An excerpt from the book “Persuasion Mastery: 500 Lessons” by Stephan Thieme

(republished here with written permission by the author)

Intelligence For Dummies

I want to add another point here. But I’m afraid to. I mean, it might sound perhaps insensitive. I really would hate it if you thought that I was being judgmental. But I need to say that some people just aren’t very bright. The test closes in the previous phases might just be too subtle for some of those people.

If you think your customer is a wee bit thick, then you might feel like your test close kind of drops to the floor with a clatter. If that happens, consider moving directly to these more black and white test closes as well as to more concrete statements about the product.

Let’s make sure we’re on the same page about concrete benefits. That means very solid, palpable, straightforward, easily understood benefits. It means benefits that are more like actual things than ideas. You need to be able to do that because many people’s thinking is limited to concrete thoughts.

For example, they can understand that, “Life insurance gives your family money when you die. They will need it because your checks will stop coming and they will need to pay the rent and buy food. You never know when you might get killed in an accident. This is like you are renting a big, giant bank account, and they let the money out of the safe if you die and give it to your family.”

But they might not understand, “…and I know that your family will appreciate the security that you create for them by taking care of your life insurance.” That is abstract.

Abstract thinkers can take in a big sweep of ideas in a few words. They think in bigger symbols. They’re just smart that way. I once told a fellow that a concept is abstract, but a chair is concrete. He said, “No it isn’t, a chair is wood.” He was a concrete thinker. That didn’t really happen. But did you know that only about half of adults achieve the ability to think in abstract terms? Surprising, but true.

Be very careful about how you phrase your sales pitches, and take care to figure out who is abstract and who is concrete. If you are more concrete, learn abstract ways to say things to those abstract people. Your abstract colleagues will have ideas about that for your particular industry. Same thing for you abstract folk. Pay attention to your concrete colleagues and learn to speak as they do. Watch a televangelist. You have been missing out on sales!

To purchase Stephan’s book on Amazon, Click Here: Persuasion Mastery