Metaphorically Selling

A pagan priest’s trick for persuading without being seen

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Lately I’ve gotten a little overwhelmed listening to marketing and copywriting courses, which is something I do during the off-moments of my day. So for a change, I found a course on YouTube about the early Middle Ages. I’ve been playing that when I make my salad or hard-boil my eggs or whatever else it is I am doing for lunch.

Today, I listened to a lecture about early Medieval Britain. And the lecturer read out a passage about a pagan priest, who supposedly argued to his king that the kingdom should convert to Christianity.

Now, if you are doubtful that a pagan priest would argue himself out of a job, I share your doubts.

​​Nonetheless, I thought the priest’s supposed argument was moving and even beautiful:

“The present life of man upon earth, O King, seems to me in comparison with that time which is unknown to us like the swift flight of a sparrow through the mead-hall where you sit at supper in winter, with your Ealdormen and thanes, while the fire blazes in the midst and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest, but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter to winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all.”

A sparrow, flying swiftly through a bright and warm banquet hall, as a metaphor for life.

​​How the hell do you come up with something like that? Do you just have to be a poet?

I thought about this for a moment.

I’m sure being a poet helps.

But I realized something rather obvious. This image, of the bright and warm banquet hall, and maybe even a sparrow flitting through it, was something a king of Northumbria would know very well. It would be a daily experience — well, if not daily, at least nightly, on the weekends.

So the point I want to share with you is to make your metaphors something your prospect will know well, and will resonate with.

That’s not my idea. It comes from the book Metaphorically Selling by Anne Miller.

You might think this idea is so basic that it hardly needs mentioning.

But Miller gives the example of a business woman, speaking to an audience of other business women, who peppered her talk with metaphors taken from baseball and football. Unsurprisingly, the talk bombed.

Miller’s advice is to “snapshot” your prospect.

To observe. To do research. To find out his or her life and background. Even things that aren’t related to the problem you are offering to solve.

And then to use that, and not just to inform your sales arguments. But also to shape the metaphors you come up with, so you can subtly persuade your prospect, without him even noticing it. Kind of like a soft bed, which makes it both pleasant to fall asleep, and impossible to tell when it actually happened.

If you found that persuasive, you might like my email newsletter. Or you might not. If you want to try it out, you can sign up here.

Free sample: Why you are not “bombarded with information”

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Yesterday, I started reading a book called Metaphorically Selling. It looks promising, but…

The first chapter is all about the NEED for metaphor in sales and marketing. Here’s the gist:

“There is nowhere you can turn to escape the barrage of pitches vying for your attention and your disposable income. Twenty five hundred bids for our attention bombard us daily, from the television, the radio, the newspaper, the …”

How many times have you heard the same “bombarded with information” argument? I guess each marketing book, course, and seminar has to make it at the start, like a doctor putting a stethoscope around his neck to look professional.

I can tell you this:

This argument didn’t make me nod my head in agreement. Instead, it made me think of a talk that copywriter Richard Armstrong gave at AWAI bootcamp. Richard said:

“Nowadays it makes no more sense to say we are bombarded with information than it would be to say that a fish is bombarded with water. No, a fish is swimming in water. He’s living in water. He’s breathing water. To a very large extent, he’s actually made of water. And so it is with human beings and information.”

I probably heard Richard’s talk 3-4 years ago (it’s up on YouTube). I only listened to it once.

And yet, this one idea, that we are like fish swimming in an ocean of information, has stuck with me ever since. It pops up in my mind whenever I hear the cliche claim about being “bombarded by information.”

And if you take a moment to think about what I just said, you will find a recipe for messages that stick with your prospect for years… that pop up in his mind regularly… and that he shares with others, like I just did with you.

But if you don’t want to take the time to figure out the recipe, don’t worry. I’ll write more about it in a book I’m putting together. You can consider the above a free sample of that.

Anyways, the reason I watched Richard’s talk is because I read his own free sample book. And I was so impressed.

Richard is what you might call an A-list copywriter. His free sample book is a collection of his most successful and interesting ads. Along with his funny commentary.

And the best part? Richard’s free sample book is completely different from everything else out there.

Perhaps you don’t believe me. Or perhaps you’re curious. In either case, if you’re the type of person who wants to check things out for yourself, you can take a look at the link below.

But before you go, in case you’d like to take a daily swim in the ocean current that is my email newsletter, you can do that here.

And here’s the link to Richard’s free sample book:

https://www.freesamplebook.com/