June 1, 2025
Two Surefire Things You Can Do to Fix Your Messaging on the Fly
When you're in a conversation with a decisionmaker and it's not going the way you want, they're not engaging, they're not leaning in, or they're not getting what you need them to get. You can tell there's some kind of disconnect happening, and that this is not going to get you what you wanted. Whether that was to just move the conversation forward and deepen the relationship, or whether there was something specific you came to ask for that day.
This happens a lot. And right now, as we're all in this time of even more overwhelm than usual, it can be extra hard to try to figure out: What am I going to do to fix this problem on the fly when I'm right there in the room with the decisionmaker and it's not going well?
I want to share a couple of core strategies that will help rescue you if you find yourself in that situation, without you having to go into deep analysis about what's going wrong in the moment. There's just not that much extra brain space to do any kind of deep analysis while you're in the room.
What you need are some handy tricks up your sleeve that will reset the conversation and get things moving that you want them to go.
In this episode, we share:
- The most common mistake nonprofit leaders make in the first 10 minutes of a conversation with a decisionmaker
- The simplest, easiest shift you can make in a conversation to create immediate engagement
- Why questions engage when facts don’t
- Three types of questions you can use with decisionmakers to create engagement
- Three simple yet powerful techniques for using your voice to create engagement
- Engaging ways to correct a decisionmaker’s misconceptions about your work
Help spread the word! If you found value in this episode, I’d be grateful if you would leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen. Your reviews help other nonprofit leaders find the podcast. Thanks!!
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You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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In today's episode, we share two surefire things you can do to fix your messaging on the fly.
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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.
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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 another episode of 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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Today I wanna focus on two basic strategies that are a way to fix things when you're in a conversation with a decision maker and it's not going the way you want.
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They're not engaging, they're not leaning in, or they're not getting what you need them to get.
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There's a disconnect some kind of way, and you can tell that this is not gonna get you what you wanted.
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Whether that was to just move the conversation forward and deepen the relationship, or whether there was something specific you came to ask for that day.
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And it's starting to feel like you're not getting to where you need to be.
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This happens a lot.
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And I think right now, as we're all in this time and place of even more overwhelm than usual, it can be extra hard to try to figure out, what am I gonna do to fix this problem on the fly when I'm right there in the room with the decision maker and it's not going well.
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So I want to share a couple of core strategies that will help rescue you if you find yourself in that situation, without you having to go into deep analysis about what's going wrong and what piece of this are they not getting and what else should I do here, blah, blah, blah.
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That's a lot to try to work through when you're in the middle of a conversation.
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There's just not that much extra brain space to do any kind of deep analysis while you're in the room.
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So what you need are some handy tricks up your sleeve that will reset the conversation and get things moving that you want them to go.
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When you find yourself in that situation, number one, this is absolutely the time to stop telling and start asking.
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If you've been talking for more than two or three minutes and they're not leaning in, they're not engaging, something's off.
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You'll know that soon in the conversation.
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If it's someone you've just met for the first time, there's a little bit more preliminary stuff that goes on the front end and so you may be a few more minutes in before it's a problem that they're not engaging and leaning in.
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But you don't wanna let that go more than five minutes ever, no matter what the situation is.
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'Cause if that's happening, then you know right away something's off.
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One of the things that I see happen a lot that is an easily fixable mistake, is that folks let the conversation go on too long before they key in to the reality that this is not headed in the right direction.
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So what I would say is that maximum five minutes.
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If you've been there that long and they haven't engaged fully, they're not leaning in, they're not asking you questions or just showing you with their facial expression and their body language and the way they're talking, that they're interested and wanting to know more and wanting to work with you.
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If that's not happening, that's already a warning signal that it is time to change course right now.
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Now, that does not mean throw out all your messaging and throw out all your notes.
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It just means it's time to stop telling and start asking.
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That's the simplest, quickest, easiest switch you can make.
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Ask more questions.
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And I am a huge proponent of starting a conversation with a question.
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That's the easiest way to trigger engagement from the very beginning.
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But if you're already in the middle of it and you didn't do that, or for whatever reason it didn't seem appropriate.
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That's okay.
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There's almost never a wrong time to start asking questions.
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As a general rule, about 25% of what's coming outta your mouth in one of these conversations should be in the form of a question.
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And there are ways to present information that is framed as a question.
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You've got all your data and your information and your supporting points and the main points you want to get across.
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You've planned your messaging for this conversation.
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And you've built it around the advance research you did and what you know about the status of the relationship already and what you know about this particular decision maker and so on and so forth.
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You've got all that.
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But simply shifting it around and asking more questions will automatically trigger more engagement.
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So the first thing to try, if things are going not the way you want, is to start asking more questions.
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Generally speaking, there are three main types of questions that you can use to immediately provoke engagement.
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These are all valuable.
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You will know in the moment which one is the smarter play.
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It's not really worth trying to say in situation A always use this particular kind of question.
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You'll have a feel for how the conversation has gone up to this point, and you can then try one of these three types of questions to jumpstart things, reset, and move things more toward them engaging with you.
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One great way is to use a question to set up an opportunity to surprise them.
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You probably have some great data that that decision maker probably doesn't already know.
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That's why you brought it with you.
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But think about what aspect of that data would be not common knowledge.
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Would not be intuitively obvious.
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Or that might be really counterintuitive.
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Anything like that.
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Anything you've got that is not just kind of patently obvious already is a great piece of fodder for a question that will set up surprise.
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It can be around anything, but a lot of times it'll center on numbers.
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Around how many people are affected, or what percentage of the community is affected.
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You know, one in three households are affected by this problem.
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Maybe the common sense of the problem is that it's fairly rare, or that it only affects a certain group of people.
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So if you have information that contradicts kind of the conventional understanding, that's a great place to use a question to set that up.
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It's pretty simple framing.
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You would use something along the lines of, if you had to guess, how prevalent would you say this problem is in X, Y, Z district or community.
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You can do the,"if you had to guess" framing.
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You can use phrasing like"what's your sense of..." Basically you're acknowledging that there's kind of a common perception about a thing.
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And that you have information or data that shows that that common perception is inaccurate.
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That in fact it's something different.
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And that the something different makes the problem a bigger deal, makes it more important, makes it more costly because more people have the problem.
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Could be any number of things.
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Cost is another great place where you can use a question to set up a surprise.
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Because generally speaking, decision makers tend to low ball the cost of everything in their head, especially the kinds of problems that nonprofits solve.
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So they tend to think it's gonna cost a lot to pay the Nonprofit to do the thing, but what they're not thinking about is what is the cost of the problem itself going unsolved.
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So those are things that you can set up that will help introduce a piece of information that is a little bit counter to the conventional thinking about that.
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You can also use a question to create an opportunity for you to give them a vital piece of information that you want them to know.
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The non engaging way to do that is to tell them the information.
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And say, blah, blah, blah is true about blah, blah, blah, and this is the this, and that's the that, and da, da, da, da.
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But the problem is that doesn't engage.
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And if they're not engaging already, then you don't wanna tell them any more stuff.
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You don't wanna tell them any more facts, any more information, until they've engaged.
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Because basically anything you're telling them when they're not engaged is going in one ear and out the other, and that's no help to you.
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And it's no help to them, quite honestly.
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They don't realize they're doing it.
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So we have to shake things up enough in their brain to get them to kind of say to themselves, oh, well, oh wait, this is interesting.
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Or what, oh, that's a surprise.
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Or, oh, what now?
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That, that's different than what was happening a minute ago.
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I should maybe pay attention.
