Nov. 17, 2025
How to Handle a Curve Ball Like a Pro
I want to tackle a thing that we all come in contact with on a regular basis. My clients tell me it's one of the most unsettling things that can happen in a meeting with a decisionmaker. And that's when they throw you some kind of curve ball. Maybe it's a question. Maybe it's a totally out there statement and you don't know what to do with it. It's happened to all of us probably more than once. So you know what I'm talking about. When that happens, you're caught a little b...
I want to tackle a thing that we all come in contact with on a regular basis. My clients tell me it's one of the most unsettling things that can happen in a meeting with a decisionmaker.
And that's when they throw you some kind of curve ball. Maybe it's a question. Maybe it's a totally out there statement and you don't know what to do with it. It's happened to all of us probably more than once. So you know what I'm talking about.
When that happens, you're caught a little bit flat-footed. You're like, well, what does that mean? Where did that come from? Why did they think that? Why did they ask that? What's going on? Oh no, I've got one chance to get this right. If I fumble around, that'll look really bad. And all this stuff is whirring through our brain as we're trying to figure out what's the best way to respond to this.
It can definitely be unsettling, no question. But it doesn't have to be – if you're prepared with a set of core strategies that will work no matter what they say to you.
In this episode, we share:
- The powerful reframe that will change your relationship with curve balls forever
- How curve ball questions (and statements) are likely to show up in both conversations with decisionmakers and live media interviews
- The four root causes of curveball questions and statements
- What to do first when you get a curve ball
- How to handle the rare (but dreaded) “gotcha” question
- The four most common mistakes we make when responding to curve balls – and what to do instead
Interested in joining my new coaching program as a Founding Member?
Reach out to me here:
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You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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In today's episode, we share how to handle a curve ball like a pro.
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So stay tuned.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
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This podcast will help you do just that.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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Hey there folks.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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I'm your host, Kath Patrick.
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I'm so glad you're here for today's episode.
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'cause I wanna tackle a thing that we all come in contact with on a regular basis.
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And my clients tell me that it's one of the most unsettling things that can happen in a meeting with a decision maker.
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And that's when they throw you some kind of curve ball.
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Maybe it's a question, maybe it's a totally out there statement and you don't know what to do with it.
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It's happened to all of us probably more than once.
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So you know what I'm talking about.
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When that happens, you're caught a little bit flat-footed.
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You're like, well, what does that mean?
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Where did that come from?
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Why did they think that?
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Why did they ask that?
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What's going on?
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Oh God, I've got one chance to get this right.
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If I fumble around, that'll look really bad.
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And all this stuff is whirring through our brain as we're trying to figure out what's the best way to respond to this.
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It's one of the things that my clients tell me they worry about the most.
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What if.
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All the what ifs.
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It can definitely be unsettling, no question.
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But it doesn't have to be.
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If you're prepared with a set of core strategies that will work no matter what they say to you.
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So let's get right into this.
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If you've been in this game for more than a minute, you've probably been thrown more than a few curve balls.
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And you've got ways of dealing with them.
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But what I often find when I'm working with clients is that they don't have a systemic strategy for understanding what's happening with the curve balls.
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And then a baseline strategy that will work for them no matter what happens.
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In the years that I've been doing this, I've discovered that there are some kind of universal causes for those curve balls.
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And that if we simply understand those universal causes, we're already ahead of the game.
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And there are some very effective tactics for dealing with those curve balls.
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But most of us didn't learn those anywhere else.
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We didn't learn them when we were learning how to do presentations or public speaking or any of that.
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That's what I'd like to talk with you about today.
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I wanna share with you some things I've learned over a lot of years of doing this, both in settings with decision makers and also in settings with live media where you are literally on air, whether it's a live podcast or a live traditional media interview, television, radio, what have you.
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And you've got one chance to get it right.
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So we're gonna deal with both of those.
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But I'm gonna focus primarily on decision makers.
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'Cause that's where folks tell me they worry about this the most.
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That's where the stakes are the highest.
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What I've learned is that there's a set of causes for those curve balls.
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And when you understand where the curve balls are coming from, or what the possible universe of source of curve balls is.
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It allows you to create a set of fairly tight strategies that will let you handle whichever kind of curve ball you've got coming at you.
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But as long as it feels random and like it could come from anywhere and you don't know what's provoking it, it all feels very uncertain and potentially infinitely problematic.
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The good news is it's actually not as infinite as you think.
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So let's take this apart a little bit.
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There's basically two forms of curve balls, and there's a handful of causes for those curve balls.
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The two forms the curve ball is likely to come in, is either in the form of a question or a statement.
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Curve balls show up in conversations.
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In dialogue, in conversation, there's basically two things.
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There's statements and there's questions.
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So you're gonna get one or the other of those.
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Now, I know that sounds super simplistic, but stay with me.
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Cause what I wanna share is that the more you break this down, the more you understand the structure of the curve ball and the fact that it's not really nearly as infinitely problematic as it feels.
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That it's actually pretty formulaic.
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And if you can understand the formula, then you can create a set of fairly tight strategies that will allow you to adapt whenever one of those curve balls shows up.
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So it's either gonna be in the form of a question or a statement.
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If it's a question, most of the time it's probably not a gotcha question.
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It's not that they're trying to trip you up or catch you in a inaccuracy or a gap in your logic or whatever.
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That does happen, and we'll talk about what to do if it does.
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But most of the time it's most likely grounded in misunderstanding and or a lack of information or perspective.
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We're gonna talk about that in detail, but that's kind of the basic framework.
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Those are the two likely causes when you get a question that feels like a curve ball.
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And then there's the curve ball statement.
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They just make a declaration, or not even a declaration, but just like they say something as a statement of fact or belief and it throws you completely off guard.
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You're like, where did that come from?
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Why on earth do you think that?
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What is up with that?
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Similar to the questions, the statements are usually grounded in a lack of understanding.
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They may also be grounded in some unhelpful beliefs.
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And once you know which of those you're dealing with, you can decide how to respond.
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So already this is simpler, right?
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It's gonna be a question or a statement.
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It's likely to be grounded in a lack of understanding, a lack of depth of understanding, a misconception or an unhelpful belief.
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So if we know that, here's the thing.
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One of the things I do all the time in my coaching programs and with my one-to-one clients is that we work a lot on identifying the common misperceptions, and the unhelpful beliefs that our key decision makers have And we think those through ahead of time.
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We identify them, we break them out, we flesh them out in considerable detail, so that we get to what's really going on there.
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What's the root of that belief?
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What's driving that?
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If they're not getting something about what we do, or there's a common either misunderstanding or misperception.
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There's something they consistently don't get.
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There's something they consistently think is true that isn't, or that's like not quite right.
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And that misunderstanding substantially affects their ability to value our work at the level they should.
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So we spend a lot of time identifying those.
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And there's a lot of advantages to doing that.
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Now, mostly we work on that in terms of how you'll craft your messaging.
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And you wanna structure your messaging in such a way that it addresses all of those things.
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In a way that will both be engaging and that will shift their perspective or beliefs and deepen their understanding of the thing that you really need them to get.
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So that's foundational work.
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And the more of that you've already done, the better equipped you're gonna be when these curve ball statements and questions come along.
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The thing to realize about this, and this is really a perspective shift for us, particularly these days when we're all feeling a bit under siege in the environment we're in.
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It's easy to start to feel like everybody's a little bit out to get the nonprofits.
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They're messing with us.
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There's a feeling of vulnerability and being under attack.
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The danger with that, even though there is a lot of reality that supports that perspective.
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That perspective is absolutely deadly in an encounter with a decision maker.
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The more helpful way to come into this is to realize that everything they say to you, first of all is information.
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And it's information you can use.
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Because everything they say tells you more about what they're thinking and how they're thinking about the work that you do.
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If they're not getting it, you need to know that.
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If they have weird ideas about it, you need to know that.
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If they have some level of hostility, you need to know that.
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So the way I like to look at curve balls is to say that they're weirdly a little bit of a gift.
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Because what they're doing is they're revealing something unexpected about that person, about their way of thinking, that we might not otherwise have had any opportunity to observe or know about.
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If we can think of that as a gift, like, oh, you just shared something really interesting with me.
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Ah.
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How can I work with that to help take you to the place I need you to go?
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Let's talk about questions first.
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Even when they're total curve balls those questions from decision makers can be very helpful and revealing.
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If you can stay relaxed enough and stay in curiosity to find out what's driving that question.
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Very often, if you can find that out, you can actually achieve a much deeper level of engagement and connection than you would've been able to without them having come up with that kind of crazy question.
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The more we can shift our perspective and think about these as little gifts and little opportunities for insight into that decision maker, the better we're gonna be able to handle the thing coming at us and the more effective we're gonna be in our response to it.
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Statements generally work the same way.
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They're also little gifts.
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And one way I like to think about statements a lot of time is just a question in disguise.
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If someone says something that is significantly off target about the work that you do or the people you serve Then first of all, you know right away that there's a misperception happening there.
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There may be an unhelpful belief operating.
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And one of the ways you can kind of detect that is the level of conviction with which they said it I'm gonna take some common ones that plague direct service nonprofits all the time.
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If you've got a decision maker who has some unhelpful beliefs about the people you serve.
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Maybe they think that, well, gee, there really should be work requirements for this.
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Because, you know, probably the people who are getting these services are sitting home eating bon bons and not working.
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You could get a curve ball statement that's as aggressive as that Or you could get it in a much softer form.
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That would be like, well.
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You know, I, I feel like work requirements would be a good idea for this program.
