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Don’t Steal Your Client’s Spotlight

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A question I often ask when running leadership development programs is, “How many of you know people who are ‘gold medal’ listeners?” Usually about one-third of the people in the audience raise their hands.

Only one-third. Less than half the room. We can – and we must – do better.

We all know people who like to talk about themselves – a lot! They usurp entire conversations, coffee breaks, dinners, and meetings talking about themselves. People who love the sound of their own voice and who desperately need to be introduced to the question mark.

The really scary part is, if you don’t know someone like that, that person may be YOU!

Hearing Others

Trusted advisors know the value of listening. Dale Carnegie (author of How to Win Friends and Influence People) has a timeless quote:

“…you can make more friends in two months by becoming genuinely interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

And The Trusted Advisor author Charles H. Green offers this caution in his blog, Is Self-orientation Killing Your Trustworthiness?

When operating from high self-orientation, we do not hear others. We do not hear their questions, desires, fears, or emotions in general. The noise inside our head drowns them out.

So how do we show up as a “gold medal” listener? Like many things in trust-building, it’s a combination of having the right mindset and applying the right skills.

The Spotlight Mindset

Think about the last time you went to a live performance – a play, or a concert. There was someone behind the scenes whose job it was to make sure the performers were always in the spotlight; that they could always be seen.

While the skill of the spotlight operator is important, the spotlight itself is a tool to illuminate the performers. The attention shouldn’t be on the person running the spotlight, it’s all about the person in the spotlight.

In conversation, listening is our “spotlight.”

When we are attentive, curious and acknowledge what we hear from our clients, we allow them to feel truly seen. When we draw that attention to ourselves, on the other hand, we steal the spotlight from them.

Just like in the theatre, when our focus is on anything other than our client, they fade into the darkness.

For most of us, we aren’t even aware that we are stealing the spotlight. It’s usually the result of something we’ve done with the best of intentions. We want to connect with the other person by sharing a similar experience of our own, or we want to reassure them we are knowledgeable and capable, or maybe there’s a misunderstanding of an important point that needs to be clarified.

Connecting back to Dale Carnegie, being interested rather than interesting keeps the spotlight on the other person.

Spotlight Skills

Even with the best intentions, it’s hard to connect the right mindset to outcomes if we lack the skills. The basic skills for a client conversation are fairly simple:

Be prepared. Do some research (LinkedIn is a great resource) so you know a little bit about the person before you talk.

Slow down.  Don’t be in a rush to prove yourself, or show how funny or likeable or smart you are: your turn will come.

Be curious. Don’t take everything the client says at face value; dig into the context to truly understand what their experience is.

Ask questions. Get them talking about themselves, their goals and challenges.

Just mastering the basics should qualify you as a good listener. And for many people that’s enough.

But if you want to be a “gold medal” listener, there’s one more skill to master. Finding, and sticking to, your Ideal Listening Percentage (ILP). Your ILP is how much time you ideally want to spend listening vs. talking.

Many participants suggest for new client/initial discussion they would like to Listen 80%/Talk 20%. (Note: for a 1 hour meeting 80% is 48 minutes of listening!) Most participants also admit they are hard-pressed to stick to their ILP.

You’ll likely find your ILP varies based on the type of conversation you’re having. Exploratory is definitely a higher ratio. Responding to a specific request may warrant a lower ratio.

Whatever the right ILP is for you and your circumstances, consider it before, during, and after your conversation.

If you are having a conversation with a client – consider your ILP.

If you are having a conversation with a member of your team – consider your ILP.

If you are having a conversation with a family member or friend – consider you ILP.

If you are meeting a client with other members of your team, make sure you all agree on the ILP for the meeting.

Don’t Steal the Spotlight

The biggest challenge to keeping the spotlight on the client is our own self-orientation. It requires self-awareness and intentionality. During your next conversation, dedicate some quality “spotlight time”:

Be a “gold medal” listener.

5 Short Phrases to Build Relationships: Part 4 of 5

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This is the fourth in a series of five posts on short (seven words or less) powerful phrases. Each phrase distills the essence of a key part of approaching trust-based relationships in business.

