How to Capture the Full Attention of a Decisionmaker in the First 60 Seconds

You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. In today's episode, we share how to capture the full attention of a decision maker in the first 60 seconds. So stay tuned. If you wanna have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place. I'm Kath Patrick, and I've helped dozens of progressive Nonprofit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter. It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are, to have them seeking you out as an equal partner and to have them. Bringing opportunities and resources to you. This podcast will help you do just that. Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. Hey there folks. Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. I'm so glad you're here for today's episode because I want to ask you an important question. What if you only had 60 seconds to capture the attention of that decision maker? You're in the room with somebody important and you need something from them, and the risk that they are not gonna engage goes up for every second that you are not actively engaging them from the moment you walk in the door. 60 to 90 seconds is not an exaggeration. And you know, it's not that they won't be polite and listen. Of course they will. But there's a huge difference between polite listening and being fully engaged, captivated by what you're saying. And we want captivated. The truth is the first minute or two of any encounter, whether it's an in the room meeting or over zoom or however you're doing this. The first minute or two sets the tone. It tells the decision maker what to expect from you energetically, and it tells them where they can operate from energetically. Is it gonna be okay for them to just kind of lean back and listen and be somewhat detached, or are they gonna be all the way in on this? Those kinds of decisions often get made in those first couple of minutes. And here's the other thing, any decision maker who routinely has people coming to them asking for stuff or wanting them to do something. electeds especially. But most decision makers who have any control over money certainly have this experience. They hear the same basic spiel from just about everybody who walks in their door. And it's boring. It's not engaging. And it's not just a matter of not engaging.'Cause in theory, you could kind of warm up to your task and eventually get them engaged. But if you don't captivate them in that first couple of minutes, you're giving them time to put a wall between you. To make it easier for them to say no, quite frankly. Because in their mind it's a lot less work to say no. If they say yes to something that's gonna mean work for them. They're gonna have to take some kind of action, maybe a lot of action. But if they say, no, I can't help you, then they're done. And they can go away and they don't have to put something on their to-do list. So we have to understand that it's not just a matter of getting them to say yes. When they say yes, that represents work and action they have to do. So they've gotta be feeling a compelling reason to go do the thing you asked for. And we are not gonna get that if we are not being compelling. The sooner we give that to them, the greater the chances that they're not only gonna say yes, but they're gonna say yes enthusiastically, because they're completely on board. That all starts in the first minute or two of your conversation. Let me ask you this. What's your standard introduction right now? If you're like most Nonprofit leaders, it's probably some version of who you are, what your organization does, who you help, and how you help them. Right? That's perfectly logical. That's a reasonable thing to lead with if you just want to give them some information that you don't expect them to do anything with. In fact, that information is valuable and it's important, but you don't lead with it. You lead with something engaging, something compelling that's gonna grab their attention and their engagement right away. If they start this conversation leaning in from the get go, how much easier do you think it's gonna be to keep them there and to keep them engaged and having them asking you good questions and getting involved and wanting to know more. How much easier is it gonna be that way? Versus if you start out with something that has them listening politely and waiting for it to get to the interesting part. Then you're starting from already a decision maker who is somewhat detached. Whether they've done this physically or just in their mind, they've pushed back a little bit, they've leaned back. And they're possibly not giving you their full attention'cause they're not that interested. You haven't said anything to perk their attention. So already you're in a position of having to haul them back and get them engaged. How much easier would it be to just do that from the very beginning? There's a bonus effect that happens when you don't lead with the same thing everybody else leads with. By changing it up, you're surprising them. As soon as you surprise them, you've made them feel their first emotion in this encounter. They are already more engaged than they would've been simply because you surprised them. Now you can do a lot more than just surprise them by having a different opening than most people do. You can craft an opening that's designed to take them on the journey to yes. So let's make your opening really compelling and engaging. There's a million ways to do this. We teach tons of them inside my coaching programs, but I wanna share with you a few different models and approaches that you can try right away and start seeing a shift in results almost immediately. I promise you, as soon as you