Engaged Learning

Verbs vs. Nouns

Oct 1, 2008 Selling Social Learning, Verbs of Social Learning

Image by Steve Keys via Flickr

One thing I am not is a natural salesman.  I have given it the old college try in past lives, but it was not my cup of tea.  Until I found that if I LOVED the product (like I do this) I can sell anything.

At the beginning, after having this social learning idea in my head for awhile, I realized that what I needed to do was sell it.  So, I tried.  I told people what social learning was, how it might work and why they would like to use it.  It took some time, but I realized that I had this all backwards. Let me explain…

The first time I tried to introduce social learning to an organization, I created a plan and took it to my boss.  He asked a few questions and said, “I like it.  I like it a lot.  But we would need to explain this to the president.  He wouldn’t get it like this.  Redo it and come back.”  So, I did.  I tried to explain it a different way and went back.  Again, his reaction was, “Still good stuff, but the president won’t get it.”  So, for the third time I restructured it, tried another way of explaining it and gave it to my boss.  His reaction this time surprised me.  He said, “Oh, now I get it! I love it!  That is exactly what we need.  Let’s talk to the president about this.”

I suddenly realized that my boss was just being nice the first two times.  He could tell there was something there, but from my explanations he couldn’t put his finger on it.  It wasn’t until I talked about something that was near and dear to his hear and applied social learning to that, that he finally got it.

The first two times I explained WHAT it was, HOW it worked and WHY we should do it.  What I needed to do was the opposite: WHY / HOW / WHAT. But to even deliver the first part I needed to understand why he wanted to hear about it.  Only at that point could I deliver an effective ‘WHY’.

When we talk about they WHY, they listen.  Then we tell them how we can help them with the “HOW”.  Then comes the “What”.  But often times we don’t even need to tell them the ‘What’ at this point because they make up their own ‘What’.  I don’t care what they call it.  Just as long as they know why it will help them and how it may work.

Previously I approached explaining social learning leading with a noun instead of a verb.

When we start with a verb we are stating what it is doing, the action, state or relation this thing may have.  There is the real value.  Nouns don’t intrinsically have value.  That something is expressed by a verb.

I know this almost seems like a rudimentary grammar or sales lesson, but it is an important point.  We must teach the WHYs behind social learning.  Teach the verbs.  Then let them apply it to their situation and their circumstances and they will understand it.  Too often I have watched people get caught up in the ‘What’ only to find that they are not having success.

So to help you articulate what social learning is, we will cover the 11 WHY’s in the following posts, all focused on the verbs – focused on what social learning does.

Do you have any short “I did it wrong” stories you can share?

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Tags: noun, selling, verb, verbs, why