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CONTACT: amiller@annemiller.com

Reviews

CHICAGO TRIBUNE "Metaphors are communication home runs. This book shows you how to hit them."

FREQUENT FLYER "A gem of a book"

MARKETING TODAY.COM "A quick enjoyable read...Miller goes beyond the quick fix of most business books."

MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW "An extremely valuable supplement to the personal library of anyone in careers that involve sales, negotiation, presentation"

SALES PRO MAGAZINE; May's "Must have!" selection

“Like a hot knife through butter, the ideas in this book will melt away objections and help you spread your ideas further and faster. Don’t hesitate…learn what Anne’s got to teach.”
Seth Godin, Author
“Purple Cow” and “Free Prize Inside”

“As alluring as ice-cold lemonade when you’re standing on Texas asphalt in August heat. Do you see how quickly I learned from this book?! Don’t leave home (and go to a client) without it.”
Alan Weiss, Author,
“Million Dollar Consulting”

“… Metaphors have the power to package big ideas and help them break through the clutter and indifference of our A.D.D. business climate. Anne puts that power into the hands of all sellers…and there aren’t metaphors strong enough to describe the impact.”
Doug Weaver, Lecturer, Trainer,
Consultant, President Upstream Group

“The use of appropriate timely, tasteful and powerful metaphorical illustrations are the poetry of all superb communicators. Anne shows how to use metaphors to dramatize the sales process. A must read to help you become a superlative persuader.”
Tony Whatley, President
Accessor Capital Management

“After reading this book, you will add the strategic use of metaphors to the musts of your high stake selling efforts. Anne focuses our attention on this powerful sales tool in a way that most of us don’t really stop and think about. This book and its tips will help all of us in business, whether you are directly involved in sales or not and at any experience level.”
Jill Manee, Vice President, Publisher
The AdAge Group

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Table of Contents

Introduction: The $1.2 Billion Metaphor

SECTION ONE: THE CASE FOR METAPHOR

Chapter 1: The Challenge: Getting Heard

Chapter 2: What are Metaphors?

Chapter 3: When Do You Need Metaphors?

Chapter 4: Your Audience’s Brain Craves Metaphors

SECTION TWO: BUILDING METAPHOR MUSCLE

Chapter 5: The Four-Step Metaphor Workout: Overview

Chapter 6: Identify Blindspot

Chapter 7: Snapshot Your Client

Chapter 8: Create Your Metaphor

Chapter 9: Relate Back to Your Point

Chapter 10: Beware Bad Metaphors!

SECTION THREE: SELLING WITH METAPHORS

Chapter 11: Threads: Run a Theme

Chapter 12: Grabbers: Get Attention

Chapter 13: Anchors: Position Yourself

Chapter 14: Nutshells: Make Memorable Recommendations

Chapter 15: Burners: Explain, Simplify, Reinforce Points

Chapter 16; Shockers: Make Numbers Stick

Chapter 17: Seducers: Titles That Tease

Chapter 18: Sledgehammers: Headlines That Hit Home

Chapter 19: Visuals: Communicate Concepts

Chapter 20: Props: Add Impact

Chapter 21: Clinchers: Dramatic Take-Action Closings

SECTION IV: METAPHOR MAINTENANCE

Chapter 22: Observe and Connect

Chapter 23: Travel to Other Worlds

Chapter 24: Become a Clipper

Conclusion

Chapter Notes

Bibliography

About Anne Miller & “The Metaphor Minute”

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Excerpt

Chapter 15: Burners: Explain, Simplify, Reinforce Points

When Sallie Krawcheck accepted the job of CEO at Smith Barney, following a series of conflict-of-interest problems at that company, many doubted she could restore customer credibility. Krawcheck assured shareholders she was up to the task. “The public,” she explained, “is like a jilted lover. It’s going to take some time to win them back.”

Her metaphor worked on many levels. Without using the term “betrayed,” Krawcheck nonetheless articulated how Smith Barney clients felt in the wake of recent revelations. Instant forgiveness, as with an ex-lover, was not likely. Additionally, however, her jilted-lover metaphor shows that she is acknowledging the company’s responsibility as jilter, the one who ruined the relationship—surely the first step toward reconciliation. Finally, the utter frankness of her comparison leads us to believe that whatever subterfuge and evasion preceded her arrival as CEO is history. Krawcheck fully embraces the challenge of rebuilding trust.