start operating from this different place, you're gonna see a change in how these decision makers respond, every single time. Now, there's a caveat to this, which is that you have to bring the energy of engagement too. Any of these more compelling structures for openings, if you go to deliver them with sort of the same, just the facts, ma'am, kind of unanimated voice, your results will not be as good. Whether you're actually telling a story or whether you're using another approach, say it in a way that is designed to pull them in. One of the easiest openings there is, is you can ask them a question. It could be a question about how they perceive the nature or the scope of the problem you solve. You can ask them what they think is the most challenging aspect of the problem or the full cost of the problem. You can ask a question designed to call out the cost of leaving the problem partially solved, which is a lot of times what's going on. If the investment in solving the problem is subpar, then by definition you're not getting a full solution. And then that's causing problems down the line, which often decision makers don't wanna acknowledge or aren't even aware of, quite honestly. You can also make a statement. But make a statement that invites collaboration. You can certainly introduce yourself if you've not met before. Hi, I'm Suzy Q and I'm here to talk about how we can solve the problem of X. Or, we both know that problem X is not easy to solve, or that some particular subpart of the problem, that's your specific focus is not easy to solve. But my organization has found a way that gets XYZ outcomes on a consistent basis and reduces the cost of the problem by X. That's a statement with an impact. That's a statement that compels and engages. That makes the decision maker say, wait a second. What? You do what? Hold up. How do you do that? Here's the thing with these openings, and I'm gonna address this right away because I can already feel a certain percentage of folks listening, pulling back and resisting this and going, oh no, you can't do that. That won't work. You can't just walk in there and start talking like that. Yeah, actually you can. I do it all the time. And I do it with decision makers that I am meeting for the first time. And I will tell you that it is actually the most impactful when I'm meeting them for the first time. Because by the time they've gotten to know me, they know that I'm never gonna come in there with a conventional opening. I'm always gonna be surprising them some kind of way. I'm always gonna be asking them a question or dropping some new piece of information on'em that they're gonna find really interesting or that shifts their perspective on the problem or the issue. Once they know me, they know that's what they're gonna get when I walk in the door. And that's a good thing, by the way, because they know they're never gonna be bored. They know that they're always gonna have an interesting conversation and that we're gonna get something important done while I'm there. This is part of how you develop that reputation. But don't make the mistake of thinking that you can't do this on first meeting. It's actually very powerful on first meeting, but you have to be in a place internally where you are completely comfortable and confident walking in the door and doing that. If you come in there tentative and like you're not sure that this is okay to do, you can imagine that's not gonna land the same way. That's not gonna be compelling and captivating. That's just gonna be kind of weird. So you will probably want to practice these. Anytime you're gonna do something that's new and that's changing things up, we all have to spend a little time getting comfortable with the new way. So by all means, work on crafting some different openings using the structures that I'm gonna give you. But absolutely understand you will want to practice this somewhere that's a safe space. Practice with a colleague, practice with a friend, practice with your cat. It doesn't matter. But you wanna get comfortable saying this stuff out loud and bringing with it an energy of, yeah, let's talk about this. This is really important stuff. It's really compelling, it's really awesome. Or this is really vexing. And this is a huge problem that we've gotta figure out how to solve because the impact of it is so immense and people are struggling so much with this and it's costing a fortune. You have to be able to bring that kind of animation and that energy to the conversation when you offer up these openings, or there's gonna be dissonance between the two. Your words are saying one thing, but your energy and your voice are saying something else. And always, what humans do. This is not unique to decision makers. We all do this. If there is a disconnect between the voice and the words, we will take all of our cues from the voice and we will disregard the words. We're gonna put our trust and our belief in what's in the vocal energy that's coming from the person. Always. It has to match, and that takes practice. So I'm gonna say that right up front, that yes, you 100% can do this. But if it's new to you, do practice it. Do get comfortable with it so that you're bringing the energy and the voice that matches the words and matches the intent behind the words. Which is to be compelling and captivating and engaging, and getting them all in from the very beginning. Okay, that was really important to call out before I went any further because that's how you make this work. I have coached a lot of people on this technique, and when they get it down, when they practice and they go and use it with a decision maker, they are blown away by how much more engaged the decision maker becomes from the beginning. So I