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So even just changing the pattern of the conversation has a lot of value.
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If you've been talking, telling, telling, and then suddenly you're asking them a question.
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They have to wake up for that.
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They have to snap to.
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Because listening to facts is a very passive activity.
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Answering a question, being asked to respond to a question that requires some thought, that is not passive.
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You can't fake that.
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You have to actually process the question, think about it a little bit and say something in response to it.
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Otherwise, you kind of look like an idiot.
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So they're not gonna just sit there and stare at you if you ask them a question.
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They're gonna have to come up with a response.
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And as soon as they've done that, they have begun to engage.
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And then you take whatever they give you and work with that.
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So, if you've been telling and it's not landing, or they're not interacting with what you're telling them, they're not engaging with it.
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Back up.
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And ask a question that will set up the opportunity for you to then give them that information as an answer to the question you've now got them curious about.
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They now want to know.
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They're like, well, I don't know.
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what is the answer to that?
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A common thing that decision makers don't really get or don't have a deep understanding of, is who's affected by the problem.
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They'll have a general sense.
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It depends on their depth of knowledge of the issue.
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But unless this is their pet issue, they generally tend not to have deep knowledge about the daily reality of the lives of the people who experience the problem.
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And it's pretty much core to them being able to grasp the value of the impact of what you do.
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In order to do that, they've really gotta be able to understand how serious the problem is that you're solving.
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And one of the best ways to illustrate that is to be able to describe what the person's life is like when they're in the problem.
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You could tell them that.
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And if you're gonna just tell them that you would tell it in more of a story format to make it more interesting.
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But you can also tee it up in a question.
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You could ask, what do you think is the number one challenge that the folks in this category have?
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Or, when you think of this issue, what are the top two or three things do you think are present in that person's life on a daily basis?
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What are they struggling with the most?
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And even if they get the answer right, yay.
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Bonus points for them.
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That tells you that their understanding of this is pretty good.
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Wonderful.
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If they get the answer kind of right, then you can either ask another question to lead them closer to the answer, or you can tell them the answer.
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But then if they've told you that they think one thing and it's pretty far off the mark.
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Now you know that you have an opportunity to surprise them.
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So you're back to setting up a question that surprises them.
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So these things all weave together.
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These different kinds of questioning strategies can work together.
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It's not an either or.
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And what'll sometimes surface in that process is you'll surface some of their misconceptions.
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And that'll tell you information too.
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If they're laboring under some misconceptions about the issue that are making them see the problem in an unhelpful way, that is super important information for you to have.
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And then you can ask another question to lead them toward what's actually true.
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This is a really basic one.
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Let's say their misconception is that they think that the particular problem is experienced only by a fairly small percentage of the total population in whatever geographic unit you're dealing with.
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And the fact is, that it's like four times what they think it is.
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If they think it's one in 10 and it's really one in four, that's a huge difference.
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If you can't think of anything else, you can always just say, well, would it surprise you to learn that the number is actually one in four?
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That in this community, one in four families is struggling with this problem.
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And with that many people affected, you can see how it has ripple effects in the community.
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Say you're dealing with hunger, and they think hunger is like not that big a problem.
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Everybody thinks that in their community hunger's not a big problem.
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That happens to other communities.
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So they may be thinking that this is a small percentage of people and it's really a much bigger percentage.
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And you can say, well, imagine if a quarter or half of the kids in the classroom are coming to class without having had breakfast.
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How well do you think they're gonna be able to concentrate on their studies?
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And if they can't concentrate, what's that gonna do to their grades?
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What's it gonna mean for their education, their ability to learn the things they need to learn to grow into the next thing?
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You can pull them through with a series of questions that take them through the cascading effects of the problem.
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Because there are virtually always cascading effects of the problems that we solve, when they go unsolved.
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Whether it's a hunger issue, a health issue, a housing issue, an employment issue, an education issue, a family violence issue, whatever it is.
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There's the immediate problem of the thing that happens, and then there's, and what does that then do?
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What other problems does that create?
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For that individual, for that family, and for all of the community bits that that person and family are part of.
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So if it's a child, it's a classroom.
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If it's an adult, it's a workplace.
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Plus it's family structures.
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There's all these cascading effects that often don't really sit front and center in decision makers' minds.
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So you can ask those leading questions about, well, how would that affect this?
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And if that affects that, that way, well then how would that affect this next thing?
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And you can lead them through that.
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And don't give them the answer.
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Don't say, well then that means, then they can't concentrate in school, and then they fall behind, and then they drop outta school and then bad things happen and da, da da, da da.
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You could say that.
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You could tell them that.
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Or you could ask a series of leading questions, inviting them to think about what are the likely consequences of that next thing.
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Guess which one is likely to stick more.
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Right?
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That's how it is.
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That's how we humans are.
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When we have to work out the conclusion ourselves, we tend to remember it.
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When someone else tells us the answer, we tend to disregard it or forget it.
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So that's just a really simple strategy that's good to use as often as possible anyway.
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But it absolutely is a good corrective for when you've got a decision maker who is not engaged.
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And then I saved the best for last, in some ways.
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All three of these questioning structures work really well.
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And as I say, you can use them with each other.
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They can piggyback on each other in all kinds of fun ways.
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But here's the other one that is really the turbocharger of engagement, which is asking for their analysis of the problem and solution.
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Questions like, what do you see as the most challenging aspects of this problem?
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Why is it so hard to solve?
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What's in the way?
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What have you struggled with as you've thought about this problem?
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There's no way they can give a non-answer to that unless they wanna admit that they frankly don't think about this problem at all, ever.
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You can also ask more general things like, is it your sense that this problem is increasing or decreasing or staying about the same, in geographic area, your district, your state, whatever.
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And then there's another opportunity to set up a surprise, to set up another question, to answer the question.
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So those are three main types of questions that you can use interchangeably to help engage and draw the decision maker in.
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You can even, and I recommend this, craft a few of those questions ahead of time so that you've got them teed up in case you find yourself in that situation.
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Ideally, that's how this works, is that you're trying to set it up so that you're not having to think so hard in the moment.
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But if you don't have questions in advance, these are the kinds of questions you can ask, and they generally will trigger engagement.
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Now, if you've got a decision maker who is just categorically opposed to everything about what you do, then this isn't going to fix that.
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in those settings, the best you can probably do, and this is typically true for when we're engaging someone who has a very strongly different view of the problem than we have, is to think about, okay, well, from their perspective.
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Why does it matter?
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Why is this a problem?
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And whatever the answer to that is, you can try to ask questions that pull that out.
00:20:03.736 --> 00:20:11.451
Cause ultimately you're not gonna sell a right wing decision maker on some pieces of your solution.
00:20:12.096 --> 00:20:14.519
There're gonna be some things that they just don't believe in.
00:20:15.006 --> 00:20:21.815
And then you can decide how much energy you wanna spend trying to disrupt their misinformation bubble that they're living in.
00:20:22.772 --> 00:20:24.032
So questions are awesome.
00:20:24.494 --> 00:20:25.058
Use them.
00:20:25.323 --> 00:20:26.313
Use them liberally.
00:20:26.403 --> 00:20:27.752
They're great for engagement.
00:20:28.673 --> 00:20:33.631
The other major thing you can do is a little bit substance and a little bit style.
00:20:34.285 --> 00:20:52.904
This is a strategy where you're gonna tell them something, but you're gonna do it in a way that is designed to surprise, or to tell them a secret, or reveal a piece of information that is brand new and amazing.
00:20:53.436 --> 00:20:55.375
And that might even be game changing.