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Then we would be sure that the people who most need the service are actually getting it, and that we wouldn't be giving the service to people who don't really need it.
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That's a much softer way of possibly saying a similar thing.
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But what you know when you hear that, is that underlying that is a lack of information about who is actually getting the services and what the characteristics of those folks are.
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It also could reveal an unhelpful belief that skews in the direction of, well, you know, poor people are kind of lazy.
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People will take advantage if they can.
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They'll always go for the handout rather than getting off their behind and doing the work.
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So when we get those kind of statements, if you think of that as a question in disguise.
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The question could have been, well, I don't really know if work requirements are a good idea for this program because actually I don't really understand who's receiving these services under this program, and I don't really know anything about them.
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But, you know, it feels like a good idea.
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I believe that people should work for what they get.
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Okay.
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That's sort of a core American value.
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You should work for what you get.
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But if it's paired with a set of beliefs that are, and anybody who's getting these services probably isn't working as hard as they could be.
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That's the gentlest interpretation.
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Or they're flat out lazy.
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They're sitting home on their couch when they should be out working like the rest of us.
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It could be anywhere on that spectrum.
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So when you get that.
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A couple of things here.
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One, if that's really operating as their background belief system, what are the chances of you getting them to be on board with whatever you're asking for that's going to make there be even more of those services or pay for them at a higher rate or whatever it is that you're there to engage them about.
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If they hold those underlying beliefs, what are the chances that they're gonna be on board with what you want?
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The answer to that's kind of clear.
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So it stands to reason that shifting that belief would be an important thing to do before we go much further with the conversation.
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Because that's clearly in the way.
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And so think of it again as a little gift.
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They've let you know what's in the way of them being able to hear what you have to say.
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They're effectively saying, I really can't hear anything you're asking for, because I believe that the real problem is that the folks who receive these services should actually just be working harder, and then there wouldn't be nearly as many people who need them, and we wouldn't have to spend more money on it.
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Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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So that becomes your first order of business is to pivot to disrupting that belief.
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And in fact to continue on with whatever else you were gonna say that you had planned on, may or may not be a good idea at this point.
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Because what are the chances they'll actually be able to take most of that in?
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Even though it's really aggravating And depending on how it's delivered, can be quite distressing to have them drop that kind of a curve ball on you.
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It is in fact a gift because it's telling you what you need to do next.
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That is not what you thought was gonna be next.
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And it gives you the opportunity to shift gears and address the thing that they have now flagged.
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That perspective shift is really helpful as a starting point.
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But then there's still the question of what do you do about it when that happens?
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It's still a curve ball.
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It's still maybe not what you were expecting.
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Although hopefully if you've done the work to identify the common misconceptions and unhelpful underlying beliefs that some or many of your decision makers tend to hold.
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Then you may already have some messaging around those pieces that you can go to.
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If you get a curve ball that surfaces one of those misconceptions or underlying beliefs.
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And part of what we have to get good at is interpreting what's really going on.
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I'll talk about that in a second.
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But the first thing I wanna do is tackle some of the most common mistakes that I see happening and qualify as what not to do when you get thrown a curve ball First thing, broadly speaking, don't freak out.
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It's fine.
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Train yourself to know that number one, curve balls are gonna happen as long as you're talking with decision makers.
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And as long as you're talking with media, there are going to be curve balls.
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They're just gonna happen.
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It's okay.
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It's fine.
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You've got this.
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There's gonna be a way to deal with it that is productive.
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Don't let it take on greater significance than it actually has.
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It's just information.
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So that's the first thing is don't freak out.
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And if you do, if you find yourself in stress mode and you know the signs.
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They're a little bit different for everybody.
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But you have your signs of stress when they start to happen.
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The minute you get that, the minute you start to perceive that.
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Take a deep breath.
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All you have to do is say, oh, that's a very interesting question.
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Oh, that's a very interesting take on this.
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Give yourself a second to collect your thoughts and then go forward.
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Another huge mistake that happens mostly because of stress, that I see happen a lot is we start talking faster.
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Maybe we're like, oh no, this is going sideways.
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I need to talk faster and get it over with so I can get outta here.
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And, ah, this is too much.
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It's connected to freak out.
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If you've mitigated your freak out, that's good, but watch yourself.
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If you start talking faster, slow it down.
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Just slow it down Another common mistake is sort of papering over the question and pretending it didn't happen., Like, oh, what?
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Uh, there's a, there's a fly in the room.
00:17:50.577 --> 00:17:54.538
It just went by, but I, nevermind and I'll move on with whatever I was gonna say anyway.
00:17:55.290 --> 00:17:59.971
Hopefully what I was just talking about a little bit earlier helps you understand why that's a bad idea.
00:18:00.635 --> 00:18:07.685
if they've just given you a critical piece of information about a misconception or an unhelpful belief that is driving their thinking.
00:18:08.185 --> 00:18:11.155
How is it gonna help you to pretend that's not there?
00:18:11.806 --> 00:18:15.498
That will just, first of all, allow that to persist.
00:18:16.248 --> 00:18:21.907
And as it persists, it will continue to be in the way, whether you acknowledge it or not.
00:18:22.498 --> 00:18:25.048
So you can ignore it and pretend like it didn't happen.
00:18:25.557 --> 00:18:29.728
But if you do that, then now there's a giant boulder in your way.
00:18:30.228 --> 00:18:35.239
And you're just gonna be, everything you say is gonna bounce off that boulder and come right back to you.
00:18:35.239 --> 00:18:44.582
It's not gonna get to the decision maker The last thing is, and this is situational, but generally speaking, don't try to redirect.
00:18:45.082 --> 00:18:50.152
By that I mean, you know, one of the strategies that we're often taught, particularly in traditional media interviews.
00:18:50.201 --> 00:18:52.781
That if either you get a question you don't want to answer.
00:18:53.230 --> 00:19:02.320
Or you get a question that is gonna take the conversation way far away from what you came there to talk about, and your core message.
00:19:02.351 --> 00:19:04.451
And you're worried you won't be able to get it back.
00:19:04.810 --> 00:19:11.907
A lot of times what we've all been taught to do are strategies for how to redirect their question and turn it into something else.
00:19:12.054 --> 00:19:21.324
You see that a lot in political debates and interviews where the moderator will ask a question and it's not the question the politician wants to answer.
00:19:21.324 --> 00:19:24.519
And so they'll say, well, so and so.
00:19:24.855 --> 00:19:30.211
I think what you're really asking, or the point I think we really need to be focused on is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:19:30.742 --> 00:19:34.038
That's a pretty obvious redirect.
00:19:34.794 --> 00:19:40.374
Now, there are situations, particularly in interviews where that is a good strategy.
00:19:40.874 --> 00:19:46.594
But generally speaking with a decision maker, you don't want to go there first.
00:19:47.094 --> 00:19:52.721
Because there is a reason they said the thing Maybe it was to take you off topic.
00:19:53.560 --> 00:19:58.361
Maybe it was to move the conversation in the direction they really wanna have the conversation go.
00:19:58.861 --> 00:19:59.580
Or not.
00:20:00.211 --> 00:20:01.500
You don't know yet.
00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:13.296
So before you get into redirecting, even if their comment or question seems way off topic, explore it a little bit first'cause it might be important.
00:20:13.796 --> 00:20:24.839
And if it's not, if it really was just like a brain fart and it had no relevance, then when you explore it a little bit, that will become clear very quickly and then you can redirect.
00:20:25.339 --> 00:20:29.339
But don't just assume that your first move should be to redirect.
00:20:29.490 --> 00:20:33.240
Because doing that on autopilot is a big mistake.
00:20:34.150 --> 00:20:35.890
That's a technique to use strategically.
00:20:36.460 --> 00:20:39.965
And you want to be really intentional about how you use it.
00:20:40.895 --> 00:20:43.445
Those are the four biggest mistakes that I see happen a lot.
00:20:43.566 --> 00:20:45.655
And as you can tell, most of them are related.
00:20:46.336 --> 00:20:51.015
Now the other thing I wanna deal with is the genuine gotcha question.
00:20:51.434 --> 00:20:53.721
They are rare, but they do happen.
00:20:54.625 --> 00:21:03.434
A gotcha question is where they're trying to trap you in a logic flaw or two things that you've said that they are arguing are contradictory or whatever.
00:21:03.912 --> 00:21:11.416
They're trying to trap you into saying something that isn't accurate or that they feel will reflect poorly on you.
00:21:12.173 --> 00:21:15.996
Like I say, those are not common, but they can happen.
00:21:16.340 --> 00:21:22.911
And their freakout value is very high because they're coming from a place of hostility.
00:21:23.461 --> 00:21:27.240
Hostility tends to provoke freakout in a lot of us.
00:21:27.330 --> 00:21:32.266
So let's talk about what to do if you get a question that is a gotcha.
00:21:32.746 --> 00:21:37.336
And in the same family of that are things like deliberately incendiary statements.
00:21:37.726 --> 00:21:41.296
Or oblique insults to you or the people you serve.
00:21:41.996 --> 00:21:48.636
If it's truly one of those, then first of all, be aware you're dealing with someone who is essentially hostile to you.
00:21:49.241 --> 00:21:58.946
Now maybe it's hostile to you personally or to your organization or the work that you do or the people you help, or some combination of the above.
00:22:00.007 --> 00:22:05.387
So one of the things that becomes very important to know is, which is it?
00:22:05.887 --> 00:22:14.278
Because if it's you personally, for whatever reason, then what you now know is you are not the best messenger to go to that decision maker.
