Here’s a good example of the need to do your homework, your due diligence, before making a major purchase.
“Best pitch ever”
Shark Tank: Present the positives. Answer questions about the negatives.
As Wen Muenyi – born and raised in a small African village – of Jax Sheets pitches his men’s bedding company, the Sharks fall in love with his candor. When Kevin O’Leary questions whether the business is worth $2.1 million, Wen responds ‘I mean, I said it, but it might not be true!’ getting a big laugh from the Sharks, and Wen explains why he’s already living the American Dream.
Yes, candor can sell, too.
Sharks in sales-mode
This is an extaordinary episode. Both sides – the entrepreneurs on the one side and the sharks on the other side – are strongly in the mode of persuasion. Interestingly, the entrepreneurs made clear early why they are seeking help: they don’t understand the American market.
YouTube comments:
“Turning the tables and asking the sharks if they were committed and if they’d give them the time is superb. You can tell they’ve been in business before.”
“These two knew EXACTLY how to handle the sharks, and pitched their product extremely well.”
“The minute the gentleman admitted how he initially failed in the US market, aka realizing the results from his trial and error and learning from them, was when I saw these men were successful businessmen.”
Who wants to admit?
When persuading Americans do not feel obligated to offer full and comprehensive information about the weaknesses of their proposal, concept, product or solution.
Instead, the obligation is with the buyer (the audience) to expose the weaknesses through critical questions. If asked, competent, professional and honest Americans will respond forthrightly.
This is a shared logic among Americans. Listeners know to ask the critical questions. Speakers know to anticipate those questions. If the critical questions are not asked, if the listener then accepts (buys), only later to discover negative aspects, the listener (buyer) will not blame the speaker (seller), but himself.
Besides, who wants to admit to their colleagues or boss, to their spouse or friends, that they made a poor decision?
“Maybe”
Wall Stree Journal. October 9, 2025. “It’s a familiar routine: You send somebody an invitation—to a party, a lunch, a meeting—and you wait for the reply. Yes or no. Or maybe.
My colleagues and I wanted to know the psychology involved with receiving (and giving) a “maybe.” Why do people answer invitations that way? And how do the invitation senders feel when they get that response?
The short answer: They hate it.
Forget “keep it simple”
Frankfurt. Handelsblatt. September 13, 2025. Forget “keep it simple”: according to a recent study (in Germany), start-up founders raise more funds when they express themselves in a more differentiated way. What makes a good pitch.
When start-up founders want to convince investors of their idea, they often receive the same advice: keep it simple. Messages should be as clear as possible, with few foreign words and no frills. However, a new study by researchers at the Technische Universtät Dortmund, the Universtät Passau, and the Technische Universtät Munich, published in the journal Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, shows that it’s not quite that simple.
According to the study, the use of cognitively complex language leads to greater financing success: those who expressed themselves in a more linguistically sophisticated manner during their pitch received an average of more than seven percent or approximately $125,000 in additional investment in the twelve months that followed.
Rhode Island
Comments:
“As a telephony engineer, I feel for Nathan. Too many times in the office, I’m locked in and focusing on work and then someone comes with a drive-by question that totally breaks my concentration and flow. Some times it can take 10-15 minutes to get back in the groove of what you’re doing. Huge time waster.”
“”Do you have a second?” “Wait 5 minutes; in the middle of something.” Solves a lot of problems.”
“Perusing has two definitions in the dictionary that are contradictory in nature. Perusing also is defined as to skim in Meriam dictionary. Both meanings have been in use over 400 yrs.”
“That little interruption costs 30 minutes of context switching, but feels like 2 hours of stress. So in an 8 hour day, he will have to work 8.5 hours to finish the same work, but it will feel like 10 hours. It’s like slamming on the breaks in a car.”
“She is falling for him bc he doesn’t care.”
Bringing back directness
Texas trial lawyer Jefferson Fisher comes from the land of bless-your-heart politeness but says pleasantries threaten workplace culture.
“There’s this tendency to tiptoe around the heart of the matter,” he says. “It’s not going to go well for you over time, and you’re going to find that people will trust you less.”
In the future, offices could become even more passive-aggressive, unless we practice the art of disagreement. The Wall Street Journal spoke with Fisher, author of “The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More,” about how to bring directness back to the workplace.
“Air your grievances.”
“Air your grievances.” Encourages openly expressing complaints or accusations, typically in a forum where all parties are present.