The Golden Key of Persuasion

From Marketing Bullets

'If you're willing to use a little imagination, I will now place in your hand a golden key. Ready to play along?

OK, vividly picture in your palm a large, gleaming, golden skeleton key. Feel how heavy it is? It's made of solid gold. See how brightly it shines? It seems to pull extra light out of the air itself!

Notice how cold it feels? It's as if it's been stored in the refrigerator. Can you see and feel this key in your palm now? OK, squeeze it. Feel its heft and coolness. See it gleam...

As you will soon discover, this rare key will enable you to open numerous treasure chests hiding in plain sight all around you. It will make you uncommonly effective as a persuader, someone known and respected for being able to unlock many hearts and minds with only your words.

Such is the power of the key I hand you now—the golden key of metaphor...

"Metaphor" is based on a Greek word meaning to "carry something across" or "transfer." Today we use "metaphor" to mean a direct comparison between two or more seemingly unrelated subjects.

You'll get the idea in a minute, but first let me promise you that this is no mere grammar lesson...

If you heed my advice today about how to use metaphors, you can easily become one of the most persuasive people on the planet. As Aristotle said about the art of persuasion, "The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor." And the Big A was right too, because nothing persuades as quickly, effectively, memorably, or permanently as a well-crafted metaphor.

As an added benefit, just as the God of Genesis breathed life into man's nostrils, metaphors will breathe life, color, and power into everything you write...

With a good metaphor, you fuse at the hip two different things and, by a mysterious alchemy, instantly transfer the qualities of one into the other. Good metaphors are wizardry that work real magic in your prospects' minds. That's because this process of transferring the qualities of one thing into another takes place instantly, bypassing critical analysis and resistance. All you do is compare A to B in an effective way and voila! your point is made instantly without disagreement. This can make you a magician of persuasion!

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan won the understanding and acclaim of the entire country - from Washington to Wall Street to Main Street - when he proudly reported that he presided over "a Goldilocks economy. Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right." That simple metaphor—"a Goldilocks economy"—was more persuasive than a 10-foot stack of economic reports.

Let's say you are writing about the wisdom of starting early to invest for retirement. You could write a sleep-inducing treatise on the subject. But look at how effectively master investor Warren Buffett does it—with a simple metaphor...

"Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago."

Or consider Ben Franklin on the wisdom of frugality...

"Small leaks sink great ships."

Do you see how tight, how irrefutable, how powerful such arguments are when phrased in an apt metaphor? They yield instant agreement, and that is their magic...

Best Sources of Persuasive Metaphors

Your richest sources of metaphor include the Bible, fairy tales, sports, the movies - any source of images that we all know by heart. And I do mean "by heart," because the mere mention of certain images will automatically trigger in your audience powerful emotions they already harbor, which often enables you to persuade instantly.

For example, when writing to investors, I would shamelessly massage their greed glands by describing "a Sleeping Beauty stock" or "Cinderella opportunity" or "ugly-duckling company about to become a swan."

If you manage a team trying to outperform a superior competitor, you can instantly give them more confidence by describing them as fearless Davids about to take down Goliath. If you're putting a work group together for a special project, it's motivational magic to tell each member that he or she has been selected for an all-star team...or that they are about to move from summer stock to Broadway...or get the chance to compete "in the Super Bowl of our industry," etc.

You can instantly illustrate a charismatic leader's strong hold on his followers by saying that, to them, "he walks on water" or she could "part the Red Sea." You could call a crooked politician a liar, but it's so much more amusing—and devastating—to quip, "With his every statement, his nose grows longer."

You can give a metaphor a humorous twist to enliven any speech or ad. In the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention of 1988, former Texas Governor Ann Richards lampooned the first President George Bush. Describing, in her view, his fumbling attempts to connect with the American people, she lamented...

"Poor George. He can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."

You Can Do This!

First identify the point you want to make. Then imagine, just as you did with the golden key above, a metaphor (or comparison) that makes your point for you. It's fun, like a treasure hunt, like looking for money as you walk down the street in a city where everyone's pockets have holes. (Hey, I just penned a metaphor! When you get into the habit, it becomes second nature.)

Start looking and you'll notice useful metaphors everywhere. Collect them like coins and you'll find many opportunities to spend them on more colorful prose...'