00:22:14.877 --> 00:22:17.458
Find someone else from your organization to go do that.
00:22:18.051 --> 00:22:27.623
I had a classic story of this with a client I had a little while back who, they'd been trying to move a particular county board member on an issue for the longest time.
00:22:28.163 --> 00:22:34.519
And every time the CEO would go to engage that county board member, they got kind of a hostile response.
00:22:35.074 --> 00:22:40.923
I was working with them on some messaging and engagement strategies, and the CEO was telling me about this.
00:22:41.584 --> 00:22:47.213
And I had to say, maybe it's that they're hostile to you.
00:22:48.028 --> 00:22:49.108
Is that possible?
00:22:49.138 --> 00:22:54.141
Is there any reason why they have an issue with you personally?
00:22:54.641 --> 00:22:58.661
And this huge light bulb went on over the CEO's head.
00:22:58.810 --> 00:23:07.990
And they were like, oh yeah, actually, like three years ago this thing happened and maybe they're still pissed at me.
00:23:08.490 --> 00:23:09.961
And I was like, well, let's try this.
00:23:09.990 --> 00:23:11.760
Let's try a different messenger.
00:23:12.510 --> 00:23:20.310
And we got a board member to go have the conversation with that county board member, and we solved the problem in a matter of a couple of conversations.
00:23:20.371 --> 00:23:25.163
And then the county board person was on board with what the organization wanted to do, and it was all fine.
00:23:25.492 --> 00:23:27.232
It turned out it was personal.
00:23:27.679 --> 00:23:28.429
Okay.
00:23:28.876 --> 00:23:32.176
If that's what's going on, then you wanna get a sense of that.
00:23:32.817 --> 00:23:33.747
It's always worth checking.
00:23:33.916 --> 00:23:34.517
Is it you?
00:23:34.636 --> 00:23:35.267
Maybe it's you.
00:23:36.136 --> 00:23:37.156
Then get somebody else.
00:23:37.426 --> 00:23:38.176
Easy fix.
00:23:38.676 --> 00:23:47.307
But aside from that, unless it's like really a personality clash or they can't stand the sound of your voice or they're mad at you for something you did three years ago.
00:23:47.307 --> 00:23:49.076
All of which are specific to you.
00:23:49.576 --> 00:24:03.727
If it's anything else, if they're just generically hostile to the organization, the work that you do, the people you serve The reality is that their objections are still grounded in misunderstanding, plus some unhelpful beliefs.
00:24:04.613 --> 00:24:14.877
And so the first order of business is gonna be to disrupt some of those unhelpful beliefs And then when you've done that, you can begin to correct the misperceptions.
00:24:15.377 --> 00:24:21.438
But the thing is, you gotta do the beliefs first because they can't even hear your facts and information that are correcting the misperceptions.
00:24:21.887 --> 00:24:27.258
If they've got a big, fat, unhelpful belief that's in the way and that everything else bounces off of.
00:24:28.065 --> 00:24:30.035
Now, this is very important.
00:24:30.535 --> 00:24:34.664
Whether to engage in that effort is a strategic question.
00:24:35.164 --> 00:24:39.305
For some decision makers it will be worth it, and for others it will not.
00:24:39.545 --> 00:24:41.075
That is a judgment call for you.
00:24:41.255 --> 00:24:46.025
How badly do you need this particular decision maker to be on board with your stuff?
00:24:46.288 --> 00:24:48.387
To say yes to the things that you want.
00:24:49.239 --> 00:24:58.089
If there are other decision makers who are in the same category as this person who are easier to engage, start with them.
00:24:58.825 --> 00:25:06.894
Unless the one who's your problem is in a pivotal role, where if you don't have them on board, then the thing you want cannot happen.
00:25:07.734 --> 00:25:08.934
If that's where you are.
00:25:08.984 --> 00:25:15.324
If you must address their issues in order to get to where you want to go.
00:25:15.743 --> 00:25:28.074
Then it's gonna be a hundred percent worth it to start working on disrupting their unhelpful beliefs and then correcting those misperceptions and at least moving them to a place of neutrality.
00:25:28.673 --> 00:25:30.743
They're probably never gonna be fully on board.
00:25:30.743 --> 00:25:35.243
But if you get'em to neutral and they aren't actively opposing you, that's a win.
00:25:36.124 --> 00:25:45.503
Those are strategic judgment calls that you have to make based on the facts on the ground and how relatively important that decision maker is in the context you're working in.
00:25:46.239 --> 00:25:58.420
Now for all the vast majority of situations where it's not serious hostility, but rather a genuine lack of understanding, misperceptions and a handful of unhelpful beliefs.
00:25:59.009 --> 00:26:03.151
Then you go to your strategies for tackling those.
00:26:04.080 --> 00:26:13.746
My recommendation is, your first order of business when you get a curve ball statement or question, and it's not open hostility.
00:26:14.246 --> 00:26:18.205
The best response is another question from you.
00:26:18.945 --> 00:26:21.351
Oh, well that's an interesting perspective.
00:26:21.640 --> 00:26:26.137
And then you're basically gonna say, tell me more about that thing.
00:26:26.637 --> 00:26:28.442
Help me understand your thinking about that.
00:26:29.212 --> 00:26:30.982
To pick up on the example I was using earlier.
00:26:30.982 --> 00:26:39.863
If they have a misperception and a little bit of an underlying belief about how many people who receive your service are working.
00:26:40.103 --> 00:26:48.313
And there's an issue of work requirements on the table Then whatever they have said, if they have said, I think work requirements are a good idea.
00:26:48.313 --> 00:26:52.272
'Cause we wanna make sure that the people who are getting these services are the people who need them the most.
00:26:53.029 --> 00:27:00.887
Then you can ask a question and say, oh, well I definitely agree with you about making sure that the people who need the service the most are getting it.
00:27:01.188 --> 00:27:02.958
And that's exactly what we do.
00:27:02.958 --> 00:27:11.917
But, um, tell me, what is your sense of what percentage of the people who do receive these services are already working or are not?
00:27:12.667 --> 00:27:14.627
And then you can learn a couple of things here.
00:27:14.627 --> 00:27:23.164
You can find out how far off they are and whether or not this is being primarily driven by a belief or by misinformation.
00:27:23.664 --> 00:27:29.623
So they might say, well, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that hardly anybody on this program is working.
00:27:30.042 --> 00:27:31.903
Now you know you're dealing with a belief.
00:27:32.625 --> 00:27:42.183
If they say, well, I heard from Fox News or some right wing podcast, that only 10% are working and the other 90% are freeloading.
00:27:42.683 --> 00:27:44.844
Then you've learned a couple of things too.
00:27:44.874 --> 00:27:48.263
Now you've learned that they're mostly operating off of misinformation.
00:27:48.874 --> 00:27:50.763
You might even know where they got it from.
00:27:51.574 --> 00:27:57.419
And you can say, well, let me share with you the experience we've had with the people that we serve.
00:27:58.019 --> 00:28:02.759
We have extensive data on everybody we serve, and here's what's true there.
00:28:03.259 --> 00:28:06.342
That's a piece of starting to disrupt that belief.
00:28:06.432 --> 00:28:14.734
And we've talked in other episodes in detail about all the ways that you can use to disrupt beliefs and reset thought patterns.
00:28:14.855 --> 00:28:17.424
So I'm not gonna go super deep on that right here.
00:28:17.875 --> 00:28:22.946
But that's essentially what you wanna do is begin to disrupt that underlying belief.
00:28:23.586 --> 00:28:27.007
And it's gonna be situational as to which is gonna be your best strategy.
00:28:27.336 --> 00:28:30.067
You might challenge that belief in a different way, you might say.
00:28:30.457 --> 00:28:39.448
So would you agree that if someone is already working and they still need the service, then they would be very appropriate to get the service?
00:28:39.948 --> 00:28:41.057
Oh yeah, absolutely.
00:28:41.768 --> 00:28:49.460
And then you can say, well, would it surprise you to know that 90% of the people who get this service are already working?
00:28:49.960 --> 00:28:50.890
Oh, that can't be true.
00:28:50.920 --> 00:28:53.219
Well, let me share with you what's true at our organization.
00:28:54.054 --> 00:28:56.513
The main thing is to disrupt the belief initially.
00:28:56.875 --> 00:29:00.955
At least begin to disrupt it so that you can create some cracks in it.
00:29:01.455 --> 00:29:06.796
And then within those cracks you can share what's true at your organization.
00:29:07.450 --> 00:29:09.702
Because they really can't challenge that.
00:29:10.153 --> 00:29:12.913
That is what is happening in your actual world.
00:29:13.163 --> 00:29:16.992
That is much harder to shoehorn into a preexisting belief.
00:29:17.492 --> 00:29:27.992
But the way you wanna do it is by asking questions and pulling them in and having them in the process begin to question whether their belief is true all the time for everyone.
00:29:28.932 --> 00:29:34.866
Your primary goal when these curve balls happen is to regard them as a gift of new information.
00:29:35.287 --> 00:29:38.737
To get curious about where that's coming from.
00:29:39.096 --> 00:29:40.807
Is it misinformation?
00:29:40.926 --> 00:29:41.797
Is it a belief?
00:29:41.856 --> 00:29:43.027
Is it a combination?
00:29:43.942 --> 00:29:48.922
And what are those bits of misinformation and belief and where did they come from?
00:29:49.791 --> 00:30:03.433
And the more information you can gather about that by asking more questions, the more strategic options you'll have to begin to disrupt some of those beliefs to begin to counter some of the misperceptions.
