Choose The Right Figure

Just witnessed a brilliant sales lesson delivered by an old hack called John Torode (wow, tan/orange/white tie, burgundy shirt and browny school master jacket!), now of the Spectator on Sky News’ review of tomorrow morning’s papers.

Major UK energy provider npower are the first in their market to hike 08 prices already, given all sorts of contributory factors.

The headline in The Independent mentions “15% price rises”.  Dear old John scoffed at such shoddy journalism.  In his day at the paper, he’d have made sure the headline used another figure, one strangely hidden within the article prose.

“Average energy bills soar to over £1,000” is along the lines of what he wanted to see.  I cannot believe how many times I see sales people present percentages.  Often the only real impact is from hard factual financial amounts.  Period.