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Getting people to say “yes” is the goal for any sales message. It’s what psychologists call “compliance.”
However, my first exposure to the idea of compliance was not in a psychology book, but beneath a tree decades ago when my grandfather, in a moment of playfulness, showed me something startling with a stick and a few red feathers.
One day, he handed me a long stick with a clump of red feathers taped to the end and said he wanted to show me something. He had a familiar, mischievous look in his eye, so I knew it would be fun.
In a tree near his tool shed, a family of robins had nested. We slowly and quietly worked our way to just beneath the tree, and my grandfather told me to raise the feather end of the stick up to the nest.
Nearby, a male red breasted robin stood guard. When he saw the red feathers, he immediately attacked them, chirping wildly and flapping his wings in distress. I was dumbfounded.
The importance of being trivial
Do you like the title of this article? I stole it from chapter 3 of The Art of Readable Writing by Rudolf Flesch.
Back in the 40s and 50s, Flesch was hailed as the guru of clear, direct writing. His advice remains powerful and relevant today.
When Flesch recommended being “trivial,” he meant you should use details to energize your writing. That requires researching your subject and sharing specifics with your reader to create vivid mental images.
I can illustrate this simple idea with the following two descriptions:
