Shaula Evans is one of my tech team. The remarks that follow were posted yesterday as a comment to an earlier blogpost about how to buy professional services, but I thought they deserved more prominence, so I have repeated them here.
As you read her remarks, think of marketing and selling your services, inside and outside your organisation. Shaula says:
"I know that you and I agree that many people approach business relationships like a romantic courtship: they put their best face forward, make outlandish claims and set incredibly high expectations, and then, over time, they fail abysmally at the impossible standards they've set and great frustration (and often high drama) ensues for everyone."My approach (when I'm on my game) has been the dead opposite: I tell the other person all the very worst things about me, all the things that make me hard to work with or that might make him or her choose a different partner. In business situations over the past several years, this has meant making business partners and clients aware that I am dealing with chronic health problems that currently include insomnia (which can make scheduling calls and meetings a little extra challenging). If partners want to proceed in full knowledge that my health requires certain accommodations, great! And if not ... it is not like I would be able to hide the truth for long.
"When I'm off my game, by the way, which is usually if I am feeling under pressure or insecure, I will start to want to "puff myself up" and pretend to be things I'm not. And typically, I fight down the urge to present a façade, and the relationship goes well, but when I succumb to the fear-driven need to be something I'm not (which happens less frequently, fortunately, as I get a little older and a little wiser), the story usually ends in disaster.
"My most successful use of this technique wound up getting me married. My husband and I met online (through an email discussion list for professional actors and directors), and fell madly in love before we even realised it. Unfortunately, he was in Charleston, South Carolina, and I was in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and we had no prospects of meeting in person until a convention for actors came up in Las Vegas (roughly half way between us!) that we were both planning on attending. We proceeded to chat on the phone, and did everything in our powers to each drive the other one away -- exposing all of our worst flaws and telling all our worst secrets.
"Our reverse psychology trick worked: I proposed an hour after we met in person for the first time, he eventually said yes (after he got over his initial tongue-tied shock; I really threw him for a loop since he had been planning to propose to me and he didn't see my proposal coming), and we have now been blissfully married for over 5 years.
"Back to the mundane world of business. When I have been sharp enough to try to "scare the other guy away," my results always been (almost) as good. Being brutally honest about my own flaws and weaknesses and particular needs seems to have encouraged the person or people on the other side of the table to respond in a direct, honest way (instead of an over-inflated, artificial way), so we could have a real conversation about whether we met each others' needs.
"When I worked as a technical and executive search recruiter, I used this technique, too: telling a candidate all of the worst parts about a job or employer, to find out if they were really interested; and presenting a very balanced and honest picture of the strengths and weaknesses of my candidates to my clients, so they could fairly judge if the candidate was a good match for the opportunity at their organisation. In this way, I built up great, trust-based relationships with both my candidates and clients -- and it was much easier to take care of everyone's needs.
"Of course, not everyone responds well to this approach. Some people are really baffled when you break away from the received conventions of social ritual, and their reactions can range from offended to upset to extremely hostile. Fortunately, such a response is usually a pretty good indicator that our communication styles won't mesh and I'm better off not starting a relationship with that person. ("A bullet dodged," as my husband would put it.)
"You can call this "reverse psychology," or "demonstrating trust in other folks to elicit their trust in you," or "telling the (ugly) truth" -- it all boils down to tell the other people in the conversation what they really need to know, to figure out if they want this relationship, and to have the information they need to move forward on a secure footing. In a way, it's an anti-game approach. And the great thing is, you can initiate this strategy from either side of the table.
"If you ever try to start a new business conversation by outlining all the reasons the other person shouldn't take your business ... I would be very interested to hear the results."
***
I endorse Shaula's insights. Her approach won't always get you the most business, but pursuing that is not the key to either profits or a happy life. The key insight is that in trying to form relationships, business or personal, you'll profit most by having an approach that screens people out quickly who aren't going to like what you do, and brings in people who do. That way, you get a high percentage of profitable, repeat engagements and fabulous word of mouth with a minimum of effort.
Does anyone else have a business perspective on or experience with this approach?
10 comments:
By the way, if you want to contact Shaula, you can reach her at stresslimit@gmail.com
And if you really want great additional insight on building human relationships, don't miss the April 29 comment by Bill Peper in the conversation about music tastes.
It's brilliantly instructive on how to connect business relationships to human ones, and how to get to the human behind the mask.
Disagree; don't lead with your chin.
Certainly one should not let a prospect fall under the delusion that we can solve all their problems -- I always tell a client what I can't do or can't promise to accomplish -- but telling only negatives is no better than telling only positives.
