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MARCH 14, 2018

Love! Revenge! Betrayal! Good triumphing over evil! Themes like these run throughout the stories that engage and move us. (Think of the recent Oscar film nominations: Love [The Shape of Water]; Revenge [Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri]; War [Dunkirk]). If popular themes hold viewers’ attention, introducing a metaphorical theme into any oral or written sales, explanation, influence, or persuasion “story,” can be equally compelling for your clients.

Super-pro content creator, David Ben Horin fully embraces the power of metaphorical themes to instantly engage and move people to action. David is Chief Marketing Officer at Hibernating Rhinos, Ltd., Israel. He writes top quality blogs, white papers, landing pages, articles, and more to give top emerging hi-tech businesses in Silicon Wadi (Israel’s Silicon Valley) it’s English mouthpiece to the European and North American markets.

As he says, “I love to spice up content with good metaphors. A metaphor can take a complicated concept in your product or industry, and make it sound easy as 123. Most writing is as flat as the screens they are seen on. My job is to make your content sing by engaging your readers’ five senses.”

From Dull to Dazzling

Look how David turns an otherwise dry topic (setting up a database) into an exciting story in these excerpts from an article he wrote for RavenDB, a leading open source NoSQL Document Database.
 
“The release cycle of an application is a lot like the Daytona 500. You are up against the best players in the field. Any small delay in getting started, accelerating, and making it to the next round can cost you dearly. The difference between the first and second place finish in the Daytona 500 is well over $1 million in earnings. The difference between number 1 and number 5 in your industry is far greater.”

(The Daytona analogy, its association with speed, excitement, and motors roaring grabs attention in the first sentence. Why it works is explained in the next two sentences and then the startling metrics in the last two sentences demonstrate the importance of setting up a date base correctly. As listeners, we are definitely hooked into his story!)

Keep It Going

“The stakes couldn’t be higher.”

‘Your database is your pit crew. We keep the nuts and bolts of your engines running and we work super-hard to keep you in the race. Even if you engineer your application for top performance, the wrong database can stall your work, forcing you to the back of the pack. The right database will add more horsepower, pushing you that much closer to the checkered flag.”

(And the race is on! We see his team helping us win. His article then goes into the details of how the company does what it does. We continue to be totally captivated.)

Finish the Race

David concludes by returning to the opening theme:

“We want your application’s race to the finish line to be as fast as possible, without any unnecessary pit stops, speed bumps, or accidents. RavenDB was designed so you can round each lap at even higher velocity.”

Two critical success factors in database implementation are speed to meet a deadline and the ability to overcome inevitable obstacles found along the way. Instead of just a (dull) direct description of their capabilities to make these happen ending with an equally bland summary, David’s apt Daytona race analogy adds a fresh, compelling dimension to RavenDB to show how the company performs for clients. At the end, we feel…

• Yes! I want to get my project done as quickly as possible.
• Yes! I want it to be obstacle free.
• Yes! RavenDB, I want you as my partner

Your Turn at the Wheel

What do you explain? What do you present? What do you blog or write articles about? Like David does for his clients, what parallel metaphor or analogy theme can you use to transform your information, services, or products into must-haves for your clients?

Anne Miller
Make What You Say Pay! — with Metaphors.

For more information on David Ben Horis, click here.

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"The best arguments
dazzle with metaphor"

Gerry Spence,
Media Commentator & Lawyer

The best firms hire brilliantly
& train relentlessly.

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Holiday Metaphor Challenge

Links I like

www.changingminds.org
www.nurtureinstitute.com
www.americanrhetoric.com
www.salesopedia.com
www.salesrepradio.com
www.ted.com
www.takethecold.com

Great Resources:

www.suttoncreative.com
www.cartoonbank.com
www.sbsnet.com
www.videomystory.com
www.ceoshow.com