Page 36 - Oscar Adler - Sell Yourself in Any Interview_ Use Proven Sales Techniques to Land Your Dream Job (2008)

SELL YOURSELF IN ANY INTERVIEW

Obviously, not even a simple rose means the same thing
to everyone. Now let’s look at several examples of how dif-
ferent perceptions and expectations affect communication.

FINDING COMMON GROUND
WITH EACH INTERVIEWER

If you talk with a group of people about dogs, each person
will think of his or her own dog or a dog he or she knows.
There is no meeting of the minds. Big dog owners will think
big; people with small dogs will think small. Even when talk-
ing about specific breeds—for example, poodles—some peo-
ple will think small—toy poodles—and others will think
large—standard poodles. To complicate things further, some
people like dogs and will have warm, pleasant thoughts about
them, whereas others may be afraid of dogs or not like them
at all, so they will have negative associations. A discussion
about your giant dog Brutus may have no relevance to a
Chihuahua owner or a cat lover.
Therefore, to improve communication in this example,
you would need to tell your listeners what type of dog you are
talking about and whether you feel positive or negative about
it. Then your reference points will make sense to them.
In other words, features do not change—a dog is either a
Chihuahua or it isn’t—but the related benefits likely will
change depending on the situation. A single feature can have
many benefits, and these different benefits will have different
values for different people. In our canine example, Brutus is
a big dog; that is a feature. But that single feature can have
different benefits depending on the listener. Exhibit 2-2 illus-
trates how one feature (big dog) can have different benefits
(or meanings) to different listeners.

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