Writers and speakers know that you only have a few seconds to get the reader?s or listener?s attention.<\/p>\n
If your opening fails to grab her, she?ll quickly stop reading or listening.<\/p>\n
One of the most attention-grabbing openings I ever heard was, unfortunately, that of the eulogy for my father, given at his funeral some 15 years ago.<\/p>\n
?Everybody wants to be happy,? the speaker began. ?Dave Bly knew the secret of happiness, and in a few minutes, I?m going to tell you what it is.?<\/p>\n
Why was this lead so powerful? Three reasons?.<\/p>\n
First, it told the listener something she believed to be true: ?everybody wants to be happy.? And because it was true, it resonated with the listener.<\/p>\n
Second, it promised a benefit: if you listened, the secret of happiness would be revealed to you within a few minutes.<\/p>\n
And third, it was unexpected: not your typical dull eulogy.<\/p>\n
So why am I telling you this?<\/p>\n
Because the secret revealed that day was not only the secret to happiness ? but, I realized, it was also the secret to creating winning marketing campaigns.<\/p>\n
The eulogist didn?t reveal the secret right up front, directly. He got to it through stories. I will do the same here, because it will make the secret clearer and teach it better.<\/p>\n
The first story the speaker told was of a day when he and his wife, along with my father and my mother, went to a lake on a Sunday to enjoy the outdoors.<\/p>\n
Three of them wanted to have brunch at a nice lakeside restaurant. But when they turned around, dad was out on the dock, talking to a couple of young boys who were fishing, but not having much luck.<\/p>\n
Dad loved to fish, and he loved kids. Within a few minutes, he showed them his tricks for adjusting the bob, baiting the hook, and casting out ? and they began catching fish after fish at a rapid rate.<\/p>\n
The kids were delighted, smiling and laughing, thanking Dad for making their day. And he was smiling too.<\/p>\n
The second story was about a little magic trick Dad would do to entertain when he went out to a dinner with a group of people.<\/p>\n
When the wine was finished, he would ask one of the dinner guests to push the cork into the wine bottle, which they did.<\/p>\n
Then he would challenge them to remove the cork ? without breaking the bottle. Of course, they could not.<\/p>\n
But Dad could ? and did ? to the entertainment and delight of the other diners.<\/p>\n
(It?s a trick that would take too much space to describe here. You do it with a linen napkin or handkerchief.)<\/p>\n
?The secret of happiness that Dave Bly knew,? the eulogist concluded, ?is to put other people first. Make them happy, and you will be happy.?<\/p>\n
The same principle works in marketing and sales: make the customer successful ? and help him achieve his goals ? and you will be successful ? because the customer will buy what you are selling, making you richer in the process.<\/p>\n
So that?s the simple secret of happiness ? of marketing ? of sales ? and of success in virtually any aspect of life: put others first and you will reap the rewards.<\/p>\n
And that?s the secret I shared with over a hundred mourners at my father?s funeral, when I gave his eulogy, so many years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Writers and speakers know that you only have a few seconds to get the reader?s or listener?s attention. If your opening fails to grab her, she?ll quickly stop reading or listening. One of the most attention-grabbing openings I ever heard was, unfortunately, that of the eulogy for my father, given at his funeral some 15 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":633,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions\/633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}