You finish your pitch and the customer says "It's quite expensive"
"Your product is too expensive!" You arrive home you're a few minutes late
your partner says "You are always late" as a dirty play left on the table
"you never wash the dishes" what do you say in this moment most of you and me included went through 14 years of school where we were taught one way
to respond to questions teacher asks questions "how do you spell cats?" student "C A T" teacher: "what is the biological
process called osmosis?" student puts hand up explains in detail
the process through which cell membranes allow water to go from one side to the other so for 14 years you've been taught that you received it on answer to a question if you went to university you
probably had another 3,4 years where you gave answers to questions but in real life,
in persuasion in getting to what the other person is
really about, what their needs really are the worst thing you can do is give an answer to question if someone says
"your product is too expensive" and you said "no it's not!
it's only €1000" you've lost every chance to understand
what else is behind their reasoning if you get home and your partner says "you're always late!" "no no no! Tuesday I definitely was
here on time" you're gonna have a crap weekend you've had 14, if not 18 years
of training that you answer questions and it's going to cause fights in your home life
it's going to cause problems at work it means you're not selling anything because when someone says your product
is too expensive, that's not what their real issue is when someone says "I will have to speak to
my boss" that's not what their real issue is and if we had lots of time here I would
create a little role-play thing because what happens here in our model of the
human brain: the stem, emotion when your partner says
"you're always late" emotion goes up and what happens
this part disconnects the way to make someone stupider is insult them, object to them
tell them they are wrong
when asked a question there's an emotional reaction and higher emotion goes
the lower thinking goes so if you don't practice this response you're not going be able to
do it in the moment if you don't practice repeatedly
how you'll respond to "you're always late!",
"you never wash the dishes!",
"you never do your part of the share!" "your product is too expensive!",
"your competitor is better!",
"you failed us 3 years ago!" "I don't trust your company!" if you don't practice this habit of not giving an answer you're not going to be able to
do it in the heat of the moment so i would say this when you are asked a question or given
an objection what I want you to do is say "I understand" and repeat in your words what they're saying "your product is too expensive!" "I understand that money is an
important factor for you" "What other criteria will be
used in taking this decision?" You understand... ...and you give an open question back and I call this Conversation Aikido so, Martial Arts Martial Arts are about using the energy,
the force of the opponent against them in judo, if someone punches you pull their arm
and you allow the energy to keep
flowing In Karate… another thing In Aikido the concept is you
go towards the punch go towards the energy so if someone punches you
if someone asks you a question
if someone objects says you're wrong The Aikido method is go towards
and see the world from their view In Aikido you learn to go towards the
punch, dodge it, and look and you are seeing the world in the same direction as the person who's attacking you "I understand" It takes some habit to start to be able
to give "I understand" and fill in good words
so practicing "you're always late!" "I understand you feel frustrated"
"I understand you feel let down"
"I understand…" You will have to work on this quite a few
times over the next 10 years to find the set of words that captures what
the other person feels, what's behind it "What can we do now?" "What happened during the day?",
"What would you like to talk about?",
"What can we do this weekend?" so that is the way that instead of when you get punched, walking straight
into the punch, having a very bad weekend when a client says "you're too expensive!"
and you say "No we are not!" and you learn nothing about who else they are considering
what other criteria are important
what process they have gone through who else is involved in the decision I hope that, and this takes 14 years of it being drummed into you…
4 more, 18 if you went to university it's gonna take you at least 18
years to get out of the habit of responding to questions with answers we live in an uncertain world and
we don't have the answers but by giving the answer we shut down
the possibility of hearing what's really going on in the other person's mind
in the other person's business what other things are going on so if someone says
"your product is too expensive" "I understand that money is
an important criteria for you" "what other things are
important in this decision?" "I'll have to talk to my boss in this" "Hey, this is an important decision I
understand you want to get everyone involved" "When can I come and meet with you and
your boss together?" …that's a bit of a closed question… but the habit here is being good at "I understand" and accepting the energy that is coming from the other person and then giving back an open question and I guarantee that if you do it 4 times the answer to your 4th open question
begins to be what's the real underlying need issue, interest of the person
that you're listening to