Why focus on short phrases like this? Because the concise expression of several emotionally powerful concepts packs a punch. Such phrases feel profound. They catch the listener’s attention. They force the listener to reflect. They are short enough to remember every word, and they resonate in the mind of the listener. 

Today’s Phrase: (Four words) 

            “Tell me more – please.”

This is the best, universal, skeleton-key phrase for getting your counterpart in a conversation to continue the dialogue, and in fact to go deeper.

When to Use It:

  • A key technique for getting a dialogue to continue, gain momentum, and go deeper.
  • Not at the outset of a conversation, but after two or three interactions, when you want more.

Examples:

  • “So, this is your third job in this industry? Interesting…tell me more – please.” 
  • “That sounds a little different from what I usually hear people say about this topic: tell me more – please.“
  • “You know both John and Mary? My my – tell me more – please.”

Why It Works.

These four words draw on several aspects of personal relationship as it develops in a conversation. Those include Open ended questions, Gift giving, and Reciprocity.   

Open-ended Questions. Both open-ended and closed questions have their place. In this context, an open-ended question allows the respondent to define the terms of his or her answer – as opposed to the questioner defining them. Among other things, this suggests that the questioner is giving up his or her control over the conversation, and turning it over to the respondent. 

Gift-giving. Use of this phrase early in a conversation conveys that the questioner is prepared to offer the gift of time. It’s the opposite of suggesting that you have limited time, and that you intend to control the meeting.  

    • This gift-giving sense of the phrase can be amplified with body language. You might lean in, put your pen or pencil (or laptop) to the side, and indicate that you are prepared for as much time as the respondent might want to spend on the topic.

Reciprocity. The “please” at the end of the phrase, coupled with the sense of giving the gift of time discussed above, establishes that you are engaged in simultaneously giving a gift, and asking a favor. But the favor is actually a form of another gift, cleverly disguised as a favor. It suggests that you are so interested in the respondent’s answer that you are asking for it – as a favor to you. (A favor, sincerely asked for, is a compliment; it ‘obligates’ the respondent to return the favor in some form). 

The effect of this double-gift offering is to set up a pattern of reciprocity. If you are on the receiving end of this gift (“take as much time as you want, I am truly interested for my own sake in what you have to say, and want nothing other than to pay attention to you”), it leads the respondent to want to return the favor. We all appreciate sincerely being paid attention, and become inclined to, afterwards, listen as carefully to what the speaker in turn has to say. 

Next Blogpost:  Short Phrase #5 of 5: “What’s behind that?”

Trust Matters, The Podcast: The Ghosting of Business Future (Episode 27)

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This is the newest of Trust Matters, The Podcast. Listeners submit their personal questions about professional relationships, trust, and business situations to our in-house expert Charles H. Green, CEO, Trusted Advisor Associates.

The owner of a small tech consultancy talks about her recent experience being ghosted by a contractor she hired. She asks “What should I do about being ghosted?  How can I prevent this from happening again in the future?”

Want to learn more about how to handle ghosting in business? Read recent blog by Charles H. Green.

The Dark Art of Ghosting in Business

Do you want to send your questions to Charlie & Trust Matters, The Podcast?

We’ll answer almost ANY question about confusing, complicated or awkward business situations with clients, management, and colleagues.

Email: [email protected]

We’ll be posting new episodes every other Tuesday.
Subscribe to get the latest episodes

 

Trust Matters, The Podcast: Asking a Client for a Rate Increase (Episode 24)

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This is the newest of Trust Matters, The Podcast. Listeners submit their personal questions about professional relationships, trust, and business situations to our in-house expert Charles H. Green, CEO, Trusted Advisor Associates.

A solo consultant asks , “How do I ask a long-standing client, whom I already bill a lot monthly, for a rate increase?”

Do you want to send your questions to Charlie & Trust Matters, The Podcast?

We’ll answer almost ANY question about confusing, complicated or awkward business situations with clients, management, and colleagues.

Email: [email protected]

We’ll be posting new episodes every other Tuesday.
Subscribe to get the latest episodes

What Problem Are We Trying to Solve?

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An old business friend told me the other day that the thing he most remembers me saying was, “What problem are we trying to solve?” As he put it, “That little phrase is the key to unfreezing more off-course conversations than any other technique I know of.”

