Obama Goes Reppin'

Catching a snippet of BBC News covering his latest prime-time press conference of Wednesday night, their introduction included the ear-pricking phrase “the top salesman for the administration, the President himself”.

Then the editor of the clip displayed impressive sales acumen by showing three healthcare reform related soundbites, each tellingly solution sales-savvy.

Skyrocket – I’ve long coached people in the use of more colourful and evocative language then the unimaginative default ‘increase’, ‘decrease’, ‘rise’ and ‘fall’. In part, this was inspired by the McLaughlin Group discussion shows I got into in the early 90s, where he’d always shout out “soar” or “plummet”. Obama likes the word “skyrocket” to indicate an up. It is indeed just such a winning word.

Deadlines – He noted that one thing he’d ‘learned around this town, is that without deadlines, nothing gets done’. Of course it won’t.

Inertia – He also homed in on the simplest position to take being that of “inertia”. It’s easy to not embrace a change as that change inevitably makes a few people unhappy. Drive it through.

Three small points that if good enough for him, should be good enough for us.