00:30:03.973 --> 00:30:08.713
And often the best way to do that is gonna be to describe what is true at your program.
00:30:09.266 --> 00:30:10.885
Because they can't really question that.
00:30:11.346 --> 00:30:14.615
Because you can not only give them data, but you can tell stories.
00:30:15.115 --> 00:30:22.066
And that is probably the single best way you can begin to put some cracks in that belief is to say, oh, that's interesting.
00:30:22.066 --> 00:30:27.413
Let me tell you about a family that we are serving right now that is very typical.
00:30:27.624 --> 00:30:30.634
That is reflective of about 90% of the people we serve.
00:30:30.634 --> 00:30:33.153
But let me just share with you the story of this family.
00:30:33.614 --> 00:30:39.807
And then you begin to paint the painting of what their life looks like as they're in the problem.
00:30:40.196 --> 00:30:42.626
How it's affecting them, what's going on.
00:30:42.676 --> 00:30:45.376
What is their visceral experience of the problem?
00:30:45.376 --> 00:30:47.326
What are the ripple effects of that problem?
00:30:47.537 --> 00:30:48.977
How is it disrupting their life?
00:30:48.977 --> 00:30:50.267
How is it affecting the kids?
00:30:50.267 --> 00:30:51.557
How is it affecting the parents?
00:30:51.880 --> 00:30:53.559
How's it affecting whatever's going on?
00:30:54.059 --> 00:31:03.786
And then you can talk about, so you can understand how with all that going on, the fact that this person's able to work 20 hours a week is pretty amazing.
00:31:04.266 --> 00:31:07.884
Because they got all this other stuff that's creating real challenges in their life.
00:31:08.337 --> 00:31:11.550
That is a huge stretch for them, but they're so motivated.
00:31:11.790 --> 00:31:16.455
They so believe in the importance of working to support their family.
00:31:16.455 --> 00:31:19.231
There's pride, there's a sense of obligation.
00:31:19.231 --> 00:31:22.521
There's all the things we all feel about being there for our families.
00:31:22.571 --> 00:31:25.251
That's what's driving this person or this family, too.
00:31:26.041 --> 00:31:27.311
And these are their struggles.
00:31:28.007 --> 00:31:34.477
You describe that not in the passive voice, but telling a true story of what it's like to be that person in that problem.
00:31:34.940 --> 00:31:39.529
And the values they're bringing to that and the effort they're putting in and all that.
00:31:40.459 --> 00:31:44.375
Now, this is specific to the example of somebody talking about a work requirement.
00:31:44.586 --> 00:31:50.705
If it was something else, you would emphasize different aspects of the person in the problem and their experience of it.
00:31:51.409 --> 00:31:57.469
But in any case, you always want to bring in the sensory experience, the emotion of the experience.
00:31:57.479 --> 00:31:58.588
What they're going through.
00:31:58.588 --> 00:32:02.249
All the feels that they're having as they struggle through this problem.
00:32:02.749 --> 00:32:23.558
Help the decision maker connect to that person, to that family So that when you then say, and so you can see that for this person to be able to do X, and in this case it would be to work X number of hours or whatever, is a Herculean feat on its own.
00:32:24.337 --> 00:32:28.327
Is that someone who you would say is definitely appropriate for these services?
00:32:29.042 --> 00:32:29.853
Oh, absolutely.
00:32:30.479 --> 00:32:30.741
Okay.
00:32:30.791 --> 00:32:31.751
So here's the thing.
00:32:31.832 --> 00:32:36.511
About 90% of the families we serve are in very similar circumstances.
00:32:36.721 --> 00:32:39.510
They're doing everything they can to be working.
00:32:39.810 --> 00:32:43.891
They're working as much as humanly possible, given the other constraints in their life.
00:32:44.391 --> 00:32:45.471
But it's not enough.
00:32:45.540 --> 00:32:47.881
It doesn't cover the cost, it doesn't, whatever the situation is.
00:32:48.513 --> 00:32:51.304
You're pulling them into that person's experience.
00:32:51.804 --> 00:32:53.213
Making it real.
00:32:53.854 --> 00:32:57.183
Making it resonant in their senses, making it resonant in their emotions.
00:32:57.403 --> 00:33:01.574
And then cracking that belief by saying, well, that's not an outlier.
00:33:02.173 --> 00:33:04.364
That's just about everybody in the program.
00:33:04.864 --> 00:33:10.262
And if it's true in our program, you know, how likely is it that we are that much of an exception?
00:33:11.061 --> 00:33:13.231
Then you're beginning to put cracks in that belief.
00:33:13.798 --> 00:33:17.548
If it's not true at our program, well, how many other programs is it not true either?
00:33:18.048 --> 00:33:25.088
Fact is, you know, all the other organizations that work on this, that we talk to all over the country, tell us basically they're having the same experience.
00:33:25.638 --> 00:33:28.459
And by the way, the 10% that aren't working, here are the reasons why.
00:33:28.489 --> 00:33:29.929
Here's the experience they're having.
00:33:30.429 --> 00:33:34.058
And wouldn't you agree that it would be almost impossible for that person to work?
00:33:34.989 --> 00:33:37.700
And if they can't work, then what happens to them?
00:33:38.210 --> 00:33:44.680
If we place a work requirement on this that they can't possibly meet, then we just make the problem worse.
00:33:45.490 --> 00:33:56.799
There's a hundred different ways to come at this, that pull them through the experience and the analysis to begin to cause them to question their own beliefs and the information they've been relying on up to this point.
00:33:57.522 --> 00:34:03.362
But what we're not doing is just coming back at'em with, well, what's actually true is blah blah blah.
00:34:03.971 --> 00:34:05.828
We know that that will bounce off.
00:34:06.117 --> 00:34:10.617
We already know that from our own experience and from all the brain science reasons to tell us why that's so.
00:34:11.351 --> 00:34:12.431
So one more time.
00:34:12.911 --> 00:34:15.552
When you get that curve ball, treat it as a gift.
00:34:16.121 --> 00:34:20.427
It is information that you need to be more effective at engaging that person.
00:34:20.927 --> 00:34:23.987
And then take that and explore it.
00:34:24.487 --> 00:34:29.436
You don't have to have the definitive answer right here, right now.
00:34:29.956 --> 00:34:42.112
When those curve balls happen, a lot of times what they're doing is they're exposing something that really is gonna need some work and that you're gonna have to address in order for them to receive the message you really need them to receive.
00:34:42.893 --> 00:34:45.713
Which is what you came there to engage them about in the first place.
00:34:46.282 --> 00:34:52.318
But when they throw you that curve ball, what they're doing is handing you the most valuable information you can have.
00:34:52.349 --> 00:34:54.809
Which is, here's what's in the way.
00:34:55.108 --> 00:35:01.188
Here's why I can't hear you And then you can help them clear that thing out of the way so that they can hear you.
00:35:01.690 --> 00:35:05.708
And so that they can get on board and be as excited about the work that you're doing as you are.
00:35:06.552 --> 00:35:09.023
Before you go, I wanna share some exciting news.
00:35:09.458 --> 00:35:16.501
To kick off the new year, I'll be offering a brand new program designed to help you take your advocacy results to the next level.
00:35:17.068 --> 00:35:29.438
I've designed this program to focus on a handful of the most powerful and effective strategies for engaging your money and policy decision makers in a way that gets you the results you want.
00:35:30.092 --> 00:35:40.771
We cover a lot of different strategies and techniques here on the podcast, and I've heard so much wonderful feedback about the value that folks are getting from that, which is awesome.
00:35:41.461 --> 00:35:43.322
But I also hear that it's a lot.
00:35:43.831 --> 00:35:50.181
And what I hear more and more is just gimme the things I absolutely have to have.
00:35:50.601 --> 00:35:55.664
Tell me what's gonna be the most effective, the most powerful, and let me focus on that.
00:35:56.449 --> 00:35:59.179
So that's what I've decided to do with this new program.
00:35:59.599 --> 00:36:06.829
It's laser focused on a set of core strategies that are incredibly powerful and universally effective.
00:36:07.219 --> 00:36:10.969
It doesn't matter where you live, it doesn't matter what service niche you're in.
00:36:11.389 --> 00:36:21.882
If you're a Nonprofit leader who has regular interaction with money and policy decision makers, and you've been wishing for more robust results from that, then this is for you.
00:36:22.929 --> 00:36:33.099
I'll be teaching these core strategies and supporting you with lots of coaching in weekly conversations, all designed to equip you to get you the results you want.
00:36:33.735 --> 00:36:36.945
I'm limiting this to the first 10 founding members who step up.
00:36:37.336 --> 00:36:44.086
And the reason I'm limiting it is I wanna make sure you get exactly what you need from the teaching and the coaching.
00:36:44.476 --> 00:36:50.146
And as a founding member, you'll have the opportunity to direct the focus of the coaching as we go.
00:36:50.976 --> 00:36:59.797
If you're ready to start getting next level results from your money and policy decision makers, shoot me a message on either LinkedIn or the podcast website.
00:36:59.916 --> 00:37:01.206
I'll put those in the show notes.
00:37:01.686 --> 00:37:03.817
And let's make a plan to work together in the new year.
00:37:04.503 --> 00:37:09.648
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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In today's episode, we share how to handle a curve ball like a pro.
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So stay tuned.
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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.
00:00:25.065 --> 00:00:38.085
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.
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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.
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Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
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This podcast will help you do just that.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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Hey there folks.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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I'm your host, Kath Patrick.
