Memorize Your Sales Pitch

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judge_roberts

John Roberts

Judge Roberts is before the Senate giving his opening statement. He has no notes. No paper shuffling. He had his points memorized and his delivery easy and practiced. No downcast furtive glances at talking points.

Only direct eye contact. Believable. Confident.

Twenty years ago I was in product sales training under a brilliant education specialist who was as thorough and demanding as any drill sergeant. He required that the class memorize a presentation pages and pages long. A memorized spiel will not soon leave you. Maybe never.

Sometimes, if Charmaine bumps me in the middle of a deep sleep, I will mumble, “Our mission is to improve patient care in a cost effective manner.”

radar_scr_268

SCR 268

My Uncle Joe had to memorize the capabilities of a radar unit when he was in the Army. He was recently in the hospital for a mild heart attach. We talked. He related how the “SCR, Signal Corps Radar 268 had an effective range of 40,000 yards…” This from over six decades ago in WWII. Uncle Joe is 87. “You still remember this?” I asked amazed. “Why? How?”

“It was my job,” he said simply. The commitment of the Greatest Generation.

A memorized paragraph will be with you even when everything in your body and mind freeze up. No matter if facing a Senate Committee, customer, or cardiac arrest.

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A Thank you note to Right Side of the Rainbow for “Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire.”

See Page Ten at My $.02 Worth.

A salute to Mudville Gazette for Open Post.

Thank you to Outside The Beltway for Traffic Jam. And be sure to pick up My Vast RightWing Conspiracy and her bloodlust while you’re there.

See Atlas Shrugs on Roberts questioners.

Vololk has more.

Read Don Sturber and the political colonoscopy.

Betsy’s Page has a take on Dana Milbank.

Update 23 Sept 05:The Political Teen has Open Track Backs.

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7 Responses

  1. gid says:

    I guess this goes to show why scripture memorization should be more apart of my life. Though to be quite honest, I?m one of those people who forget his age at least twice a month and have to either recalculated it or ask my wife. That being the case I?m not sure how much I would actually hold on to for the long term.

  2. Jack Yoest says:

    GID, you are so right about scripture memorization — I wish, though, that I could hide my car keys and cell phone in my heart along with the few verses I know; I might lose them less often.

    Jack

  3. Tom McMahon says:

    From US Navy Nuclear Power School, over 30 years ago: “The element Hafnium has 6 stable isotopes for neutron capture, each with a cross-section of over 100 barns.” Kinda odd that that little factoid is still rattling around in my brain somewhere.

    While I’ve never been asked even once about Hafnium in my civilian life, the ability to memorize reams of boring facts at will whenever I needed to has helped me a lot along the way.

  4. Terry says:

    I you are what you read. What is our relationship to what we memorize?

  5. Jack Yoest says:

    Tom McMahon, thank you for your input. Your work and memory are why America wins wars, as Victor Davis Hanson might say.

    I’m working on a followup post on submariners and innovation and risk. The best engineers on the planet working for the USN (like Jimmy Carter) (well, maybe not).

    More later,

    Jack

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