know this works. I wouldn't teach it if it didn't. But it does require practice and adjusting your idea of what's okay. And to not only get comfortable, get really comfortable. Like yeah, this fits. Because it does actually. If you think about it, every Nonprofit leader I know and I'm sure that you are no exception. Every Nonprofit leader I know is passionate about their work, about the impact you make on people's lives, the transformations that occur, the ways their lives are changed for the better, and how much difference that makes in their ability to thrive and be part of their community, and have the community thriving. All of that. You're passionate about, and you know better than anyone how powerful the impact of your work is. So I know you've got that available to tap into. Give yourself permission to do that. 100%. Now we got that outta the way. Let's talk about some other openings you can use. Another thing you can do is to lead with a surprising bit of data.. But don't just state the data, tee it up. If it's a surprising bit of data about the scope of the problem, for example. You could lead with something like, you know, it would be reasonable to think that this problem affects a relatively small part of the community. But when we dug into it, we discovered that one in every three households in XYZ community is touched by this problem. That means if you walk down the street, someone in every third house is dealing with ABC. Their experience is XYZ. And that means, and then insert the negative consequence here. Which makes solving this problem really important on a lot of levels. It's partly about helping all these folks who are impacted by this problem and helping make their lives better. But it's also, this is a really expensive problem to let go unsolved, and it's costing the community a ton. So now that we understand how widespread this problem is, we really need an answer for it. And that's where our work comes in. Now. You might not get through that whole monologue without the decision maker interrupting you to ask a question or to say, wait a minute. Can that be right? I don't know. That doesn't sound right. That's good. That is exactly what you want because that is engagement. This is the other thing that happens a lot of times when folks start doing this for the first time. Is they'll get in there and they're thinking, all right, I got my compelling, captivating opening. Here I go. And then the decision maker interrupts them. And they're like, oh, crap, did I do it wrong? They're questioning me. I don't know. They don't believe me. Da da. Uh, maybe I should go back to my old introduction where I just tell'em what I do. No. It's all good. When they interrupt you to ask a question, that is fabulous. That's them engaging. That's them leaning in and participating. And it tells you they're a hundred percent taking in what you're saying and they're having a little cognitive dissonance around it. That's fine. You've just told'em something surprising. It would be weird if they didn't react by questioning things a little bit. And asking for more information. That is absolutely what you want. And you can say things like, I know that's what you'd think, right? You know, we thought that too until we did research, or we went to the municipal data or however you found out what the scope of the problem was. We thought that too, until we did this. And then when we learned just how pervasive it was, that just told us how much more important our work is in solving this problem. But also, wow. We knew it was a costly problem, but when you multiply that out by the number of people. Yikes. That's a lot. So we have doubled our efforts to address this because we are realizing now just how many people are impacted, et cetera, et cetera. So you roll with it. And here's the thing. I know that you already have all the supporting data and information bits and all that stuff. You've got that all in your head. You already know all that. What this approach does is it lets you bring those bits in at exactly the moment the decision maker is most ready to take them in. They are most receptive to them. They're most likely to retain them, integrate them, and make them part of their thinking. And that's what you want. That's how you make something compelling and engaging. So it's all good. Questions are your friend. But again, practice this. Because if you go in with the mindset that you're going to deliver your brilliant opening and they're gonna be compelled and engaged. And then they interrupt with a question and you're not ready, that can really throw you off your game. So practice that too. Have that friend just be there while you work on it a couple of times, and then have them start asking you questions. It's really great actually to pick someone who doesn't know anything about the work you do or who doesn't know a lot about it, doesn't know the details. The problem with a colleague is they're gonna know all that, so they're not even gonna think to ask the questions'cause they're like, mm-hmm, yep, that's totally true. Exactly. But somebody who's not enmeshed in your work, whoever it is, a friend, a relative, who you can just say, Hey, can I practice this with you? And would you do me the favor of, if I say something that sparks a question for you, just ask it. Jump in, interrupt me. Don't wait till the end, jump right in and ask me the question. Or if something doesn't make sense, ask about that. Invite them to interrupt you, and practice that. Practice getting good at rolling with those interruptions and seeing them for the opportunity for further engagement that they are. They are just awesome. Questions are such a massive gift when you're talking with a decision maker. Another thing you can