Building Relationships One Brick at a Time | Lindsay Adams | TEDxRuakura

if you are going to build the house of your dreams would you hire a boutique building designer or would you go and look for a perhaps a more mainstream project builder or would you hire a public servant someone who's a human resources consultant who works in the Australian Taxation Office with absolutely no building experience well I pair myself in that situation just twenty two years ago and well that public servant was me and I hired myself yep that's right the house of my dreams the house that I built 22 years ago I built myself I built it with the help of my 70 year old apprentice my dad with absolutely no building experience and no idea what the ultimate project would cost on completion so you know I learnt some interesting stuff along the way about building but more importantly I learned about relationships and you could say my house has been built by relationships and as the years passed by I started to think about what I did during that build and I realized that I actually had a relationship model that I could use to get into relationship quickly with people in order to get what I needed to help me with my build and and in fact that led on to me securing my roof for Half Price getting my bricks at an amazing price getting my plumbing supplies at a price that when I showed the quote to my plumber he winced and said how the hell did you do that and and really it was about the relationship that I made with these people as I went along and so today I want to share with you how to quickly get into a relationship and I'm not going to talk about the long-term business relationship I'm going to talk about the initial phase where we meet someone and we engage with them and we know deep down that we probably could do business with this person we want to want to take this relationship further so I'm going to talk about the initial phase and like any good builder I need some tools so I'm going to share the tools that I learned about with you today and in fact there are three tools that I want to share with you so of course let's get in in the groove though because I did actually bring with me matul belt and this is that I wore every day during the build and here's the tool belt and the tools that I used during the project and I want to share with you the the first of my tools and and I kind of liken it to my hammer and and the first of the tools is you have to focus on them 100% not you and think about it when you're using this hammer you've got to focus now there's my house that's it under construction all of those frames we hand nailed together so we bought a free nail frame so the frames arrived in chunks and we had to stand them up and join them together so they're all hand nailed and you've got to focus when you're nailing if you aren't focused you can cause some real damage as I learned when I split my thumb almost into two pieces one day when I missed my focus wasn't right so think about this when you go to an event when you come to something like this I I went and spoke to a couple of people in the in the audience before you came into the room and think about it when we when we meet someone at an event have you ever had this happen to you you're talking with somebody and you notice that you're talking to them but they're not focused on you and in fact their eyes are darting around the room they're they're looking and and they're thinking about who else that they can talk to they're looking to see who else is in the room and figuring out who they're going to talk to next because you know what maybe you're not so interesting after all and so what I suggest to you is typically you know when we make someone with the first for the first time what do we do we shake hands we normally say our name hello I'm Lindsey and then what's the next question we would typically ask what do you reckon it's going to be something like so what do you do so what brings you here and so that we open up the conversation to go further now what I'm suggesting that you do in the next step is to use what I call clever questions so clever questions are those questions which are open-ended and open up the conversation and so if we say things like hello nice to meet you yes what do you do and and they say well I'm a nuclear physicist and you go hmm that's interesting that's that's going to close down the conversation very quickly isn't it so we've got to ask an open-ended question so you might say something like wow tell me more about that how did you come to choose that career part so you're going to ask an open-ended question to get them to talk about themselves and here's a little tip if you want to get into relationship with someone it's got to be an 8020 conversation so that means 80% of the conversations about them 20% about you so you're going to ask them questions to get them talking so the good old 8020 rule and I love what I call the est question the est are using questions with words attending est biggest longest hardest most exciting list okay you got the idea so I was talking to Quentin Doria media one of their sponsors and he designs websites aren't free plug quaint you owe me five bucks and he you know he was talking to me about his website stuff and I said so tell me Quinton what's the hardest website you've ever developed what's the biggest project you've ever developed you get the idea so think about these est words that you can use now if all else fails and you're stuck use my failsafe line wow that's interesting tell me more so you're going to leave then get them to talk so that they are focus you're focused on them now I'm up on the roof one day and this car drives in the driveway and a look at my dad and I said to him who the hell's that and guess I don't know my god bloody pesky salesman I bet so I climbed down off the ladder and this guy jumps out of the car he says hi I'm Steve from Steve's Plumbing Supplies ok g'day Steve and I thought no I got to do the right