This is a great technique to be understood.
If your goal is to sound clear, concise, and credible this advice is invaluable.
Nothing can turn your audience or prospect off faster…
… than using fat words when they’re hungry for skinny ones. Or vice versa.
I learned this exciting concept…
… from Dr. David Palmer, a Silicon Valley negotiations expert. In his negotiations training, he described “levels of abstraction.” Unless you can match your message to the expectations of your audience or talk at the same level at which they are listening, you won’t connect as well as you would like. This is true whether your audience is one person or one thousand.
Suppose you write the word “automobile” on a pad.
A simple concept. Going up to the next level of abstraction, you could write above it that the car is a “wheeled passenger vehicle,” then “surface transportation,” then “major force in the world’s economy.” This is making the word “automobile” fatter and fatter, larger and larger. These big ideas and abstractions are “fat words.” They are great for conveying the big picture, for inspiring ideas, for motivating.
Now, let’s make the word skinnier.
Underneath, you might write “sedan,” “Ford sedan,” “red four-door Ford sedan.” Eventually, you would be talking about a specific car with its VIN. Those are “skinny words.” They are essential for conveying instructions and solving technical problems. No one holding a screwdriver, camera, or looking at a blank screen on their computer wants fat words. You’ll just frustrate them, maybe make them furious. They want to know minute details and the specific who, what, when, and how.
Many of my clients hire me to coach their sales teams.
After giving them the automobile illustration, they learn to be more effective at evaluating each other by saying, “Your words are too fat,” or “Those words aren’t skinny enough.” When you are presenting a sales overview to an executive or senior management, ask, “Should your words get fatter or skinnier?”
Upper management needs fat words.
After a successful initial interview with an executive, you will be invited to present your offerings to a middle management team. For this group, your ideas need to be brought down a level of abstraction by using skinner words and phrases.
Let’s assume you were very effective and persuasive.
You made the sale. Now you are dealing with the individuals who make the technology work. That is when the words and phrases need to get skinny. The who, what, when, how, and where do I turn it on?
At what level should you present your information?
So that you get your message across? It all depends on the audience.
As a professional speaker and sales trainer, I ask my clients, “What do you want the theme of my remarks to be? What is the purpose of the meeting?” For years I have been hearing, “Get them to sell more,” or “Motivate them.” My reply would be, “How much are they selling now? How much more?” or “Motivate them to do what?”
Can you see the challenge?
Their words are too fat for me to get a clear picture of how to meet and exceed their expectations. With my questioning, I need to drive their comments and expectations down the level of abstraction by saying things like, “Can you help me understand specifically what you mean by that?” “Can you give me a specific example?” This simple concept has made my training more effective.
One of the best ways to improve all your business communications is with FrippVT Powerful, Persuasive Presentations online learning platform.
If your goal is to sound clear, concise, and credible focus on understanding levels of fo abstraction.
“The information in FrippVT is as valuable as any college course I’ve taken. This is a resource that everyone should know about. The investment is worth ten times more than I paid and has been life-changing. My fees, recommendations, and referrals have increased dramatically. I am delighted. For the first time in my speaking career, I know exactly want I am doing when I walk on stage. One technique in course 11 helped me be invited to deliver at an international conference.”
Mitzi Perdue, Author, How to Make Your Family Business Last
“Nothing can turn your audience or prospect off faster than …”
No. In my opinion, faster ways to turn your audience or prospect off include starting late, dressing badly, using poor body language, failing to acknowledge them, a breakdown in the visual aids, assuming they know nothing, using the wrong tone, etc.
Another big negative is using exaggeration or trying to induce paranoia when it is not justified.
After these, the question of level (talking down or talking up) is important, as you say. In general this is more complex than the simple question of using hyponyms or hypernyms.