Get the Name Right --DeWese

May 2004

multipage

There is some considerable confusion over the pronunciation of Mañana Man. The "Man" part is easy. It's the "Mañana" that befuddles many of you readers. Many people rhyme their pronunciation with "banana," the long yellow fruit grown in the tropics that we peel before we eat. That pronunciation is incorrect.

I will help correct your pronunciation with a phonetic explanation. Follow along with this exercise.

First, say "mawn" and pronounce it with a Jamaican accent so it comes out as in "Hey Mon, let's have some rum when we've beaten our sales objectives by 20 percent." Got it? First syllable is "Mawn."

Next syllable. It's "yah." As in, "Yah vold! I got the $200,000 Humongous Industries annual report job!"

So far we've got "Mawn yah."

Final syllable. It's "Nah." As in, "Nah, I can't go to the Irish Pub, I've got to stay here and write up these orders."

And we wind up with "Mawn yah na."

Name That Tune

Now, let's practice to the tune of the Harry Belafonte song, "Matilda." We're going to trade Mañana for Matilda and we're going to commingle lyrics from "Banana Boat Song." Ready? Pretend there's a steel band and you're on warm white sands. The transparent emerald surf swirls its foam around your toes.

"Mañana, Mañana

"I work all day

"An' I sell de print.

"Mañana come

"An' I want to sell more.

"Highly deadly mean competitor,

"He cut the price an' I wanna go home.

"Mañana Man is the one I read

"He's da best

"An' I follow his lead.

"I made the sale,

"Competitor man he go broke.

"Mañana Man you da one,

"Inspire me to greater t'ings.

"Come Meester Tally Man

"Tally me commission,

"Mañana come

"An' it's time to go sell.

"De O, Mi se de, Me se de O'

Now that we've cleared up the pronunciation thing, let's work on the definition of "Mañana."

Mañana means "tomorrow." In my case it means more than just tomorrow. It means tomorrow's tomorrow or "whenever" or I'll get around to it "whenever."

I came by this pseudonym, unfortunately for me, because I was the salesman who invented Sales Procrastination in 1972. It was fortunate for you because hundreds of books on selling have been written and thousands of seminars have been created and conducted to help salespeople avoid participating in my career damaging, deadly invention.

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