thing here and I focused on him 100% and I got him talking and it turns out Steve used to be a carpenter but he couldn't carpenter anymore is that a word he couldn't do building anymore because he hurt his back so he'd gone into sales and so he's asking me about the project and and I focused on Steve and I got his story and then he said to me so you you're a builder you're a carpenter said no no I'm public servant he goes oh well who's that got over there so that's my dad he said oh so he's the carpenter I said no no that's my dad he said well well whose shoes the build around here I said I don't know I guess it must be us and and we were so focused on the conversation that Steve got to the part of the conversation he said well can I give you a quote on your plumbing supplies and I said sure absolutely but Steve I gotta warn you I'm in the habit of getting a really hot red-hot price on the quotes so you better sharpen your pencil before you write the final number on the bottom line well Steve came back to me a week later with the best quote that I couldn't I could not beat it anywhere and again as I said in the intro showed it to my plumber and his jaw dropped to the ground he said how the hell did you get that price it was because I focused on Steve and I engaged in the relationship 100% so the second second to limit all kit here is my makar panda's pencil now these things are pretty common you'd agree and that really leads me on to the second the second tool for you and you're building relationships quickly is to find the common ground and by the way that's my dad in the photo he's got a bandage on his head because I dropped the lumber a lump of timber on him and split his forehead open my dad's a he's a trooper we were holding up a frame at the time nailing it up bit of timber fell down and bloods dipping to the ground he took his hat off and I swear I could see the bone so dad gets out his handkerchief puts it here and gets his hat and he goes bangs it down and he says come on we'll finish this first so we finished nailing the frame back up before he worried about the gash on his forehead that's the next day he was back at work at 7 a.m. the next day I love my dad today ladies and gentlemen he's 92 next week he'll be 93 years old how about that so you've got to find the common ground what's what's common between you and the other person you're talking to you know I got on a plane Monday when I was still working in the tax office I took long service leave to do the bill but just before I flew to Canberra it's Monday have a long weekend and I jump on the plane and I sit beside this guy and me being me I introduce myself hi I'm Lindsay so they're gonna introduce his himself we start chatting and I said so what do you do he said oh I'm the state sales manager for Austral bricks and I go bricks and I said amazing I'm building a house sitting went Wow and we we the common ground for us was bricks and so we talked about bricks how you build with them how you lay them how you break them how you make them hey you color them how you fire them and I was just so intrigued with the whole brick making process now when the plane landed and we stood up to lead the plane he pulls down the overhead Locker gets his briefcase out and he takes out a business card and he gives it to me and he says when you ready give me a call now naively I didn't know what he was talking about and I said what do you mean he said when you're ready for your bricks give me a call I'll look after you now ladies and gentlemen I had no inkling of doing business with this guy but I called him up I went and saw him and we had picked out a brick that was going to fit our our our budget and we said all we were interested in this brick here he said now he don't want that brick he said you want this brick I said but hang on a minute that's the top-of-the-range we can't afford that he says I said I'd look after you she gave me a red-hot price my bricklayer or all of his bricks exclusively from this company even he couldn't buy them at the price that I got them again I focused a hundred percent on the conversation and we established the common ground we got into relationship and I got my bricks at a red-hot price similarly I went along to kindy now my son was 5 years old my daughter was 7 when they built the house I go along the kindy one night and my son used to have a playmate in the playground at kindy Burnie now so I met Bernie's donor by the way Bernie was a girl Bernadette and I met Bernie's dad his name is moose don't ask me how I got that name but he's a big guy anyway so moose says to me um I hear you building your own house they say yeah yeah that's right he said what sort of rekey doing I said I Corey gated iron he goes right well um when you ready call me and I you know had this kind of naive look come across my face again and I said sorry what do you mean he said you do know I deliver roofing iron for living when you ready call me and I got my roof for Half Price moose looked after me we were in relationship and the common ground was our kids playing together in the kindy playground so think about how do I focus on someone a hundred percent what's the common ground what are we having common here that we can talk about that will deepen and strengthen our relationship the next thing the next tool and have a look at this one this is my tape measure this is a family heirloom now this is the tape measure I used to build the house unfortunately the the bit on the ends broken off and the tape measure doesn't work anymore but I treasure this I'm never I'm never giving this away and so this is part of the Addams Family museum but the tape measure it's it serves me well and what you have to do ladies and gentlemen is serve your relationship partner in the conversation and and by that I mean you have to look and find find a way to create a mutual outcome and the simple way of service is to do something to them so whenever I meet and talk with somebody I'm thinking about