Have You A Final Thought?

In between Olympiad sessions, I caught some good selling on telly.

There’s a “supervet“. An Irishman, he talks quickly with much indignation. He feels patients suffer at the hands of the medical establishment.

Practically anyone that’s dealt with the NHS over several disappointing years will know that feeling.

The half-life of facts of this “profession” – supposedly 49 years – is surely shrinking. In just a handful of years, how we treat disease today will be seen in similar light to our current view of medieval leeches.

His ire is aimed directly at the authorities. He saves animals from amputation with his bionic inventions. Proven for eight years and counting. Yet not a single person has been permitted to benefit from his breakthrough technology.

He has a lot to say. With the fervour you’d expect of an activist. His rapid-fire verbal delivery can be slightly bewildering. So when trailing his latest show on the weekend sofas he was hurried towards an ad break by a transfixed interviewer.

Rather than rush, he paused. His next words;

Final thought.

Another brief pause. Then two sentences on what he wanted the viewer to remember if nothing else from his pr stint. The one thing, singular; thought, not thoughts

This so brought to mind the closing of a sales presentation.

So innumerous are the ones I’ve heard that you can forget the ending appears the least planned aspect.

Such attention is paid to the slide artwork and messaging that scant time gets left for the vital finishing punch.

I remember my big lesson in this twenty five years ago.

A veteran sales manager named Alistair Masters. He sold HP. How he spoke after his last slide was immaculate.

It was natural and precise. There was no escape. He summed up succinctly. Beautifully. Then closed with the simplest of questions.

He knew exactly what he was going to say. He never used a phrase as cumbersome as “in conclusion”. He knew his pitch had a beginning, middle and end. And he was note-perfect in his highly practised, polished ending remarks.

Just like supervet. And we should be too.