I can’t claim invention. I got it from the United Research side of Gemini Consulting, one of several pieces of clever social engineering they brought to business. Here’s how, and why, it works.

How Business Conversations Go Astray

To hear us tell it after the fact, many business meetings follow a logical flow. They start with an agenda or problem definition, data are then presented, discussions held, and conclusions reached.  Then pigs fly.

It’s not that those individual elements don’t happen – they do. It’s that they happen like a Tower of Babel, randomly and all at once. When everybody’s got an opinion and a vested interest, and nobody’s a designated facilitator – a description of most meetings – we shouldn’t expect much else.

Have you ever been in a planning board meeting?  A condo association meeting? A meeting within your firm’s HR department? An inter-departmental meeting? A sales call with an interested but wary client?

Then you’ve seen the following dysfunctions:

  1. People pursuing their own agendas as sub-text to a given issue
  2. Aimless wandering around various problem definitions
  3. Randomly proposed solutions without grounding
  4. A social struggle for air time
  5. An airing of pet peeves as they manifest in the given issue
  6. A game of dominance and submission playing out in an issue.

And I’m sure there are more. All are forms of incoherence, lacking sequence or structure, generating more frustration from which to feed more incoherence.

It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way

If the root issue is incoherence, then there are several ways to tackle it. You can agree on an agenda. You can enforce sequencing. You can apportion air time.

But one way seems to work better than others. When the babble begins to peak, and the frustration level is palpable, raise your hand, furrow your brow, and ask, genuinely, “Hey folks – what problem are we trying to solve?”

Notice what this simple formulation does.

First, it is socially neutral-to-positive. Logically it has the same effect as saying, “You fools are all over the map – you can’t even define the problem” – but the emotional effect is totally different. You’re not claiming the moral high ground or fighting for your point of view – you’re simply observing a phenomenon, and asking a question.

Second, it’s a very good question. Asking a group to gut-check a problem definition almost immediately elicits an answer – and often it’s the same answer. In which case, collaboration is restored – you all have a common mission again.

And if it’s a different answer, voila, you’ve distilled the essence of the debate – “we have two competing problem definitions, no wonder we were having such difficulties!” In either case, the group becomes re-centered around a dynamic goal – problem definition and resolution, rather than bitching and moaning, or power games.

The net effect of all this is claiming, centering, and norming. A group becomes a group again, with common goals, moving forward, rather than a fractious collection of squabblers.

Give it a try next time you’re in a meeting that’s driving you a little batty – just ask, “Hey folks – what problem are we trying to solve?”

 

The Art of Listening: Establishing Trust without Saying a Thing

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Buyer Psychology

Ask a client what they want, and they’ll tell you “expertise; credentials; someone who’ll meet my needs.” Ask them what their needs are, and they’ll tell you.

But ask really successful salespeople (or honest clients with experience in buying), and they’ll tell you how it really works. Clients only ask for credentials and expertise because they’re not really sure what else to do. In truth, they’d rather get in range with expertise, and then decide based on their trust in the seller.

Clients will tell you their needs because they think they’re supposed to, and because they’re afraid if they don’t, you’ll take advantage of them. But if you can engage them in honest discussion, they’ll admit their uncertainties and discuss, engage in, and evolve their views of what their needs are.

It all depends on why you’re listening.

If you’re listening to hear an answer to a predetermined question, then you will hear the “canned” definitions of needs that clients have prepared for you. You’ll hear their request for credentials and expertise at face value, and not hear the undertone in the question, or in the bored way they listen to your answer.

Because what clients really want to talk about is what everyone wants to talk about: Themselves. When someone says, “Tell me about yourself,” they’re just being polite – whether it’s on a date, at a social event, or in a sales call. The right answer is not to tell them about your vast experience with other clients – it is to get them talking about themselves. And to listen as they do so.

The Quality Of Listening

The usual form of listening is conditioned by sales models looking for answers and by flawed views of buyer psychology focused on surface dialogue. What is required is a different quality of listening.

The main reason for listening to prospects is to allow the prospect to be heard. Really heard. As in, actually being paid attention to by another human being.

This kind of listening is listening for the sake of listening. Listening to understand, period. No strings attached. No links back to your product. No refined problem statements. Because that’s what people in relationships, at their best, really do. They listen because they want to know what the other person thinks about whatever the other person is interested in talking about.

