How do you present your message?

I was shopping the other day and something really left me thinking:

When I was at store A, the salesperson asked me what my budget was for purchasing that appliance (it's a major household appliance, so we are talking about quite a lot of money here). I told him of my budget, and it was lower than the item that I was looking at. He pondered for a while, and then went to suggest me to look at products of a different brand, highlighting the fact that the other brand is a little economical, and, in his opinion, offers very similar features and is a good bargain for the budget that I have...

I later went to store B to look at the same item. The salesperson asked me too about the budget. But upon hearing that my budget was lower than the item that I was looking for, he immediately said to me that "perhaps you should not look at something with these features." After some negotiations, his manager gave me a price that he said was the final offer. I thought about it, but felt that it was still too expensive. To my surprise, he said to me, "The door is that way."

In both stores I came in with the same problem - I had a budget and could not afford what I was looking for. But the way I was treated at Store B was so poor that I vowed to never buy from that store again.

The message the two salespersons spoke was actually the same - if you cannot afford this item, you should look at something else. But the way the message was given caused a totally different reaction in the message's recipient (in this case, me).

In life, we often have the message to share, something that we feel very strongly about, that we want others to agree with and accept as well. Be that a message about your world view, your faith, your take on why the Canucks still have a chance to win the Stanley Cup, you name it... But how do you present that message often determines how the message is received.

Alonzo Mourning, an NBA player, once went on a radio show to promote awareness to kidney diseases, something that he was afflicted with in the past, and is obviously very important to him. When the radio host began the interview by first asking about his NBA career, he snapped back and said he was not on the show to talk about his basketball career, but just wanted to talk about his foundation and his cause. Listeners of the show have been trashing him since; no one even remembers the cause he is promoting (and it actually is a very worthwhile cause).

How do you present YOUR message?