I have no idea whether Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s plan to save the banks will work. I certainly hope it does work.
But the plan he laid out yesterday is a nice example of how to get people excited about an idea: give a detailed plan.
If you recall, Geithner’s initial discussion of plans to save the banking business last month were not well-received.
Why?Â
 The universal complaint was that the ideas were too vague. The stock market plunged. And as I noted in a recent blog post, one of the ways to screw up a pitch is to give a vague plan of how to help your prospect.
What a difference some details can make.
Yesterday, the market soared almost 500 points on news of Geithner’s proposal to revive the banking industry.   And note the headline of the New York Times article, “Rescue Plan With Some Fine Print Dazzles Wall Street.”
The point is that the selling is often in the details. If you give your listeners a clear and well-defined plan — with fine print — there’s a good chance that they’re going to get excited. Those details help your prospect visualize success. They think “Oh yeah. Now I see how this is going to work! That’s exciting!”
And if you’re trying to make a sale, that’s a very good thing.