In short, with her incisive analogy, this CEO deftly avoided a potentially labored explanation—one which might have cast further doubt on her abilities—and instantly quelled investor anxiety.

For it is with words as with sunbeams – the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.

More Words, More Confusion
In any pitch or presentation, no matter what you’re selling or advocating, explanations are inevitable. Perhaps you must explain how you differ from the competition; perhaps not everyone is familiar with the service or product you provide. Or perhaps you’ve got a breakthrough process or technology that’s quite complex. Conversely, maybe the action you’re suggesting to your audience is so obvious and straightforward you need to explain why they haven’t thought of it before. Sometimes, you need to explain a fine difference between two apparently similar things. Or—and this is where Sally Krawcheck found herself—you need to explain how you’re going to fix something that’s broken, that perhaps you broke.

So you explain. You go into great detail. You offer up everything you know, you use the right terminology, you explain the terminology, you leave no stone unturned. It takes time, but you’re in earnest.

And yet, it seems, the more you talk, the less people listen. Or they listen but they don’t understand. Or they understand so completely they tune out. The more they drift, the more earnestly you explain…and the further they drift.

Explanations needn’t involve a lot of words. Explanations that simply train-car adjectives or string together descriptions (“it’s back-loaded collateralized emerging-market structured debt”) compound the listener’s confusion or boredom. Explanations that go on and on about how a screw-up occurred don’t minimize the mistake; they draw attention to it. The less said, the better—provided each word you choose triggers in your listener’s mind a host of relevant and revelatory associations.

He who speaks well fights well. ---Proverb

That’s where metaphor and analogy come in: With an apt comparison, you can familiarize the unknown, simplify the complex, reveal new twists in the straightforward, and refine hard-to-see differences. You can dig yourself out of a hole; you can mold perception before it sets against you. The well-chosen metaphor focuses understanding instead of allowing it to diffuse. The perfect analogy crystallizes meaning in a visual, intuitive, emotionally poignant way that pierces through resistance to lodge permanently in your listener’s brain.

“It’s Like Nothing You’ve Ever Seen…”
Steelcase, the office furniture company, rolled out a new business chair in 2003 called the Catchet. It was like no other chair on the market. The back legs were not forged of one continuous piece of metal: instead, they were jointed in the middle, as if they had “knees.” Indeed, they looked like the rear legs of a horse.

Even though the design was a breakthrough in terms of ergonomic comfort, Steelcase knew it was going to need one powerful explanation to sell the thing. The chair so violated expectations of what a chair should look like that customers were likely to reject it out of hand.

Isn’t that the irony with innovation? People want to be on the cutting edge; they want the very latest technology; they pine for the next new thing. Time and again, however, when confronted with the next new thing, they resist it tooth and nail. People simply cannot imagine needing or using anything they haven’t yet experienced—unless it’s explained in terms of what they already know and love.

Hence the trick to selling something brand new—something no one has experienced or seen before—is to get your audience to visualize it in the context of familiar images. Show them how it is like something they use now and can’t live without. You will succeed not only in explaining it (winning Joe Left Brain’s approval) but also in selling it (getting Robin Right Brain to jump up and down with glee).

Thinking of the chair in the context of other once-foreign-now-familiar technologies (computers, cell phones, PDAs), Steelcase hit upon just the comparison—and sold a lot of office furniture. “You’ve never seen a chair with knees?” read the ad copy for Catchet. “Not long ago, people hadn’t seen a typewriter with a TV screen, either.”

Of course a chair, however innovatively designed, is still a chair—a familiar object whose functionality and necessity requires no explanation. But what about those technologies that are both cutting-edge AND complex? That are utterly abstract and outside the experience of all but the most techno-savvy?

The whole concept may need to be recast in a substitute set of images and terms. It may need an old vocabulary, one heavy with visual associations, to explain new functions.

The internet is a perfect example. Previously used by academics and the military, this breakthrough technology quickly became known to the masses as “the information superhighway.” Eventually, an entire internet vocabulary evolved based on familiar office vernacular. Instead of a “working interface area” or “live memory staging area,” we looked at our Inbox. Instead of mail going into “destruction containers,” “SMTP acceptance containers,” or “communication reception logs,” it went into Files. And “tabular user interface” or “structured user interaction table” became, thankfully, simply our Desktop. Strands of hypertext meant nothing to us, but translated into familiar office functions, like chatting and sending mail, the internet became a household phenomenon in a breathtakingly short time.