Just last week I was speaking to a group of 50 women
and men. I opened by holding up a $20 and asking
who would like this $20 bill. I also mentioned there
were no strings attached. You would have thought that
everyone would be raising their hand wanting the $20
bill.

That isn't what happened. Less than half the people
raised their hand.

I gave the $20 bill away and stood in silence. It wasn't
a long silence but silence when everyone expects to be
hearing you talk is long whether its 10 seconds of
several minutes. I was waiting until I saw a few
audience members began fidgeting.

Then one women spoke up. ¡°Darn, I could have used
that $20 for gas today.¡± You guessed it, she was one
of the hesitant ones.

My topic was on marketing. The exercise
demonstrated that even when we market from the truth
with no strings attached and even though we totally
think of the customer first, many people perceive,
assume, that there is going to be a catch to the offer.

This is a powerful lesson when you are expressing your
offer, whether its written or verbal, the majority of the
people reading or hearing it are going to be thinking
with an ¡°it's too good to be true¡± mentality.

This means that whenever you are preparing any type
of marketing material you need to see your offer from
this perspective.

The following day I again spoke to another group. This
time the audience was all women. I opened again with
another $20. Only this time when I mentioned that
there were no strings attached, I said it more powerfully
- meaning more vocal variety - repeated it as if it was
written in bold print and stated there were absolutely no
strings attached. The word ¡°absolutely¡± was set off
with a mild hand slap.

Every hand raised.

The lessons learned¡­

Whenever you make an offer you absolutely have to
make sure you tell whomever you want to buy into
whatever your offer is conveying what's involved on
their part. I'm talking about what will they loose out on
if they pass on this opportunity. It could be a tank of
gas or even lunch with a friend. It doesn't always need
to be something big and bold.

Another lesson learned was that in the first audience,
the majority of the people raising their hands were
women. This demonstrated that women are more likely
to jump on an offer than a man. This also says to me
that women are more willing to take a gamble than a
man. Hmmm, that's fuel for thought the next time you
make an offer, isn't it?

What else does this exercise tell you? How would you
present your offers differently? Here's your assignment.
Think on this for a few moments and look at one of
your offers and then ask the questions that keep your
audience's hands down and make sure you are
addressing each one of them.

(c) Copyright 2005, Catherine Franz. All rights
reserved.