A Man of Few Words

I’m not a huge fan of television, so much so that I did away with cable last year. But, there is one show that I absolutely love and I am thrilled when I can catch it at the gym or online. The cast of characters is brilliant, but there is one character in particular that absolutely makes the show. One of his greatest attributes is the fact that he doesn’t really say much. The actor that portrays this character is amazing. Though he may have very few lines, viewers always know exactly what his character is thinking and feeling.

There is much to be said for using fewer words in many aspects of business and life. Here is my list of where I think this principle could be applied.

• Fewer words should be used in presentations and power points. Try demonstrating something instead. You can talk at your prospect all day long but, they probably still don’t get what you do. So, show them what you do and what it can do for them.
• There is nothing worse than a long drawn out meeting. So, take the time to send out everything you can in an email beforehand and then only discuss the items that truly have merit to be a discussion. Also, have a well planned out agenda and stick to it! It may be that you have to set a timer. That has worked wonders for me.
• What about your website? Is it cluttered? It should be clean and precise. If you need a great example take a look at Apple’s homepage.
• How do you handle your PR? Are you always telling people how wonderful your company and products are? Words can only go so far here. If your customer service is awful or your products don’t live up to the hype, your words will be meaningless.

To say it as succinctly as possible: Never say in a hundred words what you can say in ten.

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