how do I serve them now where's my mate Grahame from Toastmasters in the ordinance give me away but I'm right there in the middle have a look at Graham ladies and gentlemen Graham's a Toastmaster I met him outside and I went and had a chat with him I focused 100% on him and we we have something in common where I am loves making speeches and he's a Toastmaster Toastmasters do it for fun and pleasure and I'm a member of the organization called National Speakers Association we do it for fun and profit and we found the common ground and and I said to Graham have you heard of National Speakers um it's kind of if you're thinking of taking you your speaking career to the next step and doing this for money then you need to join National Speakers and so what I was doing was looking for a way to serve Graham and so I've given him a business card is going to drop me an email or put him in contact with the people in Auckland and so he can go along to the monthly meeting you see I'm always thinking about how can I serve someone else I don't want to come out for coffee with me would love to you know what when it comes time to pay the bill I always get my wallet out first it's a simple way of serving someone else there's a great book to read it's called influence the psychology of persuasion written by a guy called Robert Cialdini is an Italian American psychologist and in the book he talks about the six laws of influence the second law of which is the law of reciprocity and he studied and studied and proven this that if you help other people they will help you in return now one of the examples he talks about in his book at the hurry Krishna and he watched and studied them in America and the hare Krishna would approach you at an airport and offer you the gift of a flower and then after you had the flower in your hand and you said thank you they would say would you please make a small donation of some coins to our cause and 99.9% of people gave the money now 99.9% of people may not have given the money happily but they still gave the money and it's the law of reciprocity if I give you something you will give me something in return now I'm I try to do it a different way I try to give without the thought of receiving back immediately because and I'm not sure what your spiritual beliefs are but I know that if I serve other people if I give then the universe will give back to me and that's been proven to me time and time and time again I mentioned the National Speakers Association in 1998 I joined I was as a working for the Brisbane City Council as a public servant I joined this organization thinking that I'd like to start a speaking career I had no idea what I was going to speak on and and for the first 18 months I would attend the meetings and I was like a big sponge soaking up the learning and I wish we had TEDx back then and I you know people would approach me at the medium so so Lindsay um what do you speak about and I go you know what I'm actually just a public servant you know one day I want to be a speaker well eventually in the year 2000 I set off on that journey and and so many members back then served me by helping me by giving him the information by sharing by guiding me that I I benefitted immensely and what I've done with that organization since is I served as the my local chapter president in Brisbane Queensland and then I serve as the the national president in Australia in 2006 2007 and then in 2009 2010 I served as the International president and and by serving and helping other people and I have received so much back and so in terms of a relationship find a way to serve someone so when we go to the next break what I want you all to do is I want you to go and talk to someone you never met before and you're going to focus on them 100% not you you're going to find some common ground and you're going to listen carefully to what they do and think about how could I serve this person maybe you know someone that they need to meet maybe you know something that you could share with them maybe you've read a book that they you know that they would benefit by reading and so it's really about finding the mutual outcomes so there it is ladies and gentlemen there's the finished product this is probably about two months after we moved in this is the kind of the the formal end that's the front door of the house it's a boomerang shaped house I don't know whether you concentrate on the plan at all but you can see you know the bare basics are there with we're living we're living in the house got some grass we're setting up the gardens and and it's all pretty much go so literally that house I built by relationship and and it was only after looking back in retrospect that I understood what I did and have a look at this this is the final approval sticker from the Pine River Shire Council the council area in which I live and look at this it's quite interesting isn't it that it says permit number inspection date look at that 16th of July 1993 inspection type final there's the signature of the the building inspector and look at his comments that's amazing Wow look at that he's advice to you if you want to build a house or better still if you want to build a relationship you want to further your career in your office you want to build your business you want to increase your share in your marketplace then here's what you're gonna do are you going to go to a seminar are you going to read a book or will you follow the three simple tools of relationship building tool number one focus on them 100% not you tool number two find the common ground and tool number three look for ways to serve ladies and gentlemen I wish you well in your journey in your relationship construction journey you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 22,341

Rating: 4.8466454 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, New Zealand, Design, Community, Relationships

Id: Dfm2s5rZa6k

Length: 19min 48sec (1188 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 02 2015