00:20:56.296 --> 00:21:05.950
A lot of times we bring our information, and we miss the opportunity to bring it to life, to give it energy.
00:21:06.771 --> 00:21:16.636
So much of engagement with any person, decision makers included, is the energy we bring and the energy we elicit in the process.
00:21:17.182 --> 00:21:24.814
So when we do have something that we wanna share, we wanna do it in ways that are intriguing.
00:21:25.203 --> 00:21:29.868
And that invite curiosity, that invite desire to know.
00:21:30.722 --> 00:21:32.732
You can do that with tone.
00:21:33.340 --> 00:21:34.901
You can also do it with framing.
00:21:35.648 --> 00:21:49.759
So you could say, well, we did a study and it was very rigorous and there were many universities and researchers involved, and there were this many PhDs and this, that and the other.
00:21:49.759 --> 00:21:53.189
And here's the one pager on everything it revealed.
00:21:53.750 --> 00:21:57.384
Well, I gotta ask you, how engaging is that?
00:21:57.999 --> 00:22:07.073
I know that you know that your new data that you've just uncovered with your study is incredibly exciting.
00:22:07.163 --> 00:22:08.032
It's amazing.
00:22:08.452 --> 00:22:12.323
It shows something that we hadn't been able to show before.
00:22:12.323 --> 00:22:15.712
It proves something we haven't been able to prove up until now.
00:22:15.863 --> 00:22:18.952
We knew it was probably true, but now we've got proof.
00:22:19.662 --> 00:22:29.167
That's very different than saying, the study showed that 75% of people with this problem have this other problem too, or whatever it is.
00:22:29.737 --> 00:22:36.826
That's robbing it of all it's exciting vibrancy, its life, its relevance.
00:22:37.336 --> 00:22:38.836
Why does it matter?
00:22:39.106 --> 00:22:43.727
Why does it matter that we now know this new thing that we didn't know before?
00:22:44.027 --> 00:22:51.266
Or that we've finally been able to prove a thing we were pretty sure was true, but now we've got hard data.
00:22:51.924 --> 00:22:52.914
What does that mean?
00:22:53.305 --> 00:22:57.486
What does that allow us to do now that we couldn't do before?
00:22:57.605 --> 00:23:03.516
Not just us, the Nonprofit, but what does that allow the decision maker to do that they couldn't do before?
00:23:04.326 --> 00:23:08.016
Now that we know that this thing is true, what does that make possible?
00:23:08.638 --> 00:23:13.118
If that's true, what does that mean about this other thing, this other part of the problem?
00:23:13.788 --> 00:23:17.878
If that's true, what does it mean about the value of investing in solving the problem?
00:23:18.423 --> 00:23:19.804
This changes everything.
00:23:20.576 --> 00:23:23.457
Or, you can tell it like it's a secret.
00:23:24.250 --> 00:23:28.694
I wanna share something with you that we've just learned, and this is amazing.
00:23:28.934 --> 00:23:30.015
No one knows this yet.
00:23:30.801 --> 00:23:32.596
But I definitely think you'll be surprised.
00:23:32.596 --> 00:23:33.707
I think you'll be amazed.
00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:36.181
So we did this study.
00:23:36.817 --> 00:23:40.018
The full results are actually embargoed until next week.
00:23:40.454 --> 00:23:45.960
But I want to tell you about two of the key findings that just completely blew us away.
00:23:46.433 --> 00:23:47.394
Here's what we found.
00:23:48.211 --> 00:23:53.372
Or you could even set it up with a question and say, one of the questions we looked at was.
00:23:53.912 --> 00:23:56.011
And then you say whatever you were testing for.
00:23:56.643 --> 00:23:58.684
Say, what do you think we probably found?
00:23:58.815 --> 00:24:02.444
What's been kind of true as far as we all know about this thing?
00:24:03.054 --> 00:24:04.104
And then they say whatever they say.
00:24:04.203 --> 00:24:06.131
Say, well, that's what everybody thought.
00:24:06.340 --> 00:24:07.570
And then look what we found.
00:24:08.050 --> 00:24:09.250
Here's what we found out.
00:24:09.851 --> 00:24:10.998
This is incredible.
00:24:11.661 --> 00:24:15.403
And now that we know that that's true, what does that mean about this other thing?
00:24:15.628 --> 00:24:16.469
You see the difference?
00:24:17.263 --> 00:24:19.082
So that's a lot of it.
00:24:19.292 --> 00:24:24.071
That's why I say that strategy is a combination of substance and style.
00:24:24.609 --> 00:24:41.298
It's a lot about your tone, it's a lot about your energy and how you invite the decision maker to share in this exciting or surprising or secret new information that you're about to reveal.
00:24:41.962 --> 00:24:50.905
That causes a whole lot more leaning in than presenting information, even when it's new and even when you know it's amazing and new.
00:24:51.415 --> 00:25:00.519
Presenting it as if it were a set of facts, When you're doing this technique, it's going to be something you were already planning to tell them.
00:25:00.548 --> 00:25:02.979
You don't make up something new.
00:25:03.489 --> 00:25:06.537
You have brought with you key points you wanted to make.
00:25:07.342 --> 00:25:18.218
So again, ideally ahead of time, you've thought about why is each of these things that you want to tell them, why are they exciting?
00:25:18.278 --> 00:25:18.968
Amazing?
00:25:18.968 --> 00:25:19.958
Why are they important?
00:25:19.988 --> 00:25:20.857
Why do they matter?
00:25:20.857 --> 00:25:21.698
How do they matter?
00:25:22.154 --> 00:25:25.394
How do they connect to something the decision maker already cares about?
00:25:26.234 --> 00:25:29.984
That's a great way to reveal a piece of information.
00:25:29.984 --> 00:25:41.325
And then when you ask your question about what does that mean about or for, what are the implications for, and then the thing that comes after that is the thing that they care about.
00:25:41.912 --> 00:25:44.311
That they see as a key piece of the problem.
00:25:44.728 --> 00:25:46.887
What are the implications for that?
00:25:47.588 --> 00:25:49.209
That is catnip.
00:25:50.588 --> 00:25:52.298
It is absolute catnip.
00:25:52.479 --> 00:25:55.368
When you say, here's this amazing new information.
00:25:55.368 --> 00:26:00.487
What are the implications for the thing over here that you are totally focused on?
00:26:01.297 --> 00:26:06.787
They would have to be in a coma not to engage when you share that that way.
00:26:07.601 --> 00:26:09.760
This stuff will work every time.
00:26:10.251 --> 00:26:16.603
And ideally you're building it in to your approach and your messaging strategy when you go in.
00:26:17.442 --> 00:26:20.682
But it's also a great rescue technique.
00:26:21.042 --> 00:26:31.579
When the stuff you've brought is not engaging, then just go heavier on the amount of questions you're asking, relative to the amount of information you're telling.
00:26:32.232 --> 00:26:49.226
And make sure they can hear in your voice the significance of all the information that you're sharing that you know is incredibly important and powerful and impactful, and that it matters and that it's exciting or depressing or whatever it is.
00:26:49.256 --> 00:26:55.256
Sometimes the information we're sharing is really depressing because we're talking about the scope of the problem and how bad it is.
00:26:55.766 --> 00:26:58.554
But the flip side of that is what happens when you fix it?
00:26:59.134 --> 00:27:00.634
How does that change things?
00:27:00.784 --> 00:27:02.044
How amazing is that?
00:27:02.943 --> 00:27:09.151
And so if you are finding that the engagement is not happening, check.
