Matt RyderEx-special ops sniper turned CEO revolutionizing sales calls

Watch out for this sneaky wordplay

5 May 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:52

In this segment, Matt Ryder warns sales professionals about the subtle logical fallacy of equivocation, where the same word is used with different meanings to mislead. He explains that equivocation can be hard to detect, especially when employed skillfully, and provides a clear example—'trees have bark; dogs bark; therefore dogs are trees'—to illustrate how the same term can create a false conclusion. Ryder emphasizes the necessity of precisely defining terms during sales conversations, particularly in objection handling, to prevent opponents from exploiting equivocation and to maintain clear, logical communication.

Chapters

In sales, one of the things that you want to look out for is equivocation. So this is where someone uses the same word but in different ways, which creates like sort of a, like a lesser informal logical fallacy. So it's kind of hard to pick up on, but it's actually quite a tricky communication tactic that a lot of people do without even knowing it. I'll give you an example. Like, it's like trees have bark, dogs bark, therefore dogs are trees. Right. So I'm using the same word, but in different ways and to create like a logical fallacy right now. When people do it well, it's like very difficult to pick up on. So you need to really, really define terms and make sure that people aren't equivocating a term into multiple meanings in the same sentence. Because when it comes to things like objection handling and stuff like that, they're going to do that all of the time.