This kind of listening validates other people. It connects us to them. It provides meaning. And, among other things, it sets the stage for sellers and buyers to interact – if that is the right thing to happen next.

Authors Bill Brooks and Tom Travesano, in You’re Working Too Hard To Make The Sale, note that people greatly prefer to buy what they need from those who understand what it is that they want.

Read that over again, carefully. People prefer to buy what they need (stuff they’re going to buy anyway), from those who understand them on the basis of what they want (things in life they’d love to have – wishes, hopes, desires).

You don’t even have to give them what they want; it’s enough to understand them.

To bring it full circle back to listening: Relationships are the context for successful selling. Relationships are based on trust; they predispose us to engage in qualitatively different kinds of sales conversations. And listening – unrestricted, unbounded, listening for its own sake – is the way we develop such relationships.

And therein lies the paradox. The most powerful way to sell depends on unlinking listening from selling – and instead, just listening. Listening not as a step in a sales process, and not as a search for answers to questions. Listening not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself.

The point of listening is not what you hear, but the act of listening itself.

Making It Work

Here are 5 tips to listening this way. Number five is the most powerful.

  1. Ditch the distractions. You cannot multitask undiscovered. Being multitasked feels insulting. Close the door. Face away from the window. Blank the computer screen. Turn the iPhone over. Now, pay attention.
  2. Use your whole body. Lean toward the speaker – even on the phone. Use facial expressions. Use hands and arms, shake your head, and use “non-verbal” verbalisms. This improves your listening – and indicates you are listening.
  3. Keep it about them – not you. Use open-ended, not closed, questions. Let them tell their own story – don’t use them as foils for your hypotheses.
  4. Acknowledge frequently. Paraphrase their data, empathize with their emotions. Make sure you are hearing both correctly; make sure they know you are.
  5. Think out loud. The biggest obstacle to listening is your own thinking. Be courageous – postpone your thinking until they’re done talking. Be willing to think out loud – with the client. Doing so role-models collaboration and transparency, and that reinforces trust. I hear you. I value you. I respond to you, with no hidden agenda. I trust you. You can trust me.

That’s the message of listening.

This article was first published on RainToday.com

Let Your Doing Do Your Talking: Five High Impact Tips

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It seems only natural. We rehearse, over and over, what we say and how we say it. “Put the em-pha-sis on the right syl-la-ble.” “Po-ta-to, po-tah-to.” “Take my wife—[wait for it…] please.” And so on.

What you say and how you say it is indeed critical—especially if you’re a stand-up comic or a keynote speaker.

But when it comes to sales and client relationships—what drives impact is not your saying—it’s your doing. You sell by doing, not by telling.

Behaving Trumps Talking

How often have you heard:

– Actions speak louder than words

– What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say

– People will judge you by your actions, not your intentions

-Walk the talk

-Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand

-You have two ears and one mouth for a reason

There is much wisdom in folk wisdom like this. We over-emphasize content, over-analyze our words. Worse–our actions can contradict our words. If part of your spiel is that you’re client-focused—in that moment, you’re not.

It’s your actions that will sell—or not.

Five Opportunities to Replace Talking with Actions

You can read elsewhere tips about your demeanor, look, body language. Here are five ways you can design your actions to help your customers experience what you’re about.

1. When you illustrate a point through an example–make the example about this client, not your other clients. Everyone’s favorite subject is—themselves. Indulge them.

2. Offer free samples. It works with ice cream, but ice cream has color, taste, texture. Tax advice doesn’t. It becomes tangible only when the client gets some. Give some samples.

3. Work side by side with your customer. Don’t waste time back at your office pondering what your customer might want—ask them.

4. Put potential clients in touch with past clients–let them talk directly. They each learn a lot, and you get the credit for the introduction.

5. Ask for advice, not feedback. You can replace a hundred customer-sat written surveys with one serious, face-to-face meeting asking your customer to help you redesign your processes.

And one final bonus tip: Don’t say ‘trust me.’ Let your trustworthy actions do your talking for you.