do that's always helpful is to tell a quick story. But there's a caveat here. Make sure it's a story that's truly engaging and isn't predictable. It needs to make a surprising or compelling point. So maybe your story is designed to highlight your ROI and bring that to life. Maybe it's designed to distinguish the quality of your services from for-profit competitors. It should not just be a feel good story about helping a client. Because number one, that doesn't make a larger point. And number two, it's pretty predictable. Lots of people come in to decision makers, particularly elected officials with a client story that's just sort of a feel good story. Isn't it wonderful we help Suzy Q. Yes it is. But there should always be a larger point. You don't have to tell a story about a client. You can tell a story about just about anything. You can tell a story about how you discovered something, how you realized something. How you shifted your perspective on the problem or on a new solution. You can tell a story about how you did some research that yielded some really powerful and compelling data, which you then will share. Or how you discovered the secret sauce you use that causes super impressive outcomes for your clients. I love those kind of stories.'Cause if there's some aspect of what you do that's super unique in the marketplace and you're getting really great results because of it. You can tell a story that's basically, you know, we used to have this basic understanding of the problem, and then you say a short sentence about what everybody's sort of baseline understanding is. We used to think that this was really just a matter of doing A and B and that that would really help people and they would get a good outcome. And honestly, we did that for a while and we noticed that while folks were making progress, they weren't really getting the kind of outcomes we thought they should be able to. So we dug deeper and we did XYZ. We did research, we experimented, we did whatever. And we discovered that when you add this one thing and you make everything client centered and slightly individualized, that then the result just explodes. And not surprisingly when that happens, the ROI does too. So yes, it costs a little bit more and is a little more time and labor intensive to do this extra thing. But the results speak for themselves. It's absolutely transformative. Even that's a little long, quite honestly. But you might get away with that if you had enough surprising things in there. Those are some of my favorites of pretty simple structures for openings that will immediately compel and engage a decision maker. And of the ones that I talked about, I'm guessing that probably there were one or two that particularly resonated for you or felt like, yeah, I could think of how I would do that. Start with those. I gave you four, with some variations. You don't have to use all of them. Play around with'em. Experiment. Definitely practice.'Cause it will feel weird at first. You have a gazillion repetitions on your standard introduction. It's gonna take some time and practice and repetition on the new way before it feels comfortable. It's likely to feel really uncomfortable for a little bit, but keep at it because it is absolutely worth it. Another way to think about this is attention spans are just a disaster right now, right? We all know this. We're all experiencing it. Our focus isn't what we'd like it to be. Our attention spans aren't what we'd like them to be. In that environment, it just becomes more important than ever that we engage and compel decision makers from the first one to two minutes that were in the room with them. And it is all about what you lead with. And what you don't lead with. It's not that you won't get to tell them all the stuff that is in your standard introduction that you've been using. It's just that you're not gonna lead with it. What you're doing here is you're switching the order of what you say, so that the first thing outta your mouth is completely compelling and engaging. That in turn increases the odds that they're still gonna be leaning in when you get around to the part about, oh yeah, and the organization is this, and this is what it does, and here's how many people we help and all that good stuff. You'll get to it all. And the chances are also good that if you've hooked them into a conversation and they're leaning in from the beginning, they're gonna be asking you a lot more questions than they normally would. That is a great opening to give them the information they've asked for because now you know that they're exactly primed for that piece of information in that moment, and you know that it will get taken in and retained because they asked the question. Otherwise we run the risk of we're just handing out information bits all over the place and hoping that maybe a couple of them stick. Maybe none of them stick, honestly. A lot of times that's the experience I hear from clients that I work with. The common refrain is we keep giving them more information and more data hoping they'll finally get it. And it's like, no, actually the problem isn't your information and your data. It's how you're sharing it with them. And that you haven't primed them to want to know it. That's what that first one to two minutes is all about, is getting them ready to say, I want to know it all. Talk to me, tell me how we work on this together. When you get that going on, the path to yes gets a whole lot easier. And over time you will wind up as a byproduct, with a reputation for somebody who's really interesting. And whenever you walk in the room, they know they're gonna be in for an interesting conversation. And that can only help you. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.