"It’s Like Rubbing Honey Into Keira Knightley!" – How to Use Irresistible Metaphors to Sell More

Imagine if you could slip into bed with your customer, late at night when she’s in her pajamas, and whisper love-poems about your brand, without all those messy arrests and ensuing court cases… Imagine if your stories were so psychologically compelling that customers would use them to sell your proposal to themselves… And then brag about their purchase to others, using the words that you supplied.

Sometimes the tactile approach works, and getting them to hold the product can get the job done. But more often than we credit, it’s actually more persuasive to leave verbal grappling hooks in the memory. We need to speak in irresistible metaphors.

Irresistible metaphors are like little soldiers of the imagination, fighting to plant your flag in their brain-space, going to war with barriers-to-purchase by parachuting past objections and landing covertly behind enemy lines.

Chances are, at some point you’ve had a salesperson completely disarm you with nothing more than words. Be it a product pitch in a store, or a multi-million Rand bid for business that relied more upon language than PowerPoint slides; his metaphor was so juicy; her story so completely irresistible; that you simply had to make the purchase, just so that you could own that pithy little catch-phrase and repeat as your own.

How does it work?

Metaphors work their magic by:

Taking the prospect out of analytical thinking and into romance mode

Giving human meaning to a transaction, which might otherwise have been decided purely on mathematics

Causing your customers to enjoy your creativity, and hence, your company

Creating a dynamic in which your customers start replicating your words and selling you to others

Providing stories that are so entrancing that giving up the purchase would feel like missing out on something special. The alternative becomes un-storied and therefore empty of value.

Sometimes, a good metaphor can single-handedly clinch the deal. If it is compelling enough, the customer simply has to have it. So what makes this little device so persuasive?

The humble metaphor is often described as the highest form of communication. It cuts through the clutter of facts and figures and punches straight for the emotional gut by making a simple idea truly come alive. It also tends to stick in the memory because of its visual nature.

The undisputed master of the modern metaphor is Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson. Who else would think to describe the smooth ride of a supercar as being ‘… like rubbing honey into Kiera Knightley’? Or, in a more cynical moment, a Porsche as having ‘all the sex appeal of a camel with gingivitis’?

In a similar vein, Harley Davidson won awards for their tag line: ‘It’s like a juicy steak for your ears.’ Great metaphors can even become commercial empires. Think of the bestselling series of books, ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul.’

Do it yourself:

Let’s get down to the mechanics. How can you use metaphors in your pitches?

For starters, a metaphor is very simply the art of using one thing to symbolically represent another. That’s all. The comparison then imbues the original thing with a dramatic quality. For instance: This brand is like the Rolls Royce of pens, or The American economy is a punch-drunk boxer, willing to fight but reeling to stay on its feet.

For that reason, we need to start with the quality that you want to imbue upon your offering. What do you want your offering to be like? The stealth fighter of your industry? The James Bond of your client’s options? Thereafter, it’s a simple matter of painting the picture for your prospect, telling the story and allowing them to ‘own the dream.’

Let’s pretend we’re in real estate. An average pitch might simply list benefits:

The house gets sunshine in the morning

The kitchen tiles are imported from Italy and the oven is new

The office library has an intercom system

A spiral staircase connects the two floors

Re-stated using metaphors, these simple items become a treasure trove of compelling and picturesque language:

It’s like waking up in a beach-house every morning

It’s like having Nigella Lawson’s kitchen all to yourself

This isn’t an office. It’s the command center on the Star Ship Enterprise.

This section looks like an episode of Top Billing. You could just imagine Jeanie D swanning down the staircase as she introduces the next guest.

Well crafted metaphors are powerful sales tools. They are also tragically underutilized. We rarely think about adding them to our repertoire. And why not; they’re free after all? They require only the slightest effort of imagination. And if your competitors aren’t using them, their incorporation into your toolkit will give you a natural advantage. Why? Because all features and benefits being equal, the ‘romantic’ ‘meaningful’ option will generally win out. Metaphors give meaning to otherwise inanimate objects. They lend story to otherwise lifeless offerings.