00:27:09.661 --> 00:27:11.941
Have you been in fact presentation mode?
00:27:12.490 --> 00:27:15.178
Have you been telling more than asking?
00:27:15.653 --> 00:27:20.703
Have you gotten, and this is a common problem, folks get nervous.
00:27:21.163 --> 00:27:26.623
They get nervous about a lot of things in meetings with decision makers, conversations with decision makers.
00:27:26.961 --> 00:27:36.921
If the stakes are high, if it's a high level person, if you feel like you're only gonna get one chance, if you're worried about time pressure and you only got a few minutes with them.
00:27:37.105 --> 00:27:45.898
All those pressures and stresses tend to cause people to get very monotonal in their speaking.
00:27:46.669 --> 00:27:48.318
The emotion goes away.
00:27:48.618 --> 00:27:50.796
The variety goes away.
00:27:51.185 --> 00:27:56.089
All the stuff that makes your voice interesting goes away.
00:27:56.750 --> 00:28:02.241
And we keep talking, talking, talking, talking'cause we wanna make sure we get it all in, and we wanna make sure it's done, and da, da, da.
00:28:02.450 --> 00:28:02.809
And.
00:28:03.362 --> 00:28:05.011
In the process, we lose them.
00:28:05.499 --> 00:28:09.512
So if you're losing them, first thing is slow down.
00:28:10.015 --> 00:28:11.875
You're probably talking too fast.
00:28:12.494 --> 00:28:14.085
Stop and think for a second.
00:28:14.085 --> 00:28:16.095
What's really exciting about this?
00:28:16.095 --> 00:28:17.730
Or what's a question I can ask?
00:28:17.799 --> 00:28:19.569
How can I pull them in right now?
00:28:20.339 --> 00:28:31.305
A great trick to have up your sleeve is to have two or three of those questions jotted down somewhere on whatever paper you're using as your little at a glance reference while you're talking with them.
00:28:31.761 --> 00:28:32.602
It's your cheat sheet.
00:28:33.163 --> 00:28:40.303
Part of your cheat sheet should be a handful of those questions that you've had a chance to think about ahead of time.
00:28:40.303 --> 00:28:42.883
And make'em really good and really engaging.
00:28:43.525 --> 00:28:44.634
But if you didn't.
00:28:45.038 --> 00:28:48.788
Or you forgot, or maybe this conversation just happened.
00:28:48.909 --> 00:28:57.368
Maybe you were walking down the hall on your way to meet somebody else and out pops a decision maker you've been trying to get in a room with forever, and there they are.
00:28:58.102 --> 00:28:59.842
And you say hello and you start talking.
00:29:00.497 --> 00:29:05.626
Well, if you've got five minutes with them in the hallway, you better make it exciting right away.
00:29:06.557 --> 00:29:08.867
What's the most exciting thing you have to share with them?
00:29:09.498 --> 00:29:10.188
Lead with that.
00:29:10.896 --> 00:29:17.693
And lead with it in a way that invokes surprise or curiosity or makes them think.
00:29:18.290 --> 00:29:20.576
And asking a question will make them think.
00:29:21.502 --> 00:29:23.153
So use these interchangeably.
00:29:23.212 --> 00:29:25.633
Use them as prep when you can.
00:29:26.603 --> 00:29:31.567
But my goal here was to actually give you rescue techniques that you can use at the drop of a hat.
00:29:32.048 --> 00:29:37.592
And if we just go back and summarize really fast, you got two main strategies.
00:29:38.082 --> 00:29:41.884
One is questions, and there's three general categories of those questions.
00:29:42.275 --> 00:29:51.520
There's questions that create an opportunity for you to give them a piece of information that they now, because you teed it up with a question, they now wanna know.
00:29:51.759 --> 00:29:55.480
Because you've either exposed a lack of knowledge or sparked some curiosity.
00:29:56.085 --> 00:29:58.904
Questions that set up an opportunity to surprise them.
00:29:59.509 --> 00:30:06.607
And questions that ask for their analysis of the problem, the situation, the impact, anything.
00:30:07.506 --> 00:30:28.362
And then the second big thing is to, when you do share information in telling mode, that you do it in a way that surprises them or tells them a secret, or reveals a brand new piece of information that is amazing and perspective shifting, game changing.
00:30:28.971 --> 00:30:31.162
Again in that latter category.
00:30:31.461 --> 00:30:33.106
It's something you were already planning to tell them.
00:30:33.813 --> 00:30:46.105
So you will have just thought ahead about what is the most important piece of information that they need to hear right now in order for them to get what they need to get in order to move them forward.
00:30:46.767 --> 00:30:48.116
That's part of your message planning.
00:30:48.888 --> 00:30:55.808
You can also pick whatever on the list of things you were gonna tell them seem most relevant in that moment of the conversation.
00:30:56.776 --> 00:30:59.086
So those are your two main techniques.
00:30:59.567 --> 00:31:05.624
They will work like a charm to create engagement when they have not been engaging up to that point.
00:31:06.290 --> 00:31:07.191
Tuck those away.
00:31:07.710 --> 00:31:12.519
Keep'em handy and give them a try in your next conversation with a decision maker.
00:31:13.486 --> 00:31:18.766
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast
00:00:00.050 --> 00:00:02.750
You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:00:03.020 --> 00:00:10.099
In today's episode, we share two surefire things you can do to fix your messaging on the fly.
00:00:10.551 --> 00:00:12.061
So stay tuned.
00:00:18.286 --> 00:00:27.407
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.
00:00:27.407 --> 00:00:27.437
I.
00:00:27.797 --> 00:00:40.817
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.
00:00:41.447 --> 00:00:53.987
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.
00:00:54.046 --> 00:00:56.837
Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
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This podcast will help you do just that.
00:01:00.046 --> 00:01:03.046
Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:01:08.659 --> 00:01:09.558
Hey there folks.
00:01:09.558 --> 00:01:12.618
Welcome to another episode of the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:01:12.888 --> 00:01:14.239
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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Today I wanna focus on two basic strategies that are a way to fix things when you're in a conversation with a decision maker and it's not going the way you want.
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They're not engaging, they're not leaning in, or they're not getting what you need them to get.
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There's a disconnect some kind of way, and you can tell that this is not gonna get you what you wanted.
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Whether that was to just move the conversation forward and deepen the relationship, or whether there was something specific you came to ask for that day.
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And it's starting to feel like you're not getting to where you need to be.
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This happens a lot.
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And I think right now, as we're all in this time and place of even more overwhelm than usual, it can be extra hard to try to figure out, what am I gonna do to fix this problem on the fly when I'm right there in the room with the decision maker and it's not going well.
00:02:17.844 --> 00:02:36.135
So I want to share a couple of core strategies that will help rescue you if you find yourself in that situation, without you having to go into deep analysis about what's going wrong and what piece of this are they not getting and what else should I do here, blah, blah, blah.
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That's a lot to try to work through when you're in the middle of a conversation.
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There's just not that much extra brain space to do any kind of deep analysis while you're in the room.
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So what you need are some handy tricks up your sleeve that will reset the conversation and get things moving that you want them to go.
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When you find yourself in that situation, number one, this is absolutely the time to stop telling and start asking.
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If you've been talking for more than two or three minutes and they're not leaning in, they're not engaging, something's off.
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You'll know that soon in the conversation.
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If it's someone you've just met for the first time, there's a little bit more preliminary stuff that goes on the front end and so you may be a few more minutes in before it's a problem that they're not engaging and leaning in.
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But you don't wanna let that go more than five minutes ever, no matter what the situation is.
