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I pay my respects and acknowledge all Traditional Custodians of Country and on whose land I live and work. I recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present.
Always was, always will be.

Hi, it's Michael and welcome to this week's useletter.

It's the newsletter that's useful. Focussing on your future not my past.

What’s Plan B? someone asked me.

Plan B, hmmm… ‘shrug’!

I’ve given myself until the middle of the year to develop a more sustainable pipeline of work for unmeasured.

(There! I’ve said it publicly! Yeeesh!)

I do have thoughts on Plan B, but not for here and now,

and

I’m still on my Plan A.v17.3,

which is in part to get better at selling, making my offer better, and not require Plan B.

I’m dodging and weaving, trying to make that happen.

So,

I worked up a little concept I’ve taken to calling it The easy ‘yes’.

I’m sure I’ve liberated the majority of the concept from things about selling and marketing I’ve read or heard from others. At the very least it's a distillation of much of it.

(Apologies, it makes you an accessory to theft if you continue to read.)

It’s work in progress and I’m sharing my thinking this fortnight to refine, for advice and hopefully offer up something useful to you too.

Of course none of this is easy.

But I’m leaning into the discomfort in search of more 'yes’s' for all of us.

I got you

Michael

Last chance: I'm offering 30% off my Practice of Leadership Workshops if you book in for a free (cost and obligation free) consultation call by the end of March 2024.

PS: I'm also working up an alternative to my Practice of Leadership Workshops, in my quest for the easy 'yes'. If you're keen to hear more, it'll be announced in my Updates and Events email as well as in my LinkedIn posts, or just drop me a line!

The easy ‘yes’

When what we offer is big, expensive or complex, people are understandably hesitant to say ‘yes’ too readily to your offer.

So we need to make it easier for them to say ‘yes’ - the easy ‘yes’.

To get there, we need to ask, what will make it easy for them? Instead of asking, what will make it more attractive for them? Which is a more common approach.

The answer is to address both the friction that makes the ‘yes’ hard and to address the things they value. Which includes solving a problem they have.

The way I’ve started to do this is by asking, what are all the reasons they might give for saying ‘no’? The other question I ask is, What might they fear that’s preventing them from saying ‘yes’?

And once I’ve identified all of those reasons, I start to address every single one to negate as many as possible. Making my offer as attractive as possible.

The other part is to identify the main pain points or challenges they have, that's the problem(s) they need me to solve. I don’t exhaustively list these, I aim for a top 3 to reduce the potential of watering down the best points. [For more on argument dilution read Adam Grant’s Think Again.]

Once the challenges are identified it’s important to show you really understand their problem and demonstrate you have the solution for them. And communicate this wherever you connect with potential clients.

In the space between your easing of their resistance to 'yes', and the value you bring in solving their challenges, you will hopefully find the easy(er) ‘yes’.

Let’s take the example of a client hesitating to engage architectural services.

The friction to ‘yes’ might be expense of fees and the build, a fear of an arrogant and/or difficult professional, uncertainty around personality fit, timeframes, indecision about design approach and style, intimidated by professional services, etc. I’ll not list out the ways to address all these, but suffices to say a creative, such as an architect, should be able to come up with many ways to alleviate the friction. One good place to start for many of these is testimonials and social proof.

The problem you’re solving should relate specifically to the market you’re targeting. If, for example, you’re seeking clients interested in sustainability and environmentally responsive houses, you might focus on the challenge of expensive heating and cooling bills, the feeling of living in an artificial environment, etc. It’s an exercise in cognitive empathy, intimately understanding your potential client, the way they think, and identifying their pain points. Then demonstrating how you’re the practice to solve them.

As I said earlier, none of this is easy. If it were easy to get to ‘yes’ we wouldn’t be chasing work. Maybe going for the easy ‘yes’ is too an ambitious place to start. At the very least it’s worth trying for the easy(er) ‘yes’.

You got this.

PS: Whenever you’re ready,

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