Your goal should be to give a complete-knowledge picture by asking this question, "If we take on the work and go all the way through to the end, what would the client like to have been told before s/he hired us?"
Four thoughts as I read this post:
1) What a nice surprise to find Richard's kind comment about my Great American Song Book question in this blog.
2) I hooked my wife as a result of a brilliant strategic move on my part as well; I maintained no social life whatsoever until an incredibly beautiful lady had her biological clock start to scream and, consequently, lowered her standards to "employable, Catholic, and disease-free." Once that happened, I was home free!
3) Shaula's essay demonstrates that those who are upfront about possible struggles in a business relationship have a competitive advantage. As David Smith rightly observes, this must have reasonable limits
4) I am fascinated by Richard's closing comment, "in trying to form relationships, business or personal, ..."
By nature, I set out to have personal relationship with every person I encounter, whether in a business or social setting.
I have formed most of the great friendships in my life through business contacts.
People can sense openness and honesty a mile away, and my experience is that most people want to deal with another "real person."
For me, the key insight has been the one that I tried to analyse in my article "Do You Really Want Relationships?"
What I tried to argue there is that you do VERY different things if you are looking for a transaction versus a relationship.
In a transaction mode, you don't want to scare people away, because you want the transaction.
So, you play your cards a little closer to the chest, and don't reveal as much.
However, exactly as Shaula argues, if you really are trying to enter into a relationship (on the "buy" or "sell" side) the last thing you want is to have to deal with someone who doesn't want what you have to offer.
Sheer self-protection says you must screen out people who are not going to be good fits.
So, as my article asked -- are you really going for romance or for a one-night stand?
Make your mind up and be honest, because you go about these things in VERY different ways.
There is value in the way that Shaula operates, but I see two problems: first, when anyone buys anything from someone they don't know, they need to overcome their fear of making a bad decision.
This sort of strategy does very little to do that, especially since it is essentially still a head game; trust is not based on head games.
I believe that you find the right customers/ partners/ friends by giving a balanced view, rather than a one sided view either positive or negative.
The story reminded me of something I read in a Blog in February on Stephen Shapiros Goal Free Living Blog on Goal Free Dating.
http://www.goalfree.com/?p=188
In essence he was saying that trying too hard on a date (or a Sale) can often lead to the result you are trying to avoid.
There are specific examples in Stephens book, Goal Free Living, of the more relaxed and less puffed up approach leading to improved performance.
Focussing on enjoying the here and now rather than worrying about tommorrow, may as Shaula has suggested be a way of accelerating the build up of trust, mutual understanding and friendship which can formthe basis for a deeper relationship later.
You have to distinguish among transactions, relationships, and career-reputations.
1 event, multiple events in 1 relationship, multiple relationships in 1 career.
The point is that any given trasnaction is just one trade in a lifelong Prisoner's Dilemma game.
I've posted about this at length at: Closings, prisoner's dilemma, and professionalising markets.
The ultimate one-off transaction is the drug deal (of, if you prefer, the used-car private sale), where trust is zero.
The ultimate multi-multi is the professional guru practice, where it's the totality of encounters, and therefore of customer impressions, that defines reputation and hence premium value.
I think this is very different in the "buy situation" (as described) verss the "sale situation".
When you're buying (assuming you really know what you NEED) you may be trying to give a realistic scenario so that the seller is aware, can help address root issues, etc.
In the "sell situation" I think you're providing doubt, undermining your credability, and being a bit dishonest -- you're there for a reason.
I used to work in a company where the owner practiced this.
It really did harm relationships, was difficult for other employees to react too, and was inexplainable when we did win the work.
In spite of the insights on the other side of the debate, I'm still on the side of open disclosure, right up front, of both strengths and weaknesses of who and what you are.
That's why I include on my website articles about me that are not always flattering, but which accurately convey what it's like to work with me.
If I am to have successful client experiences, I MUST manage client expectations.
In my case, it's actually essential, because I give an unconditional satisfaction guarantee in all that I do (My invoices state "If you are less than completely happy, then pay me only what you think ther work was worth.")
As you can see, If I'm going for true excellence, I can't afford to have misunderstandings about what people are and are not going to get.
I wouldn't take this approach if my strategy was to make money through a high volume of one-off, average competence assignments.
But if I'm going for extraordinarily high levels of client satisfaction (and the premium fees, the follow on business and the referrals) that flow from that, then clear, unvarnished management of expectations is essential.
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