Tell a quality story, and your customers will use it to convince themselves. They will repeat the compelling metaphors to their friends and family to justify the purchase and brag about its worth.

Become the only one in your industry using metaphors, and your pitch will be like a meteorite strike in the grey landscape of your customer’s’ imaginations. You will be like the only welcoming light in a deserted town, and hence, the only logical choice.

MLM Sponsoring – Are You Irresistible?

MLM Sponsoring is About Making Yourself Irresistible

With millions of network marketers worldwide and the industry growing by 150,000 new distributors every week, how do you make your mlm sponsoring more effective? The answer is simple…”Make Yourself Irresistible.”

How do you make yourself irresistible you may ask, and that answer is also actually quite simple…”Look at what everyone else in the network marketing industry is doing and do the complete opposite.”

I know that may be contradictory to what you may have been taught so just bare with me for a second……

MLM Sponsoring-Factors to Becoming Irresistible

If you’re still reading I want to say “Congratulations”! I’m congratulating you because I know that if you grasp what I’m about to share with you about MLM sponsoring(and most importantly implement it), I guarantee that you will begin to sponsor new distributors effortlessly.

There are certain factors that are essential to you becoming irresistible to your prospects, and they are Intrinsic and Extrinsic Factors. Intrinsic Factors are things that have to go on inside of you and Extrinsic Factors are things you can do in the physical world to create a situation where prospects being magnetically attracted to you is a normal thing.

MLM Sponsoring-What Are These Intrinsic & Extrinsic Factors?

I’m going to keep this short and sweet because I tend to get very long winded when talking about the subject of mlm sponsoring because it’s the most important skill set to have in network marketing and I’m very passionate about it. You can know all the product knowledge, know the comp plan inside out, know all the SEO tricks or whatever but if don’t develop these factors you’re building on sand.

Intrinsic Factors- Remember, these things have to go on inside of you.

#1 Be A Person With Vision: No where you’re going and you’ll get there a lot faster. Most people don’t know where there going in life that’s why people are willing to follow someone with a clear vision. “See The End From The Beginning!”

#2 Be A Person With Passion: Passion alone is Magnetic!! Believe in your message, product or service and carry it forward.

#3 Be A Fearless Leader: Lead by example and understand that F.E.A.R isn’t real. Fear is the main thing that keeps people from being successful in mlm sponsoring. F.E.A.R is only False Evidence Appearing Real! “Remember that courage isn’t taking action in the absence of F.E.A.R. Courage is the ability to still take action in the presence of F.E.A.R.”

#4 Be A Teacher & Trainer: Take everything that you learn from research, mentoring and experiential; synthesize that information and pour it into others to help them shorten their learning curves. “If You Can Do A Thing, You Can Teach A Thing!”

“You don’t have to be a “GURU” to teach. You only have to be 1 chapter ahead of the rest of the class.”

#5 Have Clarity: Know who you’re going to serve, because it’s all about service and adding value. Most importantly, you have to be crystal clear about who you are and who you want to be to who you are serving.

#6 Practice Relentlessly: Mastery is Key and they say it takes 10,000 hours to master a particular area. Have the mindset that the job is never over. You don’t have to be perfect but always Strive for Excellence. The best athletes and entertainers are those that stay up late and wake up earlier mastering their craft. So if you want to master the Art of MLM Sponsoring, you have to practice relentlessly.

#7 Become A Master Marketer: This is very important because 97% of network marketers, unfortunately, don’t know anything about marketing. Most companies train their distributors to go recruit their warm market(friends & family), and when they’re done with that they are discouraged and quit because of rejection and the lack of knowledge of how to effectively talk to new people about their business.

#8 The traditional method of mlm sponsoring has worked in the past and still works but if you can teach your team how to generate quality leads on and offline, through attraction marketing, that puts you in a league of your own.

#9 Know The Numbers: This is part of the process of becoming a Master Marketer. If you understand the Law of Averages and track your marketing, you can then be more scientific in telling your team what they have to do to get certain results.

Quick Example: “Every 10 people you show the Plan, 3 are interested and 1 actually makes the investment.” Now you and your team can set more practical goals.

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