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I'm so glad you're here for today's episode.
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'cause I wanna tackle a thing that we all come in contact with on a regular basis.
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And my clients tell me that it's one of the most unsettling things that can happen in a meeting with a decision maker.
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And that's when they throw you some kind of curve ball.
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Maybe it's a question, maybe it's a totally out there statement and you don't know what to do with it.
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It's happened to all of us probably more than once.
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So you know what I'm talking about.
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When that happens, you're caught a little bit flat-footed.
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You're like, well, what does that mean?
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Where did that come from?
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Why did they think that?
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Why did they ask that?
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What's going on?
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Oh God, I've got one chance to get this right.
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If I fumble around, that'll look really bad.
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And all this stuff is whirring through our brain as we're trying to figure out what's the best way to respond to this.
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It's one of the things that my clients tell me they worry about the most.
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What if.
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All the what ifs.
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It can definitely be unsettling, no question.
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But it doesn't have to be.
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If you're prepared with a set of core strategies that will work no matter what they say to you.
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So let's get right into this.
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If you've been in this game for more than a minute, you've probably been thrown more than a few curve balls.
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And you've got ways of dealing with them.
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But what I often find when I'm working with clients is that they don't have a systemic strategy for understanding what's happening with the curve balls.
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And then a baseline strategy that will work for them no matter what happens.
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In the years that I've been doing this, I've discovered that there are some kind of universal causes for those curve balls.
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And that if we simply understand those universal causes, we're already ahead of the game.
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And there are some very effective tactics for dealing with those curve balls.
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But most of us didn't learn those anywhere else.
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We didn't learn them when we were learning how to do presentations or public speaking or any of that.
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That's what I'd like to talk with you about today.
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I wanna share with you some things I've learned over a lot of years of doing this, both in settings with decision makers and also in settings with live media where you are literally on air, whether it's a live podcast or a live traditional media interview, television, radio, what have you.
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And you've got one chance to get it right.
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So we're gonna deal with both of those.
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But I'm gonna focus primarily on decision makers.
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'Cause that's where folks tell me they worry about this the most.
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That's where the stakes are the highest.
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What I've learned is that there's a set of causes for those curve balls.
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And when you understand where the curve balls are coming from, or what the possible universe of source of curve balls is.
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It allows you to create a set of fairly tight strategies that will let you handle whichever kind of curve ball you've got coming at you.
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But as long as it feels random and like it could come from anywhere and you don't know what's provoking it, it all feels very uncertain and potentially infinitely problematic.
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The good news is it's actually not as infinite as you think.
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So let's take this apart a little bit.
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There's basically two forms of curve balls, and there's a handful of causes for those curve balls.
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The two forms the curve ball is likely to come in, is either in the form of a question or a statement.
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Curve balls show up in conversations.
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In dialogue, in conversation, there's basically two things.
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There's statements and there's questions.
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So you're gonna get one or the other of those.
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Now, I know that sounds super simplistic, but stay with me.
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Cause what I wanna share is that the more you break this down, the more you understand the structure of the curve ball and the fact that it's not really nearly as infinitely problematic as it feels.
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That it's actually pretty formulaic.
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And if you can understand the formula, then you can create a set of fairly tight strategies that will allow you to adapt whenever one of those curve balls shows up.
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So it's either gonna be in the form of a question or a statement.
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If it's a question, most of the time it's probably not a gotcha question.
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It's not that they're trying to trip you up or catch you in a inaccuracy or a gap in your logic or whatever.
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That does happen, and we'll talk about what to do if it does.
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But most of the time it's most likely grounded in misunderstanding and or a lack of information or perspective.
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We're gonna talk about that in detail, but that's kind of the basic framework.
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Those are the two likely causes when you get a question that feels like a curve ball.
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And then there's the curve ball statement.
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They just make a declaration, or not even a declaration, but just like they say something as a statement of fact or belief and it throws you completely off guard.
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You're like, where did that come from?
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Why on earth do you think that?
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What is up with that?
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Similar to the questions, the statements are usually grounded in a lack of understanding.
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They may also be grounded in some unhelpful beliefs.
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And once you know which of those you're dealing with, you can decide how to respond.
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So already this is simpler, right?
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It's gonna be a question or a statement.
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It's likely to be grounded in a lack of understanding, a lack of depth of understanding, a misconception or an unhelpful belief.
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So if we know that, here's the thing.
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One of the things I do all the time in my coaching programs and with my one-to-one clients is that we work a lot on identifying the common misperceptions, and the unhelpful beliefs that our key decision makers have And we think those through ahead of time.
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We identify them, we break them out, we flesh them out in considerable detail, so that we get to what's really going on there.
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What's the root of that belief?
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What's driving that?
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If they're not getting something about what we do, or there's a common either misunderstanding or misperception.
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There's something they consistently don't get.
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There's something they consistently think is true that isn't, or that's like not quite right.
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And that misunderstanding substantially affects their ability to value our work at the level they should.
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So we spend a lot of time identifying those.
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And there's a lot of advantages to doing that.
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Now, mostly we work on that in terms of how you'll craft your messaging.
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And you wanna structure your messaging in such a way that it addresses all of those things.
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In a way that will both be engaging and that will shift their perspective or beliefs and deepen their understanding of the thing that you really need them to get.
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So that's foundational work.
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And the more of that you've already done, the better equipped you're gonna be when these curve ball statements and questions come along.
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The thing to realize about this, and this is really a perspective shift for us, particularly these days when we're all feeling a bit under siege in the environment we're in.
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It's easy to start to feel like everybody's a little bit out to get the nonprofits.
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They're messing with us.
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There's a feeling of vulnerability and being under attack.
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The danger with that, even though there is a lot of reality that supports that perspective.
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That perspective is absolutely deadly in an encounter with a decision maker.
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The more helpful way to come into this is to realize that everything they say to you, first of all is information.
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And it's information you can use.
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Because everything they say tells you more about what they're thinking and how they're thinking about the work that you do.
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If they're not getting it, you need to know that.
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If they have weird ideas about it, you need to know that.
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If they have some level of hostility, you need to know that.
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So the way I like to look at curve balls is to say that they're weirdly a little bit of a gift.
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Because what they're doing is they're revealing something unexpected about that person, about their way of thinking, that we might not otherwise have had any opportunity to observe or know about.
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If we can think of that as a gift, like, oh, you just shared something really interesting with me.
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Ah.
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How can I work with that to help take you to the place I need you to go?
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Let's talk about questions first.
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Even when they're total curve balls those questions from decision makers can be very helpful and revealing.
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If you can stay relaxed enough and stay in curiosity to find out what's driving that question.
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Very often, if you can find that out, you can actually achieve a much deeper level of engagement and connection than you would've been able to without them having come up with that kind of crazy question.
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The more we can shift our perspective and think about these as little gifts and little opportunities for insight into that decision maker, the better we're gonna be able to handle the thing coming at us and the more effective we're gonna be in our response to it.
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Statements generally work the same way.
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They're also little gifts.
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And one way I like to think about statements a lot of time is just a question in disguise.
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If someone says something that is significantly off target about the work that you do or the people you serve Then first of all, you know right away that there's a misperception happening there.
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There may be an unhelpful belief operating.
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And one of the ways you can kind of detect that is the level of conviction with which they said it I'm gonna take some common ones that plague direct service nonprofits all the time.
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If you've got a decision maker who has some unhelpful beliefs about the people you serve.
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Maybe they think that, well, gee, there really should be work requirements for this.
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Because, you know, probably the people who are getting these services are sitting home eating bon bons and not working.
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You could get a curve ball statement that's as aggressive as that Or you could get it in a much softer form.
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That would be like, well.
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You know, I, I feel like work requirements would be a good idea for this program.
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Then we would be sure that the people who most need the service are actually getting it, and that we wouldn't be giving the service to people who don't really need it.
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That's a much softer way of possibly saying a similar thing.
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But what you know when you hear that, is that underlying that is a lack of information about who is actually getting the services and what the characteristics of those folks are.
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It also could reveal an unhelpful belief that skews in the direction of, well, you know, poor people are kind of lazy.
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People will take advantage if they can.
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They'll always go for the handout rather than getting off their behind and doing the work.
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So when we get those kind of statements, if you think of that as a question in disguise.
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The question could have been, well, I don't really know if work requirements are a good idea for this program because actually I don't really understand who's receiving these services under this program, and I don't really know anything about them.
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But, you know, it feels like a good idea.
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I believe that people should work for what they get.
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Okay.
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That's sort of a core American value.
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You should work for what you get.
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But if it's paired with a set of beliefs that are, and anybody who's getting these services probably isn't working as hard as they could be.
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That's the gentlest interpretation.
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Or they're flat out lazy.
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They're sitting home on their couch when they should be out working like the rest of us.
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It could be anywhere on that spectrum.
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So when you get that.
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A couple of things here.
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One, if that's really operating as their background belief system, what are the chances of you getting them to be on board with whatever you're asking for that's going to make there be even more of those services or pay for them at a higher rate or whatever it is that you're there to engage them about.
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If they hold those underlying beliefs, what are the chances that they're gonna be on board with what you want?
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The answer to that's kind of clear.
00:13:47.693 --> 00:13:57.855
So it stands to reason that shifting that belief would be an important thing to do before we go much further with the conversation.
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Because that's clearly in the way.
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And so think of it again as a little gift.
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They've let you know what's in the way of them being able to hear what you have to say.
