Perfect Pitch: Keep Talking!

When a new product or service is introduced into the marketplace, people don’t buy it just because it has suddenly appeared. Research shows that consumers need at least nine exposures to a new product – whether on billboards, or in TV spots, or in print ads – before they even notice that the product exists. It’s the same way with making a new business acquaintance. Clients aren’t eager to sign on with someone they’ve just met, possibly at the risk of a significant amount of money. This is perfectly understandable and reasonable.

But once a certain amount of familiarity is established, several things begin to happen. The name and the visual image of a product become remembered – just as the connection with a business contact becomes reinforced as more meetings occur.

As it turns out, something very similar happens even in a one-on-one conversation, and most definitely in an oral presentation. The first time you introduce an idea, especially if it’s not phrased in some sort of catchy way, it will probably go right by your listeners – “in one ear and out the other.” But if you keep saying it, and if you do so in a novel or interesting way, people will not only remember it – they’ll also begin to anticipate it.

But that’s not all. The amazing thing is, they’ll also begin to accept it as true. It’s a strange fact of human nature that repetition itself has persuasive power. Simply by presenting the same information several times you can increase the intensity and the persuasiveness of your message. Just by engaging in multiple conversations with a potential client, you increase the chances of a successful business relationship.

"It is not by advancing a truth once or twice, or even ten times, that the people will adopt it," said Franklin Roosevelt. "Incessant repetition is required to impress political truths upon the public mind. By always hearing the same facts, people gradually give them a place in the corner of their minds. Soon they would no more think of doubting it than they would doubt their religious or patriotic beliefs.”

An earlier President, Woodrow Wilson, made the same point in a different way. Once, as a boy, Wilson asked his mother why she had repeated the same fact to him 20 times. She replied, “Because you haven’t learned it after nineteen.”

One word of caution about using the tool of repetition: unless you have a very novel way of saying the same thing over and over, your repetition could become tedious. If your point can be made in just a few words, you might want to create a simple rhyme. Recall attorney Johnny Cochran’s very effective couplet about OJ Simpson’s glove: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” You can also repeat a single idea in more expanded forms, provided you have the vocabulary to do this in a graceful and interesting manner.

In the same way, try to bring some fresh energy to business conversations, especially when you’re in the process of reeling in a new client. From your vantage point, you’ll be able to tell if this is working or not. If a client is staring into your eyes and hanging on your every word, then it’s working. If clients are sneaking glances at their watches, it’s not!