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'Cause if that's happening, then you know right away something's off.
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One of the things that I see happen a lot that is an easily fixable mistake, is that folks let the conversation go on too long before they key in to the reality that this is not headed in the right direction.
00:04:03.270 --> 00:04:07.290
So what I would say is that maximum five minutes.
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If you've been there that long and they haven't engaged fully, they're not leaning in, they're not asking you questions or just showing you with their facial expression and their body language and the way they're talking, that they're interested and wanting to know more and wanting to work with you.
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If that's not happening, that's already a warning signal that it is time to change course right now.
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Now, that does not mean throw out all your messaging and throw out all your notes.
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It just means it's time to stop telling and start asking.
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That's the simplest, quickest, easiest switch you can make.
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Ask more questions.
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And I am a huge proponent of starting a conversation with a question.
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That's the easiest way to trigger engagement from the very beginning.
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But if you're already in the middle of it and you didn't do that, or for whatever reason it didn't seem appropriate.
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That's okay.
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There's almost never a wrong time to start asking questions.
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As a general rule, about 25% of what's coming outta your mouth in one of these conversations should be in the form of a question.
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And there are ways to present information that is framed as a question.
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You've got all your data and your information and your supporting points and the main points you want to get across.
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You've planned your messaging for this conversation.
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And you've built it around the advance research you did and what you know about the status of the relationship already and what you know about this particular decision maker and so on and so forth.
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You've got all that.
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But simply shifting it around and asking more questions will automatically trigger more engagement.
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So the first thing to try, if things are going not the way you want, is to start asking more questions.
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Generally speaking, there are three main types of questions that you can use to immediately provoke engagement.
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These are all valuable.
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You will know in the moment which one is the smarter play.
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It's not really worth trying to say in situation A always use this particular kind of question.
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You'll have a feel for how the conversation has gone up to this point, and you can then try one of these three types of questions to jumpstart things, reset, and move things more toward them engaging with you.
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One great way is to use a question to set up an opportunity to surprise them.
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You probably have some great data that that decision maker probably doesn't already know.
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That's why you brought it with you.
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But think about what aspect of that data would be not common knowledge.
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Would not be intuitively obvious.
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Or that might be really counterintuitive.
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Anything like that.
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Anything you've got that is not just kind of patently obvious already is a great piece of fodder for a question that will set up surprise.
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It can be around anything, but a lot of times it'll center on numbers.
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Around how many people are affected, or what percentage of the community is affected.
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You know, one in three households are affected by this problem.
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Maybe the common sense of the problem is that it's fairly rare, or that it only affects a certain group of people.
00:07:46.038 --> 00:07:56.041
So if you have information that contradicts kind of the conventional understanding, that's a great place to use a question to set that up.
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It's pretty simple framing.
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You would use something along the lines of, if you had to guess, how prevalent would you say this problem is in X, Y, Z district or community.
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You can do the,"if you had to guess" framing.
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You can use phrasing like"what's your sense of..." Basically you're acknowledging that there's kind of a common perception about a thing.
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And that you have information or data that shows that that common perception is inaccurate.
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That in fact it's something different.
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And that the something different makes the problem a bigger deal, makes it more important, makes it more costly because more people have the problem.
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Could be any number of things.
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Cost is another great place where you can use a question to set up a surprise.
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Because generally speaking, decision makers tend to low ball the cost of everything in their head, especially the kinds of problems that nonprofits solve.
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So they tend to think it's gonna cost a lot to pay the Nonprofit to do the thing, but what they're not thinking about is what is the cost of the problem itself going unsolved.
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So those are things that you can set up that will help introduce a piece of information that is a little bit counter to the conventional thinking about that.
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You can also use a question to create an opportunity for you to give them a vital piece of information that you want them to know.
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The non engaging way to do that is to tell them the information.
00:09:38.008 --> 00:09:43.572
And say, blah, blah, blah is true about blah, blah, blah, and this is the this, and that's the that, and da, da, da, da.
00:09:43.798 --> 00:09:45.957
But the problem is that doesn't engage.
00:09:46.168 --> 00:09:50.967
And if they're not engaging already, then you don't wanna tell them any more stuff.
00:09:50.998 --> 00:09:56.457
You don't wanna tell them any more facts, any more information, until they've engaged.
00:09:57.268 --> 00:10:04.707
Because basically anything you're telling them when they're not engaged is going in one ear and out the other, and that's no help to you.
00:10:05.138 --> 00:10:07.327
And it's no help to them, quite honestly.
00:10:07.832 --> 00:10:09.332
They don't realize they're doing it.
00:10:09.783 --> 00:10:17.687
So we have to shake things up enough in their brain to get them to kind of say to themselves, oh, well, oh wait, this is interesting.
00:10:17.687 --> 00:10:19.368
Or what, oh, that's a surprise.
00:10:19.368 --> 00:10:20.807
Or, oh, what now?
00:10:20.857 --> 00:10:24.187
That, that's different than what was happening a minute ago.
00:10:24.187 --> 00:10:25.388
I should maybe pay attention.
00:10:26.018 --> 00:10:29.857
So even just changing the pattern of the conversation has a lot of value.
00:10:30.158 --> 00:10:34.153
If you've been talking, telling, telling, and then suddenly you're asking them a question.
00:10:34.538 --> 00:10:36.008
They have to wake up for that.
00:10:36.008 --> 00:10:37.467
They have to snap to.
00:10:38.024 --> 00:10:42.701
Because listening to facts is a very passive activity.
00:10:43.224 --> 00:10:51.053
Answering a question, being asked to respond to a question that requires some thought, that is not passive.
00:10:51.570 --> 00:10:52.679
You can't fake that.
00:10:52.679 --> 00:10:58.919
You have to actually process the question, think about it a little bit and say something in response to it.
00:10:59.485 --> 00:11:01.255
Otherwise, you kind of look like an idiot.
00:11:01.466 --> 00:11:04.916
So they're not gonna just sit there and stare at you if you ask them a question.
00:11:05.471 --> 00:11:07.510
They're gonna have to come up with a response.
00:11:07.510 --> 00:11:10.660
And as soon as they've done that, they have begun to engage.
00:11:11.456 --> 00:11:14.269
And then you take whatever they give you and work with that.
00:11:14.678 --> 00:11:22.664
So, if you've been telling and it's not landing, or they're not interacting with what you're telling them, they're not engaging with it.
00:11:23.167 --> 00:11:23.886
Back up.
00:11:24.374 --> 00:11:35.080
And ask a question that will set up the opportunity for you to then give them that information as an answer to the question you've now got them curious about.
00:11:35.860 --> 00:11:36.940
They now want to know.
00:11:36.940 --> 00:11:38.330
They're like, well, I don't know.
00:11:38.379 --> 00:11:39.639
what is the answer to that?
00:11:40.673 --> 00:11:47.602
A common thing that decision makers don't really get or don't have a deep understanding of, is who's affected by the problem.
00:11:48.177 --> 00:11:49.616
They'll have a general sense.
00:11:50.057 --> 00:11:52.577
It depends on their depth of knowledge of the issue.
00:11:52.921 --> 00:12:03.077
But unless this is their pet issue, they generally tend not to have deep knowledge about the daily reality of the lives of the people who experience the problem.
00:12:03.844 --> 00:12:12.105
And it's pretty much core to them being able to grasp the value of the impact of what you do.
00:12:12.525 --> 00:12:18.735
In order to do that, they've really gotta be able to understand how serious the problem is that you're solving.