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They're effectively saying, I really can't hear anything you're asking for, because I believe that the real problem is that the folks who receive these services should actually just be working harder, and then there wouldn't be nearly as many people who need them, and we wouldn't have to spend more money on it.
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Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:14:25.639 --> 00:14:31.227
So that becomes your first order of business is to pivot to disrupting that belief.
00:14:31.727 --> 00:14:39.988
And in fact to continue on with whatever else you were gonna say that you had planned on, may or may not be a good idea at this point.
00:14:40.318 --> 00:14:43.378
Because what are the chances they'll actually be able to take most of that in?
00:14:44.111 --> 00:14:53.188
Even though it's really aggravating And depending on how it's delivered, can be quite distressing to have them drop that kind of a curve ball on you.
00:14:54.063 --> 00:14:59.182
It is in fact a gift because it's telling you what you need to do next.
00:14:59.682 --> 00:15:02.442
That is not what you thought was gonna be next.
00:15:03.072 --> 00:15:08.682
And it gives you the opportunity to shift gears and address the thing that they have now flagged.
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That perspective shift is really helpful as a starting point.
00:15:13.969 --> 00:15:17.489
But then there's still the question of what do you do about it when that happens?
00:15:17.729 --> 00:15:18.989
It's still a curve ball.
00:15:18.989 --> 00:15:21.928
It's still maybe not what you were expecting.
00:15:22.139 --> 00:15:32.269
Although hopefully if you've done the work to identify the common misconceptions and unhelpful underlying beliefs that some or many of your decision makers tend to hold.
00:15:32.629 --> 00:15:37.908
Then you may already have some messaging around those pieces that you can go to.
00:15:38.392 --> 00:15:44.532
If you get a curve ball that surfaces one of those misconceptions or underlying beliefs.
00:15:44.861 --> 00:15:50.455
And part of what we have to get good at is interpreting what's really going on.
00:15:51.427 --> 00:15:52.988
I'll talk about that in a second.
00:15:52.988 --> 00:16:08.567
But the first thing I wanna do is tackle some of the most common mistakes that I see happening and qualify as what not to do when you get thrown a curve ball First thing, broadly speaking, don't freak out.
00:16:09.067 --> 00:16:09.842
It's fine.
00:16:10.342 --> 00:16:18.523
Train yourself to know that number one, curve balls are gonna happen as long as you're talking with decision makers.
00:16:18.523 --> 00:16:22.842
And as long as you're talking with media, there are going to be curve balls.
00:16:22.842 --> 00:16:24.133
They're just gonna happen.
00:16:24.163 --> 00:16:25.153
It's okay.
00:16:25.722 --> 00:16:26.472
It's fine.
00:16:26.472 --> 00:16:27.462
You've got this.
00:16:27.743 --> 00:16:30.832
There's gonna be a way to deal with it that is productive.
00:16:31.462 --> 00:16:34.903
Don't let it take on greater significance than it actually has.
00:16:35.082 --> 00:16:36.312
It's just information.
00:16:37.123 --> 00:16:40.033
So that's the first thing is don't freak out.
00:16:40.513 --> 00:16:46.863
And if you do, if you find yourself in stress mode and you know the signs.
00:16:47.363 --> 00:16:49.013
They're a little bit different for everybody.
00:16:49.013 --> 00:16:52.102
But you have your signs of stress when they start to happen.
00:16:52.756 --> 00:16:56.177
The minute you get that, the minute you start to perceive that.
00:16:56.677 --> 00:16:58.147
Take a deep breath.
00:16:58.913 --> 00:17:02.582
All you have to do is say, oh, that's a very interesting question.
00:17:02.582 --> 00:17:05.402
Oh, that's a very interesting take on this.
00:17:05.701 --> 00:17:09.692
Give yourself a second to collect your thoughts and then go forward.
00:17:10.474 --> 00:17:19.894
Another huge mistake that happens mostly because of stress, that I see happen a lot is we start talking faster.
00:17:20.388 --> 00:17:22.969
Maybe we're like, oh no, this is going sideways.
00:17:22.969 --> 00:17:25.939
I need to talk faster and get it over with so I can get outta here.
00:17:26.179 --> 00:17:28.159
And, ah, this is too much.
00:17:28.805 --> 00:17:30.184
It's connected to freak out.
00:17:30.615 --> 00:17:34.694
If you've mitigated your freak out, that's good, but watch yourself.
00:17:34.694 --> 00:17:39.105
If you start talking faster, slow it down.
00:17:39.605 --> 00:17:48.657
Just slow it down Another common mistake is sort of papering over the question and pretending it didn't happen., Like, oh, what?
00:17:48.807 --> 00:17:50.577
Uh, there's a, there's a fly in the room.
00:17:50.577 --> 00:17:54.538
It just went by, but I, nevermind and I'll move on with whatever I was gonna say anyway.
00:17:55.290 --> 00:17:59.971
Hopefully what I was just talking about a little bit earlier helps you understand why that's a bad idea.
00:18:00.635 --> 00:18:07.685
if they've just given you a critical piece of information about a misconception or an unhelpful belief that is driving their thinking.
00:18:08.185 --> 00:18:11.155
How is it gonna help you to pretend that's not there?
00:18:11.806 --> 00:18:15.498
That will just, first of all, allow that to persist.
00:18:16.248 --> 00:18:21.907
And as it persists, it will continue to be in the way, whether you acknowledge it or not.
00:18:22.498 --> 00:18:25.048
So you can ignore it and pretend like it didn't happen.
00:18:25.557 --> 00:18:29.728
But if you do that, then now there's a giant boulder in your way.
00:18:30.228 --> 00:18:35.239
And you're just gonna be, everything you say is gonna bounce off that boulder and come right back to you.
00:18:35.239 --> 00:18:44.582
It's not gonna get to the decision maker The last thing is, and this is situational, but generally speaking, don't try to redirect.
00:18:45.082 --> 00:18:50.152
By that I mean, you know, one of the strategies that we're often taught, particularly in traditional media interviews.
00:18:50.201 --> 00:18:52.781
That if either you get a question you don't want to answer.
00:18:53.230 --> 00:19:02.320
Or you get a question that is gonna take the conversation way far away from what you came there to talk about, and your core message.
00:19:02.351 --> 00:19:04.451
And you're worried you won't be able to get it back.
00:19:04.810 --> 00:19:11.907
A lot of times what we've all been taught to do are strategies for how to redirect their question and turn it into something else.
00:19:12.054 --> 00:19:21.324
You see that a lot in political debates and interviews where the moderator will ask a question and it's not the question the politician wants to answer.
00:19:21.324 --> 00:19:24.519
And so they'll say, well, so and so.
00:19:24.855 --> 00:19:30.211
I think what you're really asking, or the point I think we really need to be focused on is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:19:30.742 --> 00:19:34.038
That's a pretty obvious redirect.
00:19:34.794 --> 00:19:40.374
Now, there are situations, particularly in interviews where that is a good strategy.
00:19:40.874 --> 00:19:46.594
But generally speaking with a decision maker, you don't want to go there first.
00:19:47.094 --> 00:19:52.721
Because there is a reason they said the thing Maybe it was to take you off topic.
00:19:53.560 --> 00:19:58.361
Maybe it was to move the conversation in the direction they really wanna have the conversation go.
00:19:58.861 --> 00:19:59.580
Or not.
00:20:00.211 --> 00:20:01.500
You don't know yet.
00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:13.296
So before you get into redirecting, even if their comment or question seems way off topic, explore it a little bit first'cause it might be important.
00:20:13.796 --> 00:20:24.839
And if it's not, if it really was just like a brain fart and it had no relevance, then when you explore it a little bit, that will become clear very quickly and then you can redirect.
00:20:25.339 --> 00:20:29.339
But don't just assume that your first move should be to redirect.
00:20:29.490 --> 00:20:33.240
Because doing that on autopilot is a big mistake.
00:20:34.150 --> 00:20:35.890
That's a technique to use strategically.
00:20:36.460 --> 00:20:39.965
And you want to be really intentional about how you use it.
00:20:40.895 --> 00:20:43.445
Those are the four biggest mistakes that I see happen a lot.
00:20:43.566 --> 00:20:45.655
And as you can tell, most of them are related.
00:20:46.336 --> 00:20:51.015
Now the other thing I wanna deal with is the genuine gotcha question.
00:20:51.434 --> 00:20:53.721
They are rare, but they do happen.
00:20:54.625 --> 00:21:03.434
A gotcha question is where they're trying to trap you in a logic flaw or two things that you've said that they are arguing are contradictory or whatever.
00:21:03.912 --> 00:21:11.416
They're trying to trap you into saying something that isn't accurate or that they feel will reflect poorly on you.
00:21:12.173 --> 00:21:15.996
Like I say, those are not common, but they can happen.
00:21:16.340 --> 00:21:22.911
And their freakout value is very high because they're coming from a place of hostility.
00:21:23.461 --> 00:21:27.240
Hostility tends to provoke freakout in a lot of us.
00:21:27.330 --> 00:21:32.266
So let's talk about what to do if you get a question that is a gotcha.
00:21:32.746 --> 00:21:37.336
And in the same family of that are things like deliberately incendiary statements.
00:21:37.726 --> 00:21:41.296
Or oblique insults to you or the people you serve.
00:21:41.996 --> 00:21:48.636
If it's truly one of those, then first of all, be aware you're dealing with someone who is essentially hostile to you.
00:21:49.241 --> 00:21:58.946
Now maybe it's hostile to you personally or to your organization or the work that you do or the people you help, or some combination of the above.