 

The Godfather Chronicler: Gay Talese on Trust

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Readers of this blog know that we often write about Intimacy in a business context. And two of the three elements which make up that invaluable quality are empathy and discretion: creating a cocoon of safety in which another person can talk to us.

I have never heard a more poetic description of this than the one from Gay Talese in “A Writer’s Life”:

“I learned [from my mother] … to listen with patience and care, and never to interrupt even when people were having great difficulty in explaining themselves, for during such halting and imprecise moments … people are very revealing—what they hesitate to talk about can tell much about them…

I have also overheard many people discussing candidly with my mother what they had earlier avoided—a reaction that I think had less to do with her inquiring nature or sensitively posed questions than with their gradual acceptance of her as a trustworthy individual in whom they could confide.”

Lovely words: “…to listen with patience and care.” If we can do even this simple yet powerful thing in all of our business conversations, we’ve accomplished something nearly miraculous.

We’ve shown respect and empathy.

We’ve allowed another person to reveal something troublesome or difficult or embarrassing, and gently received their secrets.

And we’ve taken steps to becoming, like Talese’s mother, “a trustworthy individual in whom they could confide.”

Listening is indeed a gift, not a tactic, and let us give this gift with patience and care.

How to Convince Your Boss You’re Right

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Your boss gives you an important job to do. You are good for the job, you know what you’re doing, and you’re clear about the right answer. And then–your boss won’t go along with it. 

Worse, you’re really qualified to make this judgment call. And your boss’s logic is goofy. His/Her reason boils down to ‘we’ve always done it that way,’ or ‘just do it by the book,’ or maybe just personal preference. Your boss won’t listen, just digs in his/her heels.   

And it’s getting really irritating.

What can you do to convince your boss you’re right?

Surprise surprise, there is no guarantee.   But you can dramatically improve the odds. Here’s how.

Convincing Starts with Right Thinking

You start by getting really clear on two ideas—in your own head.

Idea 1. You are not the boss of your boss.   Your boss is the boss of you. So if it ever really comes down solely to who’s got the power, you can hang it up. 

Deal with that.

Idea 2. You will rarely convince anyone—particularly your boss—that you are right, as long as that equates to convincing them that they are wrong. If “I’m right” rhymes with “you’re wrong,” you can also hang it up.

Are we clear? 

If so, then you’ve figured out that “How do I convince my boss that I’m right?” is entirely, 100%, the wrong question. Really—completely wrong. If you got sucked in by the title of this blog, then you have to do some re-defining of your objectives—right now.

Think about it. If your objective involves “I’m right” then you’ve got an ego problem. I mean, why is this all about you? If you’re a serious team member, shouldn’t the question be “what’s the right answer” rather than “who’s got the right answer?”

And if your objective involves “convincing someone else” then you’ve got a control problem. I mean, why should you assume the issue is one of changing someone else to think like you, rather than of creating new joint collaborative thinking?

Redefine “Convincing Your Boss”

Imagine—even though it’s extremely unlikely—that, just for the sake of argument—your answer isn’t fully perfect. And imagine, though equally unlikely, that you actually could convince your boss of the correctness of your flawed recommendation. That would not be the optimal ending, would it?

That’s one small reason for you to engage in a dialogue, rather than a wrestling match. But here’s a much bigger reason.

The Paradox of Influence

It turns out, one of the best ways to convince someone is to listen to them first. That’s the gist of what a world expert on influence, Dr. Robert Cialdini, has to tell us. If you listen to someone first, the tendency of humans is usually to reciprocate—which means, to then listen to you.

But this reciprocal listening must have a genuine quality about it. It can’t be just, ‘OK I’ll let you blab for a while as the price for letting me give my pitch, so let me just grit my teeth, OK off you go…”

It actually has to be a genuine act of respect. It has to come from true curiosity, not from a kit-bag of carefully pre-designed questions. You actually have to, for lack of a better word, care.

To Convince Your Boss, First Give Up on Convincing Your Boss

If you want to increase the odds of convincing your boss, first—give it up. Completely. Give up on the objective of ‘convincing your boss.’

In its place, commit yourself to an attitude of curiosity. Go ask your boss:

Boss, I know we’ve been cross-wise on this one. And you know what, I have to admit, I could, of course, be wrong. And if so, I probably don’t even understand how I’m wrong. So please, do me a favor. 

