awareness. If you
don’t have billions, take heart. There’s plenty you can
do to keep yourself alive in your clients’ mind—after all,
what’s the point of making a great first impression, estab-
lishing rapport, and getting your ideas across, if clients
212