Real Estate and Property

Language is a skill and an art, as is persuasion, and both can most definitely be mangled and turned into a disadvantage if used improperly. Unless you’re a child prodigy, as Mozart was with composing and playing music, as H.P. Lovecraft was with writing poems, and as Pablo Picasso was artistically, then you will most likely have to practice whichever art you choose to become good at.

As persuaders we primarily use our language skills to work with our affluent prospects and clients. We are served well when we use these language properly and speak powerfully.

It’s likely that the more you read, the bigger your vocabulary (unless you’re only reading, say, People Magazine or one very precise genre with limited language specific to that type). One of the most valuable things you can do to increase your vocabulary, is read.

Even with a huge vocabulary, you might not be blessed with the gift of oratory skills. There’s first the fear of public speaking to overcome (if you’re one of the majority of people who have this fear). And once you overcome this fear, then there’s the issue of having something of value or interest to say.

Okay, now you’ve got your vocabulary, you’ve overcome the fear of public speaking, you have something interesting and valuable to impart to your audience. . . now you have to deal with the delivery.

I was chatting with my transcriptionist recently and she told me that I use the phrase ‘in other words’ a lot. I do use this phrase a lot and I think part of the reason is because when I’m teaching I am always looking for new ways to say something, delivering the message in as many ways as possible for maximum understanding. I also don’t use the word ‘um’ and ‘in other words’ is possibly taking up the place of that as a way to stall.

“Um. . . Slips, Stumbles and Verbal Blunders and What They Mean” by Michael Erard is a great new book about language. I learned something amazing in the first few pages. Since as far back as the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks, some form of ‘um’ has been used in all languages. It’s universal. The French say ‘euh’, in Spain it’s ‘eh’. So it’s safe to say that this is an innate human characteristic.

It’s only been in since the twentieth century that ‘um. . .’ has become unpopular with academics and teachers, most likely coinciding with television and radio.

‘Um. . .’ (the book) starts out with the transcriptionists of the Federal News Service. They’re the ones that do the closed captions for the hearing impaired. The style guidelines of the FNS state that all of the ‘umms’ and ‘uhs’ and ‘ahs’ and ‘ers’ are left out, false starts of one or two words are left out, and partial words are left out. The one exception is: policymakers. . .everything a policymaker says is typed out verbatim.

I haven’t finished the book yet, but I couldn’t stop myself from skipping to the chapter on George W. Bush. It’s not as funny as the book ‘Bushisms’ but it is an interesting perspective. People view him, as a result of what the author calls ‘disfluencies’, either as ‘down home’, ‘one of the common people’, with his gaffes making him appear more accessible, others consider his blunders a lack of intelligence and a dangerous indication that he is not connected to reality. Regardless of which side of the argument you fall, some of the more memorable disfluencies are pretty funny.

This week pay attention to the way you talk. See how many ums, uhs, false starts, stumbles, gaffes and blunders you make. And pay attention to the way other people talk. Is there a secretary in your office who uses ‘like’ every other word, or an associate who constantly stumbles? How do you perceive them?

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