00:22:00.007 --> 00:22:05.387
So one of the things that becomes very important to know is, which is it?
00:22:05.887 --> 00:22:14.278
Because if it's you personally, for whatever reason, then what you now know is you are not the best messenger to go to that decision maker.
00:22:14.877 --> 00:22:17.458
Find someone else from your organization to go do that.
00:22:18.051 --> 00:22:27.623
I had a classic story of this with a client I had a little while back who, they'd been trying to move a particular county board member on an issue for the longest time.
00:22:28.163 --> 00:22:34.519
And every time the CEO would go to engage that county board member, they got kind of a hostile response.
00:22:35.074 --> 00:22:40.923
I was working with them on some messaging and engagement strategies, and the CEO was telling me about this.
00:22:41.584 --> 00:22:47.213
And I had to say, maybe it's that they're hostile to you.
00:22:48.028 --> 00:22:49.108
Is that possible?
00:22:49.138 --> 00:22:54.141
Is there any reason why they have an issue with you personally?
00:22:54.641 --> 00:22:58.661
And this huge light bulb went on over the CEO's head.
00:22:58.810 --> 00:23:07.990
And they were like, oh yeah, actually, like three years ago this thing happened and maybe they're still pissed at me.
00:23:08.490 --> 00:23:09.961
And I was like, well, let's try this.
00:23:09.990 --> 00:23:11.760
Let's try a different messenger.
00:23:12.510 --> 00:23:20.310
And we got a board member to go have the conversation with that county board member, and we solved the problem in a matter of a couple of conversations.
00:23:20.371 --> 00:23:25.163
And then the county board person was on board with what the organization wanted to do, and it was all fine.
00:23:25.492 --> 00:23:27.232
It turned out it was personal.
00:23:27.679 --> 00:23:28.429
Okay.
00:23:28.876 --> 00:23:32.176
If that's what's going on, then you wanna get a sense of that.
00:23:32.817 --> 00:23:33.747
It's always worth checking.
00:23:33.916 --> 00:23:34.517
Is it you?
00:23:34.636 --> 00:23:35.267
Maybe it's you.
00:23:36.136 --> 00:23:37.156
Then get somebody else.
00:23:37.426 --> 00:23:38.176
Easy fix.
00:23:38.676 --> 00:23:47.307
But aside from that, unless it's like really a personality clash or they can't stand the sound of your voice or they're mad at you for something you did three years ago.
00:23:47.307 --> 00:23:49.076
All of which are specific to you.
00:23:49.576 --> 00:24:03.727
If it's anything else, if they're just generically hostile to the organization, the work that you do, the people you serve The reality is that their objections are still grounded in misunderstanding, plus some unhelpful beliefs.
00:24:04.613 --> 00:24:14.877
And so the first order of business is gonna be to disrupt some of those unhelpful beliefs And then when you've done that, you can begin to correct the misperceptions.
00:24:15.377 --> 00:24:21.438
But the thing is, you gotta do the beliefs first because they can't even hear your facts and information that are correcting the misperceptions.
00:24:21.887 --> 00:24:27.258
If they've got a big, fat, unhelpful belief that's in the way and that everything else bounces off of.
00:24:28.065 --> 00:24:30.035
Now, this is very important.
00:24:30.535 --> 00:24:34.664
Whether to engage in that effort is a strategic question.
00:24:35.164 --> 00:24:39.305
For some decision makers it will be worth it, and for others it will not.
00:24:39.545 --> 00:24:41.075
That is a judgment call for you.
00:24:41.255 --> 00:24:46.025
How badly do you need this particular decision maker to be on board with your stuff?
00:24:46.288 --> 00:24:48.387
To say yes to the things that you want.
00:24:49.239 --> 00:24:58.089
If there are other decision makers who are in the same category as this person who are easier to engage, start with them.
00:24:58.825 --> 00:25:06.894
Unless the one who's your problem is in a pivotal role, where if you don't have them on board, then the thing you want cannot happen.
00:25:07.734 --> 00:25:08.934
If that's where you are.
00:25:08.984 --> 00:25:15.324
If you must address their issues in order to get to where you want to go.
00:25:15.743 --> 00:25:28.074
Then it's gonna be a hundred percent worth it to start working on disrupting their unhelpful beliefs and then correcting those misperceptions and at least moving them to a place of neutrality.
00:25:28.673 --> 00:25:30.743
They're probably never gonna be fully on board.
00:25:30.743 --> 00:25:35.243
But if you get'em to neutral and they aren't actively opposing you, that's a win.
00:25:36.124 --> 00:25:45.503
Those are strategic judgment calls that you have to make based on the facts on the ground and how relatively important that decision maker is in the context you're working in.
00:25:46.239 --> 00:25:58.420
Now for all the vast majority of situations where it's not serious hostility, but rather a genuine lack of understanding, misperceptions and a handful of unhelpful beliefs.
00:25:59.009 --> 00:26:03.151
Then you go to your strategies for tackling those.
00:26:04.080 --> 00:26:13.746
My recommendation is, your first order of business when you get a curve ball statement or question, and it's not open hostility.
00:26:14.246 --> 00:26:18.205
The best response is another question from you.
00:26:18.945 --> 00:26:21.351
Oh, well that's an interesting perspective.
00:26:21.640 --> 00:26:26.137
And then you're basically gonna say, tell me more about that thing.
00:26:26.637 --> 00:26:28.442
Help me understand your thinking about that.
00:26:29.212 --> 00:26:30.982
To pick up on the example I was using earlier.
00:26:30.982 --> 00:26:39.863
If they have a misperception and a little bit of an underlying belief about how many people who receive your service are working.
00:26:40.103 --> 00:26:48.313
And there's an issue of work requirements on the table Then whatever they have said, if they have said, I think work requirements are a good idea.
00:26:48.313 --> 00:26:52.272
'Cause we wanna make sure that the people who are getting these services are the people who need them the most.
00:26:53.029 --> 00:27:00.887
Then you can ask a question and say, oh, well I definitely agree with you about making sure that the people who need the service the most are getting it.
00:27:01.188 --> 00:27:02.958
And that's exactly what we do.
00:27:02.958 --> 00:27:11.917
But, um, tell me, what is your sense of what percentage of the people who do receive these services are already working or are not?
00:27:12.667 --> 00:27:14.627
And then you can learn a couple of things here.
00:27:14.627 --> 00:27:23.164
You can find out how far off they are and whether or not this is being primarily driven by a belief or by misinformation.
00:27:23.664 --> 00:27:29.623
So they might say, well, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that hardly anybody on this program is working.
00:27:30.042 --> 00:27:31.903
Now you know you're dealing with a belief.
00:27:32.625 --> 00:27:42.183
If they say, well, I heard from Fox News or some right wing podcast, that only 10% are working and the other 90% are freeloading.
00:27:42.683 --> 00:27:44.844
Then you've learned a couple of things too.
00:27:44.874 --> 00:27:48.263
Now you've learned that they're mostly operating off of misinformation.
00:27:48.874 --> 00:27:50.763
You might even know where they got it from.
00:27:51.574 --> 00:27:57.419
And you can say, well, let me share with you the experience we've had with the people that we serve.
00:27:58.019 --> 00:28:02.759
We have extensive data on everybody we serve, and here's what's true there.
00:28:03.259 --> 00:28:06.342
That's a piece of starting to disrupt that belief.
00:28:06.432 --> 00:28:14.734
And we've talked in other episodes in detail about all the ways that you can use to disrupt beliefs and reset thought patterns.
00:28:14.855 --> 00:28:17.424
So I'm not gonna go super deep on that right here.
00:28:17.875 --> 00:28:22.946
But that's essentially what you wanna do is begin to disrupt that underlying belief.
00:28:23.586 --> 00:28:27.007
And it's gonna be situational as to which is gonna be your best strategy.
00:28:27.336 --> 00:28:30.067
You might challenge that belief in a different way, you might say.
00:28:30.457 --> 00:28:39.448
So would you agree that if someone is already working and they still need the service, then they would be very appropriate to get the service?
00:28:39.948 --> 00:28:41.057
Oh yeah, absolutely.
00:28:41.768 --> 00:28:49.460
And then you can say, well, would it surprise you to know that 90% of the people who get this service are already working?
00:28:49.960 --> 00:28:50.890
Oh, that can't be true.
00:28:50.920 --> 00:28:53.219
Well, let me share with you what's true at our organization.
00:28:54.054 --> 00:28:56.513
The main thing is to disrupt the belief initially.
00:28:56.875 --> 00:29:00.955
At least begin to disrupt it so that you can create some cracks in it.
00:29:01.455 --> 00:29:06.796
And then within those cracks you can share what's true at your organization.
00:29:07.450 --> 00:29:09.702
Because they really can't challenge that.
00:29:10.153 --> 00:29:12.913
That is what is happening in your actual world.
00:29:13.163 --> 00:29:16.992
That is much harder to shoehorn into a preexisting belief.
00:29:17.492 --> 00:29:27.992
But the way you wanna do it is by asking questions and pulling them in and having them in the process begin to question whether their belief is true all the time for everyone.
00:29:28.932 --> 00:29:34.866
Your primary goal when these curve balls happen is to regard them as a gift of new information.
00:29:35.287 --> 00:29:38.737
To get curious about where that's coming from.
00:29:39.096 --> 00:29:40.807
Is it misinformation?
00:29:40.926 --> 00:29:41.797
Is it a belief?
00:29:41.856 --> 00:29:43.027
Is it a combination?
