I annoyed a family member by talking too much about personal finance and offering unsolicited advice to them. They had their guard up and didn’t want to talk about it.
When I learned about Never Split the Difference, I used a label with them that went something like:
“It sounds like you don’t think there’s anything you could improve when it comes to your finances.”
and waited in silence for them to think and respond.
Their guard came down and we had a fruitful conversation about how they were just burnt out because they had tried approaches that didn’t work for them.
Prior to that conversation, I didn’t know that was the issue. I wasn’t demonstrating empathy through effective listening. I wasn’t using labels.
Yesterday, we covered what a label was, today we’re going to talk about the common pitfalls people run into when they start using labels.
Qualifying the label. When we talk about accusation audits I’ll explain more about why this can prevent labels from being effective.
“It seems like you’re upset, but it’s still a good deal.” doesn’t quite work.
It’s like someone telling you “I’m not going to sell you anything.” when you know they are.
Another coach had someone reach out to him about getting appointments with new prospects. They said they weren’t trying to sell him anything, but just wanted to give him a free strategy call.
He discovered that if you’re not ready to buy, you can’t actually schedule the strategy session. They were, in fact, trying to sell him something.
Not leaving silence for at least 2-3 seconds. If you can see them thinking, stay silent. Let them think, and respond.
Using run-on sentences. Long and complex sentences can sometimes be too hard to understand and require restating.
Using the incorrect tone. We’ll talk more about tone Monday.
When using a label, make sure not to qualify it, and leave a moment of silence afterwards.
I’ll see you Monday.
Josh
You can comment on this post, but if you respond to any of these emails, I won’t see your response. I am working on fixing that.