I Want To Be Different From Everyone Else Out There.

Three blogs in draft mode have been circling the planet for the last two+ months.  Have you seen them in the night sky?  Those are my contributions to the clutter of the iCloud.  Which one gets the nod?  Which of them will have the greatest impact?  Which one exhibits the most passion for the present moment? Answer:  NONE.

As I readied my keyboard to cross the finish line on one of those gems, I received the following from a client:

“The value for me (in learning the Modern Sales Conversation) is that it allows me to sound different from every other sales professional that is ’knocking on their [client’s] door’.  It elevates me to a different level.  It keeps me on track for what I’m curious about; it allows me to give them the power to set their agenda.  They’re more likely to show up and be co-creative because it’s about them.  The value is that it gives me more time in my day because I’m working on what they’re interested in, not something that they don’t really care about and I’m just pushing.”

YAAAAASSSSS!

That’s exactly the impact I hope for every client who engages with me, either in a corporate-sponsored group engagement or simply 1:1 coaching.  Selfishly, as a coach, when I get feedback like this I am over the moon with happiness.  For them, because they see the opportunity to show up bigger, better and in service of another. And for me, because in a small way, I had a part in being their witness, and urging the importance of accountability as a way to truly shift their behavior and ultimately see themselves and their world differently from here on.  

Horn tooting aside, the lessons here are simple:

1. You’ve got to want to be different.  It starts with you wanting more for yourself, the others around you, and your world.
2. Control what you can control.  While #1 might sound like a lot of the sign carrying and group-think jargon that is quite popular at the moment, I’m talking about focusing on what YOU can do for you and for others. NOT what others can do for you.  (Thanks to JFK for the inspiration here)
3. These popular concepts around the Modern Sales Conversation — like curiosity, empathy, active listening, compassion and equanimity — must be put into practice.  Real-world practice is the big step once our insights have changed, our motivations solved, and we’ve been exposed to the skills necessary to make changes to how we communicate.
4. Accept accountability to the process of changing our way of connecting and communicating with others.  Accept accountability to ourselves to make things happen in a timely fashion so we can actually see what results we are getting.
5. Making the change is freaking fun!  It’s certainly more interesting than the tired conversations we’ve been having for all these years.  People react differently to us when we show up with their best interests and agenda in mind.  We aren’t doormats, and we don’t have to believe in everything our counterpoint wants or believes in.  We just have to recognize it and understand its impact on them.

Present-day conversations aren’t really conversations at all.  We want to sell our ideas whatever they are and we go about it completely the wrong way.  We are just making demands of others, putting our agenda ahead of others and when we don’t hear what we want to hear, we either scream louder, making more demands, or we walk away declaring that our counterpoint is just a waste of time.  Nonsense.  There is so much wasted opportunity in the conversational universe right now to be different.  Stop asking for things.  Stop demanding things. Start considering what it’s like for the other.  You want to be different?  Then it starts with wanting to be different.  I dare you.

If you want to consider a different way to communicate with others; whether professionally or personally, I invite you to reach out and explore the possibilities with me.  What could your next conversation be like if your approach was to focus on their agenda first? Here’s a link to start creating that discussion right now!