00:12:19.298 --> 00:12:27.931
And one of the best ways to illustrate that is to be able to describe what the person's life is like when they're in the problem.
00:12:28.586 --> 00:12:30.027
You could tell them that.
00:12:30.596 --> 00:12:36.657
And if you're gonna just tell them that you would tell it in more of a story format to make it more interesting.
00:12:37.105 --> 00:12:39.658
But you can also tee it up in a question.
00:12:40.394 --> 00:12:47.727
You could ask, what do you think is the number one challenge that the folks in this category have?
00:12:48.212 --> 00:12:58.288
Or, when you think of this issue, what are the top two or three things do you think are present in that person's life on a daily basis?
00:12:58.349 --> 00:13:00.328
What are they struggling with the most?
00:13:00.806 --> 00:13:04.014
And even if they get the answer right, yay.
00:13:04.014 --> 00:13:05.154
Bonus points for them.
00:13:05.184 --> 00:13:07.913
That tells you that their understanding of this is pretty good.
00:13:08.393 --> 00:13:09.113
Wonderful.
00:13:09.533 --> 00:13:20.385
If they get the answer kind of right, then you can either ask another question to lead them closer to the answer, or you can tell them the answer.
00:13:20.913 --> 00:13:26.974
But then if they've told you that they think one thing and it's pretty far off the mark.
00:13:27.434 --> 00:13:30.884
Now you know that you have an opportunity to surprise them.
00:13:31.471 --> 00:13:34.350
So you're back to setting up a question that surprises them.
00:13:35.380 --> 00:13:37.541
So these things all weave together.
00:13:37.620 --> 00:13:40.912
These different kinds of questioning strategies can work together.
00:13:41.567 --> 00:13:42.768
It's not an either or.
00:13:43.758 --> 00:13:50.265
And what'll sometimes surface in that process is you'll surface some of their misconceptions.
00:13:50.985 --> 00:13:52.666
And that'll tell you information too.
00:13:52.975 --> 00:14:04.596
If they're laboring under some misconceptions about the issue that are making them see the problem in an unhelpful way, that is super important information for you to have.
00:14:05.256 --> 00:14:11.077
And then you can ask another question to lead them toward what's actually true.
00:14:12.030 --> 00:14:13.230
This is a really basic one.
00:14:13.230 --> 00:14:22.676
Let's say their misconception is that they think that the particular problem is experienced only by a fairly small percentage of the total population in whatever geographic unit you're dealing with.
00:14:23.592 --> 00:14:27.807
And the fact is, that it's like four times what they think it is.
00:14:28.341 --> 00:14:33.815
If they think it's one in 10 and it's really one in four, that's a huge difference.
00:14:34.383 --> 00:14:41.187
If you can't think of anything else, you can always just say, well, would it surprise you to learn that the number is actually one in four?
00:14:41.716 --> 00:14:46.027
That in this community, one in four families is struggling with this problem.
00:14:46.557 --> 00:14:54.081
And with that many people affected, you can see how it has ripple effects in the community.
00:14:54.893 --> 00:14:59.758
Say you're dealing with hunger, and they think hunger is like not that big a problem.
00:15:00.594 --> 00:15:03.504
Everybody thinks that in their community hunger's not a big problem.
00:15:03.793 --> 00:15:05.413
That happens to other communities.
00:15:05.773 --> 00:15:10.543
So they may be thinking that this is a small percentage of people and it's really a much bigger percentage.
00:15:10.842 --> 00:15:19.336
And you can say, well, imagine if a quarter or half of the kids in the classroom are coming to class without having had breakfast.
00:15:19.808 --> 00:15:23.065
How well do you think they're gonna be able to concentrate on their studies?
00:15:23.633 --> 00:15:26.602
And if they can't concentrate, what's that gonna do to their grades?
00:15:26.972 --> 00:15:34.285
What's it gonna mean for their education, their ability to learn the things they need to learn to grow into the next thing?
00:15:34.735 --> 00:15:41.066
You can pull them through with a series of questions that take them through the cascading effects of the problem.
00:15:41.756 --> 00:15:47.892
Because there are virtually always cascading effects of the problems that we solve, when they go unsolved.
00:15:48.623 --> 00:15:59.964
Whether it's a hunger issue, a health issue, a housing issue, an employment issue, an education issue, a family violence issue, whatever it is.
00:16:00.533 --> 00:16:08.294
There's the immediate problem of the thing that happens, and then there's, and what does that then do?
00:16:08.745 --> 00:16:10.934
What other problems does that create?
00:16:11.580 --> 00:16:22.346
For that individual, for that family, and for all of the community bits that that person and family are part of.
00:16:23.125 --> 00:16:24.895
So if it's a child, it's a classroom.
00:16:25.225 --> 00:16:27.115
If it's an adult, it's a workplace.
00:16:27.196 --> 00:16:28.485
Plus it's family structures.
00:16:28.716 --> 00:16:37.445
There's all these cascading effects that often don't really sit front and center in decision makers' minds.
00:16:37.894 --> 00:16:42.445
So you can ask those leading questions about, well, how would that affect this?
00:16:42.955 --> 00:16:47.345
And if that affects that, that way, well then how would that affect this next thing?
00:16:47.914 --> 00:16:49.835
And you can lead them through that.
00:16:50.164 --> 00:16:51.455
And don't give them the answer.
00:16:51.455 --> 00:17:00.349
Don't say, well then that means, then they can't concentrate in school, and then they fall behind, and then they drop outta school and then bad things happen and da, da da, da da.
00:17:00.585 --> 00:17:01.634
You could say that.
00:17:01.634 --> 00:17:03.554
You could tell them that.
00:17:04.272 --> 00:17:11.948
Or you could ask a series of leading questions, inviting them to think about what are the likely consequences of that next thing.
00:17:12.670 --> 00:17:14.680
Guess which one is likely to stick more.
00:17:15.155 --> 00:17:15.516
Right?
00:17:15.972 --> 00:17:17.247
That's how it is.
00:17:17.247 --> 00:17:18.567
That's how we humans are.
00:17:18.902 --> 00:17:23.403
When we have to work out the conclusion ourselves, we tend to remember it.
00:17:23.913 --> 00:17:29.163
When someone else tells us the answer, we tend to disregard it or forget it.
00:17:29.973 --> 00:17:36.064
So that's just a really simple strategy that's good to use as often as possible anyway.
00:17:36.509 --> 00:17:42.905
But it absolutely is a good corrective for when you've got a decision maker who is not engaged.
00:17:44.125 --> 00:17:47.849
And then I saved the best for last, in some ways.
00:17:48.299 --> 00:17:51.112
All three of these questioning structures work really well.
00:17:51.112 --> 00:17:54.231
And as I say, you can use them with each other.
00:17:54.471 --> 00:17:57.561
They can piggyback on each other in all kinds of fun ways.
00:17:58.171 --> 00:18:08.753
But here's the other one that is really the turbocharger of engagement, which is asking for their analysis of the problem and solution.
00:18:09.346 --> 00:18:15.855
Questions like, what do you see as the most challenging aspects of this problem?
00:18:16.395 --> 00:18:18.496
Why is it so hard to solve?
00:18:18.496 --> 00:18:19.786
What's in the way?
00:18:20.326 --> 00:18:23.566
What have you struggled with as you've thought about this problem?
00:18:24.259 --> 00:18:31.699
There's no way they can give a non-answer to that unless they wanna admit that they frankly don't think about this problem at all, ever.
00:18:32.737 --> 00:18:44.659
You can also ask more general things like, is it your sense that this problem is increasing or decreasing or staying about the same, in geographic area, your district, your state, whatever.