I would really appreciate it if you’d tell me all about how you see this issue—from start to finish. I want to completely understand how you come at it, and how you came to see it that way. I am truly curious, and want to know.

And that’s it. If all we do here today is help me learn from you how to think about this, it will have been a great day. Period.

Then listen. And plan to say ‘thanks,’ and walk away. 

Yes, walk away. 

Because if your boss has any interest in discussing your point of view, (s)he will ask you about it at this point. And if they don’t have any interest, go see Ideas 1 and 2 at the outset of this article, the part where it says they’re your boss, not vice versa.

Here’s the paradox. Assuming your idea really was pretty good, going through this process will considerably increase the odds of it being accepted by your boss. But only—only—if you are willing to completely give up your objective of bending another person’s will to the force of yours.

If you’re willing to give it up, you’ll increase the odds of getting it to happen.  The secret is: It’s not about you.

Why Nobody Cares About You, And You Should Be Glad They Don’t

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Nobody cares about you. I don’t mean your parents, of course they do. And of course your dog. And your significant other, if you have one. Maybe even your kids or your siblings, though there’s no guarantee.   And maybe a great friend or two. 

No, I’m talking about all the rest. Your work team, your customers, your suppliers, your neighbors, your kids’ teachers, the gang at the gym and at church. The people you spend 85% of your time with, who make up 90% of the entries in your contacts database and 95% of the people in your LinkedIn catalog. 99% of your Facebook and Twitter friends. They don’t really care about you. None of them. Not really.

Basically, the vast majority of human interactions we have are with people who don’t really care about us.

And that, my ‘friends,’ is a wonderful thing. Here’s why.

My Life has Been Very Eventful: Some of It Actually Happened.

For me, almost all the stomach-churning fear and angst I have experienced in my life consisted of fictional plots hatched in the dark places in my own mind. They nearly always featured those 90%-plus people in my life. A huge chunk of my life’s emotional energy was spent on winning fictional arguments and fights with them—though now, finally, I spend a lot less time on that.

If only I could have realized more fully, earlier on in my life, the One Big Truth, how much more productive I could have been! And what is the One Big Truth?

They don’t really give a damn. Any more than I do about them. Oh sure I like interacting with them, most of them, most of the time. And I actually don’t think badly about hardly any of them—they mean well, mostly. It’s just that, I’ve got my own issues to worry about, and I honestly don’t spend that much time focusing on them.

And, surprise surprise, they spend about as much time focused on me as I do focused on them. Which is not a lot. And they probably don’t think any more badly about me than I think badly about them, which is not much. The main thing is: I just think about myself more than I do about them. And they do the same.

The Freedom That Lies in Realizing No One Really Cares

Again, I don’t mean we’re all selfish, mean-spirited people. But I do mean that we’re all pretty much wrapped up in ourselves. And that turns out to be an enormous, high-potential gift.

Because: imagine doubling the quality of attention you show to other people. Not even the quantity—just the quality.   No more time—just more connection.   What if you could really connect with your customer. Just for two minutes. For two minutes, to engage in a way that is not dominated by your desire to close the deal, to advance the sale, to get them to like you.

What if, for two minutes, you could actually care about them? About how they are feeling, about why they’re thinking what they’re thinking, about how it must feel to be them in that moment. 

What if you could offer the fine gift of your attention? 

What would happen if someone gave a damn about you for just two minutes? How would it feel? 

Pretty good, I think. And what does it cost? Pretty much nothing.

You Can Radically Improve Lives in Two Minutes a Day

Any time you want, you can stop the noise, get off the Bozo Bus, and reach out and touch someone. All it takes is the gift of your attention.

It seems to me that the reason we don’t give the gift of attention is that we are trapped in the fictional belief that we must gain the approval of others. Thus we are afraid of what they think of us.

The truth is: they can’t think good or ill of us if they’re not even thinking of us at all. Which means we are free—gloriously free—to share our attention. No one else is claiming it.

And if you give it away, you’ll get something back. It’s a universal truth.

Declare the obvious—your own freedom from the myth of others’ judgment. Then go use that freedom to fix your little corner of the world. You might even find that someone cares just a little bit about you.