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Don't Slight Your Possessions - Part 1

The suit that you are wearing, the pants that show the shine, the hat that cries aloud for cleaning—all such things can be brought into the speech in a way that will create interest in the audience. For these are the things those people out front know. One man's hat needs cleaning, another's shoes need new heels. When you talk about these things, you are one of them. And when you show that you are the kind of Joe that has the same problems, you're talking right down their alley.

I use a lot of this sort of material in my speeches. I use my clothes, the things around the house, my projects, the painting of the bath­room, the flower garden by the garage, the things in my office, my desk, my chair, the ceiling that the workmen seem to step through so often, the lighting, the poor ventilation, my car and its peculiari­ties. All these are speech material, material that seems to interest audiences when I use it in my speeches.

How do you use such possessions? Well, let's take clothes as an example. Once in a series of meetings I wore a red necktie. At the first meeting, as I was introduced, a man in the audience called, "Ah, a guy with a red necktie!"

Well, salesmen wear neckties. Through a break, I had an op­portunity to build something out of that tie. Here is the way I handled it. I said, "Yes, a red necktie." Then I pulled the tie out of my vest so that they could see the whole dollar-and-a-half worth of red. Then I went on, "When they asked me to talk to this group they told me that you were a red-hot sales force. So I put on the hottest tie I have—I wore it to remind me to be good."

To show how important the right attitude is, a friend of mine, Cy Burg, vice-president of the Iron Fireman Company and one of the best speakers I know, illustrates a point with a story about a gray suit of clothes, a white shirt, and a red tie. Thus:

There are lots of ways to express enthusiasm. I want to give you one quickly. I got my clue one gloomy Monday morning from a sorry-looking salesman who got into my office. He was dressed in a black suit, black socks, black briefcase, black tie, black overcoat, and black hat. How he got in, I don't know. There he came, slouching into the office with that run-down expression. I could see that he hadn't sold anything in six weeks.

He said, "Good morning, Mr. Burg. How's business?" Remem­ber in those days how you used to ask people how business was— "Hello, Sam, how is business?"

That was the day when pessimism was everywhere.

Well, this fellow said to me, "How is business?"

I said, "Fine."

"Fine?" He looked at me closely. His mouth dropped open.

I said, "Yes, it's fine. We're running 30 per cent ahead of last year."

He said, "You're the first man in six months that told me that business was good. You don't want to buy a new automobile, do you?"

I thought, "My God, no, not from that gloom peddler."

But that peddler of gloom gave me an idea. Here it is—

Related terms include writing tips and writing examples.