00:18:45.318 --> 00:18:51.215
And then there's another opportunity to set up a surprise, to set up another question, to answer the question.
00:18:52.409 --> 00:19:00.048
So those are three main types of questions that you can use interchangeably to help engage and draw the decision maker in.
00:19:00.602 --> 00:19:11.106
You can even, and I recommend this, craft a few of those questions ahead of time so that you've got them teed up in case you find yourself in that situation.
00:19:11.692 --> 00:19:18.471
Ideally, that's how this works, is that you're trying to set it up so that you're not having to think so hard in the moment.
00:19:19.012 --> 00:19:25.461
But if you don't have questions in advance, these are the kinds of questions you can ask, and they generally will trigger engagement.
00:19:26.151 --> 00:19:36.621
Now, if you've got a decision maker who is just categorically opposed to everything about what you do, then this isn't going to fix that.
00:19:37.141 --> 00:19:52.553
in those settings, the best you can probably do, and this is typically true for when we're engaging someone who has a very strongly different view of the problem than we have, is to think about, okay, well, from their perspective.
00:19:53.199 --> 00:19:54.729
Why does it matter?
00:19:55.118 --> 00:19:56.409
Why is this a problem?
00:19:56.924 --> 00:20:03.045
And whatever the answer to that is, you can try to ask questions that pull that out.
00:20:03.736 --> 00:20:11.451
Cause ultimately you're not gonna sell a right wing decision maker on some pieces of your solution.
00:20:12.096 --> 00:20:14.519
There're gonna be some things that they just don't believe in.
00:20:15.006 --> 00:20:21.815
And then you can decide how much energy you wanna spend trying to disrupt their misinformation bubble that they're living in.
00:20:22.772 --> 00:20:24.032
So questions are awesome.
00:20:24.494 --> 00:20:25.058
Use them.
00:20:25.323 --> 00:20:26.313
Use them liberally.
00:20:26.403 --> 00:20:27.752
They're great for engagement.
00:20:28.673 --> 00:20:33.631
The other major thing you can do is a little bit substance and a little bit style.
00:20:34.285 --> 00:20:52.904
This is a strategy where you're gonna tell them something, but you're gonna do it in a way that is designed to surprise, or to tell them a secret, or reveal a piece of information that is brand new and amazing.
00:20:53.436 --> 00:20:55.375
And that might even be game changing.
00:20:56.296 --> 00:21:05.950
A lot of times we bring our information, and we miss the opportunity to bring it to life, to give it energy.
00:21:06.771 --> 00:21:16.636
So much of engagement with any person, decision makers included, is the energy we bring and the energy we elicit in the process.
00:21:17.182 --> 00:21:24.814
So when we do have something that we wanna share, we wanna do it in ways that are intriguing.
00:21:25.203 --> 00:21:29.868
And that invite curiosity, that invite desire to know.
00:21:30.722 --> 00:21:32.732
You can do that with tone.
00:21:33.340 --> 00:21:34.901
You can also do it with framing.
00:21:35.648 --> 00:21:49.759
So you could say, well, we did a study and it was very rigorous and there were many universities and researchers involved, and there were this many PhDs and this, that and the other.
00:21:49.759 --> 00:21:53.189
And here's the one pager on everything it revealed.
00:21:53.750 --> 00:21:57.384
Well, I gotta ask you, how engaging is that?
00:21:57.999 --> 00:22:07.073
I know that you know that your new data that you've just uncovered with your study is incredibly exciting.
00:22:07.163 --> 00:22:08.032
It's amazing.
00:22:08.452 --> 00:22:12.323
It shows something that we hadn't been able to show before.
00:22:12.323 --> 00:22:15.712
It proves something we haven't been able to prove up until now.
00:22:15.863 --> 00:22:18.952
We knew it was probably true, but now we've got proof.
00:22:19.662 --> 00:22:29.167
That's very different than saying, the study showed that 75% of people with this problem have this other problem too, or whatever it is.
00:22:29.737 --> 00:22:36.826
That's robbing it of all it's exciting vibrancy, its life, its relevance.
00:22:37.336 --> 00:22:38.836
Why does it matter?
00:22:39.106 --> 00:22:43.727
Why does it matter that we now know this new thing that we didn't know before?
00:22:44.027 --> 00:22:51.266
Or that we've finally been able to prove a thing we were pretty sure was true, but now we've got hard data.
00:22:51.924 --> 00:22:52.914
What does that mean?
00:22:53.305 --> 00:22:57.486
What does that allow us to do now that we couldn't do before?
00:22:57.605 --> 00:23:03.516
Not just us, the Nonprofit, but what does that allow the decision maker to do that they couldn't do before?
00:23:04.326 --> 00:23:08.016
Now that we know that this thing is true, what does that make possible?
00:23:08.638 --> 00:23:13.118
If that's true, what does that mean about this other thing, this other part of the problem?
00:23:13.788 --> 00:23:17.878
If that's true, what does it mean about the value of investing in solving the problem?
00:23:18.423 --> 00:23:19.804
This changes everything.
00:23:20.576 --> 00:23:23.457
Or, you can tell it like it's a secret.
00:23:24.250 --> 00:23:28.694
I wanna share something with you that we've just learned, and this is amazing.
00:23:28.934 --> 00:23:30.015
No one knows this yet.
00:23:30.801 --> 00:23:32.596
But I definitely think you'll be surprised.
00:23:32.596 --> 00:23:33.707
I think you'll be amazed.
00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:36.181
So we did this study.
00:23:36.817 --> 00:23:40.018
The full results are actually embargoed until next week.
00:23:40.454 --> 00:23:45.960
But I want to tell you about two of the key findings that just completely blew us away.
00:23:46.433 --> 00:23:47.394
Here's what we found.
00:23:48.211 --> 00:23:53.372
Or you could even set it up with a question and say, one of the questions we looked at was.
00:23:53.912 --> 00:23:56.011
And then you say whatever you were testing for.
00:23:56.643 --> 00:23:58.684
Say, what do you think we probably found?
00:23:58.815 --> 00:24:02.444
What's been kind of true as far as we all know about this thing?
00:24:03.054 --> 00:24:04.104
And then they say whatever they say.
00:24:04.203 --> 00:24:06.131
Say, well, that's what everybody thought.
00:24:06.340 --> 00:24:07.570
And then look what we found.
00:24:08.050 --> 00:24:09.250
Here's what we found out.
00:24:09.851 --> 00:24:10.998
This is incredible.
00:24:11.661 --> 00:24:15.403
And now that we know that that's true, what does that mean about this other thing?
00:24:15.628 --> 00:24:16.469
You see the difference?
00:24:17.263 --> 00:24:19.082
So that's a lot of it.
00:24:19.292 --> 00:24:24.071
That's why I say that strategy is a combination of substance and style.
00:24:24.609 --> 00:24:41.298
It's a lot about your tone, it's a lot about your energy and how you invite the decision maker to share in this exciting or surprising or secret new information that you're about to reveal.
00:24:41.962 --> 00:24:50.905
That causes a whole lot more leaning in than presenting information, even when it's new and even when you know it's amazing and new.
00:24:51.415 --> 00:25:00.519
Presenting it as if it were a set of facts, When you're doing this technique, it's going to be something you were already planning to tell them.
00:25:00.548 --> 00:25:02.979
You don't make up something new.
00:25:03.489 --> 00:25:06.537
You have brought with you key points you wanted to make.