00:29:43.942 --> 00:29:48.922
And what are those bits of misinformation and belief and where did they come from?
00:29:49.791 --> 00:30:03.433
And the more information you can gather about that by asking more questions, the more strategic options you'll have to begin to disrupt some of those beliefs to begin to counter some of the misperceptions.
00:30:03.973 --> 00:30:08.713
And often the best way to do that is gonna be to describe what is true at your program.
00:30:09.266 --> 00:30:10.885
Because they can't really question that.
00:30:11.346 --> 00:30:14.615
Because you can not only give them data, but you can tell stories.
00:30:15.115 --> 00:30:22.066
And that is probably the single best way you can begin to put some cracks in that belief is to say, oh, that's interesting.
00:30:22.066 --> 00:30:27.413
Let me tell you about a family that we are serving right now that is very typical.
00:30:27.624 --> 00:30:30.634
That is reflective of about 90% of the people we serve.
00:30:30.634 --> 00:30:33.153
But let me just share with you the story of this family.
00:30:33.614 --> 00:30:39.807
And then you begin to paint the painting of what their life looks like as they're in the problem.
00:30:40.196 --> 00:30:42.626
How it's affecting them, what's going on.
00:30:42.676 --> 00:30:45.376
What is their visceral experience of the problem?
00:30:45.376 --> 00:30:47.326
What are the ripple effects of that problem?
00:30:47.537 --> 00:30:48.977
How is it disrupting their life?
00:30:48.977 --> 00:30:50.267
How is it affecting the kids?
00:30:50.267 --> 00:30:51.557
How is it affecting the parents?
00:30:51.880 --> 00:30:53.559
How's it affecting whatever's going on?
00:30:54.059 --> 00:31:03.786
And then you can talk about, so you can understand how with all that going on, the fact that this person's able to work 20 hours a week is pretty amazing.
00:31:04.266 --> 00:31:07.884
Because they got all this other stuff that's creating real challenges in their life.
00:31:08.337 --> 00:31:11.550
That is a huge stretch for them, but they're so motivated.
00:31:11.790 --> 00:31:16.455
They so believe in the importance of working to support their family.
00:31:16.455 --> 00:31:19.231
There's pride, there's a sense of obligation.
00:31:19.231 --> 00:31:22.521
There's all the things we all feel about being there for our families.
00:31:22.571 --> 00:31:25.251
That's what's driving this person or this family, too.
00:31:26.041 --> 00:31:27.311
And these are their struggles.
00:31:28.007 --> 00:31:34.477
You describe that not in the passive voice, but telling a true story of what it's like to be that person in that problem.
00:31:34.940 --> 00:31:39.529
And the values they're bringing to that and the effort they're putting in and all that.
00:31:40.459 --> 00:31:44.375
Now, this is specific to the example of somebody talking about a work requirement.
00:31:44.586 --> 00:31:50.705
If it was something else, you would emphasize different aspects of the person in the problem and their experience of it.
00:31:51.409 --> 00:31:57.469
But in any case, you always want to bring in the sensory experience, the emotion of the experience.
00:31:57.479 --> 00:31:58.588
What they're going through.
00:31:58.588 --> 00:32:02.249
All the feels that they're having as they struggle through this problem.
00:32:02.749 --> 00:32:23.558
Help the decision maker connect to that person, to that family So that when you then say, and so you can see that for this person to be able to do X, and in this case it would be to work X number of hours or whatever, is a Herculean feat on its own.
00:32:24.337 --> 00:32:28.327
Is that someone who you would say is definitely appropriate for these services?
00:32:29.042 --> 00:32:29.853
Oh, absolutely.
00:32:30.479 --> 00:32:30.741
Okay.
00:32:30.791 --> 00:32:31.751
So here's the thing.
00:32:31.832 --> 00:32:36.511
About 90% of the families we serve are in very similar circumstances.
00:32:36.721 --> 00:32:39.510
They're doing everything they can to be working.
00:32:39.810 --> 00:32:43.891
They're working as much as humanly possible, given the other constraints in their life.
00:32:44.391 --> 00:32:45.471
But it's not enough.
00:32:45.540 --> 00:32:47.881
It doesn't cover the cost, it doesn't, whatever the situation is.
00:32:48.513 --> 00:32:51.304
You're pulling them into that person's experience.
00:32:51.804 --> 00:32:53.213
Making it real.
00:32:53.854 --> 00:32:57.183
Making it resonant in their senses, making it resonant in their emotions.
00:32:57.403 --> 00:33:01.574
And then cracking that belief by saying, well, that's not an outlier.
00:33:02.173 --> 00:33:04.364
That's just about everybody in the program.
00:33:04.864 --> 00:33:10.262
And if it's true in our program, you know, how likely is it that we are that much of an exception?
00:33:11.061 --> 00:33:13.231
Then you're beginning to put cracks in that belief.
00:33:13.798 --> 00:33:17.548
If it's not true at our program, well, how many other programs is it not true either?
00:33:18.048 --> 00:33:25.088
Fact is, you know, all the other organizations that work on this, that we talk to all over the country, tell us basically they're having the same experience.
00:33:25.638 --> 00:33:28.459
And by the way, the 10% that aren't working, here are the reasons why.
00:33:28.489 --> 00:33:29.929
Here's the experience they're having.
00:33:30.429 --> 00:33:34.058
And wouldn't you agree that it would be almost impossible for that person to work?
00:33:34.989 --> 00:33:37.700
And if they can't work, then what happens to them?
00:33:38.210 --> 00:33:44.680
If we place a work requirement on this that they can't possibly meet, then we just make the problem worse.
00:33:45.490 --> 00:33:56.799
There's a hundred different ways to come at this, that pull them through the experience and the analysis to begin to cause them to question their own beliefs and the information they've been relying on up to this point.
00:33:57.522 --> 00:34:03.362
But what we're not doing is just coming back at'em with, well, what's actually true is blah blah blah.
00:34:03.971 --> 00:34:05.828
We know that that will bounce off.
00:34:06.117 --> 00:34:10.617
We already know that from our own experience and from all the brain science reasons to tell us why that's so.
00:34:11.351 --> 00:34:12.431
So one more time.
00:34:12.911 --> 00:34:15.552
When you get that curve ball, treat it as a gift.
00:34:16.121 --> 00:34:20.427
It is information that you need to be more effective at engaging that person.
00:34:20.927 --> 00:34:23.987
And then take that and explore it.
00:34:24.487 --> 00:34:29.436
You don't have to have the definitive answer right here, right now.
00:34:29.956 --> 00:34:42.112
When those curve balls happen, a lot of times what they're doing is they're exposing something that really is gonna need some work and that you're gonna have to address in order for them to receive the message you really need them to receive.
00:34:42.893 --> 00:34:45.713
Which is what you came there to engage them about in the first place.
00:34:46.282 --> 00:34:52.318
But when they throw you that curve ball, what they're doing is handing you the most valuable information you can have.
00:34:52.349 --> 00:34:54.809
Which is, here's what's in the way.
00:34:55.108 --> 00:35:01.188
Here's why I can't hear you And then you can help them clear that thing out of the way so that they can hear you.
00:35:01.690 --> 00:35:05.708
And so that they can get on board and be as excited about the work that you're doing as you are.
00:35:06.552 --> 00:35:09.023
Before you go, I wanna share some exciting news.
00:35:09.458 --> 00:35:16.501
To kick off the new year, I'll be offering a brand new program designed to help you take your advocacy results to the next level.
00:35:17.068 --> 00:35:29.438
I've designed this program to focus on a handful of the most powerful and effective strategies for engaging your money and policy decision makers in a way that gets you the results you want.
00:35:30.092 --> 00:35:40.771
We cover a lot of different strategies and techniques here on the podcast, and I've heard so much wonderful feedback about the value that folks are getting from that, which is awesome.
00:35:41.461 --> 00:35:43.322
But I also hear that it's a lot.
00:35:43.831 --> 00:35:50.181
And what I hear more and more is just gimme the things I absolutely have to have.
00:35:50.601 --> 00:35:55.664
Tell me what's gonna be the most effective, the most powerful, and let me focus on that.
00:35:56.449 --> 00:35:59.179
So that's what I've decided to do with this new program.
00:35:59.599 --> 00:36:06.829
It's laser focused on a set of core strategies that are incredibly powerful and universally effective.
00:36:07.219 --> 00:36:10.969
It doesn't matter where you live, it doesn't matter what service niche you're in.
00:36:11.389 --> 00:36:21.882
If you're a Nonprofit leader who has regular interaction with money and policy decision makers, and you've been wishing for more robust results from that, then this is for you.
00:36:22.929 --> 00:36:33.099
I'll be teaching these core strategies and supporting you with lots of coaching in weekly conversations, all designed to equip you to get you the results you want.
00:36:33.735 --> 00:36:36.945
I'm limiting this to the first 10 founding members who step up.
00:36:37.336 --> 00:36:44.086
And the reason I'm limiting it is I wanna make sure you get exactly what you need from the teaching and the coaching.
00:36:44.476 --> 00:36:50.146
And as a founding member, you'll have the opportunity to direct the focus of the coaching as we go.
00:36:50.976 --> 00:36:59.797
If you're ready to start getting next level results from your money and policy decision makers, shoot me a message on either LinkedIn or the podcast website.
00:36:59.916 --> 00:37:01.206
I'll put those in the show notes.
00:37:01.686 --> 00:37:03.817
And let's make a plan to work together in the new year.
00:37:04.503 --> 00:37:09.648
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