00:25:07.342 --> 00:25:18.218
So again, ideally ahead of time, you've thought about why is each of these things that you want to tell them, why are they exciting?
00:25:18.278 --> 00:25:18.968
Amazing?
00:25:18.968 --> 00:25:19.958
Why are they important?
00:25:19.988 --> 00:25:20.857
Why do they matter?
00:25:20.857 --> 00:25:21.698
How do they matter?
00:25:22.154 --> 00:25:25.394
How do they connect to something the decision maker already cares about?
00:25:26.234 --> 00:25:29.984
That's a great way to reveal a piece of information.
00:25:29.984 --> 00:25:41.325
And then when you ask your question about what does that mean about or for, what are the implications for, and then the thing that comes after that is the thing that they care about.
00:25:41.912 --> 00:25:44.311
That they see as a key piece of the problem.
00:25:44.728 --> 00:25:46.887
What are the implications for that?
00:25:47.588 --> 00:25:49.209
That is catnip.
00:25:50.588 --> 00:25:52.298
It is absolute catnip.
00:25:52.479 --> 00:25:55.368
When you say, here's this amazing new information.
00:25:55.368 --> 00:26:00.487
What are the implications for the thing over here that you are totally focused on?
00:26:01.297 --> 00:26:06.787
They would have to be in a coma not to engage when you share that that way.
00:26:07.601 --> 00:26:09.760
This stuff will work every time.
00:26:10.251 --> 00:26:16.603
And ideally you're building it in to your approach and your messaging strategy when you go in.
00:26:17.442 --> 00:26:20.682
But it's also a great rescue technique.
00:26:21.042 --> 00:26:31.579
When the stuff you've brought is not engaging, then just go heavier on the amount of questions you're asking, relative to the amount of information you're telling.
00:26:32.232 --> 00:26:49.226
And make sure they can hear in your voice the significance of all the information that you're sharing that you know is incredibly important and powerful and impactful, and that it matters and that it's exciting or depressing or whatever it is.
00:26:49.256 --> 00:26:55.256
Sometimes the information we're sharing is really depressing because we're talking about the scope of the problem and how bad it is.
00:26:55.766 --> 00:26:58.554
But the flip side of that is what happens when you fix it?
00:26:59.134 --> 00:27:00.634
How does that change things?
00:27:00.784 --> 00:27:02.044
How amazing is that?
00:27:02.943 --> 00:27:09.151
And so if you are finding that the engagement is not happening, check.
00:27:09.661 --> 00:27:11.941
Have you been in fact presentation mode?
00:27:12.490 --> 00:27:15.178
Have you been telling more than asking?
00:27:15.653 --> 00:27:20.703
Have you gotten, and this is a common problem, folks get nervous.
00:27:21.163 --> 00:27:26.623
They get nervous about a lot of things in meetings with decision makers, conversations with decision makers.
00:27:26.961 --> 00:27:36.921
If the stakes are high, if it's a high level person, if you feel like you're only gonna get one chance, if you're worried about time pressure and you only got a few minutes with them.
00:27:37.105 --> 00:27:45.898
All those pressures and stresses tend to cause people to get very monotonal in their speaking.
00:27:46.669 --> 00:27:48.318
The emotion goes away.
00:27:48.618 --> 00:27:50.796
The variety goes away.
00:27:51.185 --> 00:27:56.089
All the stuff that makes your voice interesting goes away.
00:27:56.750 --> 00:28:02.241
And we keep talking, talking, talking, talking'cause we wanna make sure we get it all in, and we wanna make sure it's done, and da, da, da.
00:28:02.450 --> 00:28:02.809
And.
00:28:03.362 --> 00:28:05.011
In the process, we lose them.
00:28:05.499 --> 00:28:09.512
So if you're losing them, first thing is slow down.
00:28:10.015 --> 00:28:11.875
You're probably talking too fast.
00:28:12.494 --> 00:28:14.085
Stop and think for a second.
00:28:14.085 --> 00:28:16.095
What's really exciting about this?
00:28:16.095 --> 00:28:17.730
Or what's a question I can ask?
00:28:17.799 --> 00:28:19.569
How can I pull them in right now?
00:28:20.339 --> 00:28:31.305
A great trick to have up your sleeve is to have two or three of those questions jotted down somewhere on whatever paper you're using as your little at a glance reference while you're talking with them.
00:28:31.761 --> 00:28:32.602
It's your cheat sheet.
00:28:33.163 --> 00:28:40.303
Part of your cheat sheet should be a handful of those questions that you've had a chance to think about ahead of time.
00:28:40.303 --> 00:28:42.883
And make'em really good and really engaging.
00:28:43.525 --> 00:28:44.634
But if you didn't.
00:28:45.038 --> 00:28:48.788
Or you forgot, or maybe this conversation just happened.
00:28:48.909 --> 00:28:57.368
Maybe you were walking down the hall on your way to meet somebody else and out pops a decision maker you've been trying to get in a room with forever, and there they are.
00:28:58.102 --> 00:28:59.842
And you say hello and you start talking.
00:29:00.497 --> 00:29:05.626
Well, if you've got five minutes with them in the hallway, you better make it exciting right away.
00:29:06.557 --> 00:29:08.867
What's the most exciting thing you have to share with them?
00:29:09.498 --> 00:29:10.188
Lead with that.
00:29:10.896 --> 00:29:17.693
And lead with it in a way that invokes surprise or curiosity or makes them think.
00:29:18.290 --> 00:29:20.576
And asking a question will make them think.
00:29:21.502 --> 00:29:23.153
So use these interchangeably.
00:29:23.212 --> 00:29:25.633
Use them as prep when you can.
00:29:26.603 --> 00:29:31.567
But my goal here was to actually give you rescue techniques that you can use at the drop of a hat.
00:29:32.048 --> 00:29:37.592
And if we just go back and summarize really fast, you got two main strategies.
00:29:38.082 --> 00:29:41.884
One is questions, and there's three general categories of those questions.
00:29:42.275 --> 00:29:51.520
There's questions that create an opportunity for you to give them a piece of information that they now, because you teed it up with a question, they now wanna know.
00:29:51.759 --> 00:29:55.480
Because you've either exposed a lack of knowledge or sparked some curiosity.
00:29:56.085 --> 00:29:58.904
Questions that set up an opportunity to surprise them.
00:29:59.509 --> 00:30:06.607
And questions that ask for their analysis of the problem, the situation, the impact, anything.
00:30:07.506 --> 00:30:28.362
And then the second big thing is to, when you do share information in telling mode, that you do it in a way that surprises them or tells them a secret, or reveals a brand new piece of information that is amazing and perspective shifting, game changing.
00:30:28.971 --> 00:30:31.162
Again in that latter category.
00:30:31.461 --> 00:30:33.106
It's something you were already planning to tell them.
00:30:33.813 --> 00:30:46.105
So you will have just thought ahead about what is the most important piece of information that they need to hear right now in order for them to get what they need to get in order to move them forward.
00:30:46.767 --> 00:30:48.116
That's part of your message planning.
00:30:48.888 --> 00:30:55.808
You can also pick whatever on the list of things you were gonna tell them seem most relevant in that moment of the conversation.
00:30:56.776 --> 00:30:59.086
So those are your two main techniques.
00:30:59.567 --> 00:31:05.624
They will work like a charm to create engagement when they have not been engaging up to that point.
00:31:06.290 --> 00:31:07.191
Tuck those away.
00:31:07.710 --> 00:31:12.519
Keep'em handy and give them a try in your next conversation with a decision maker.
00:31:13.486 --> 00:31:18.766
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast
