Video: Dealing with Objections

You finish your pitch and the customer says: “Your product is too expensive!”. You arrive home, you’re a few minutes late: your partner says “You are always late!”. At a dirty plate left on the table: “you never wash the dishes!”

What do you say in this moment?

How do you handle objections? It is possible to take proactive control of your emotional state. You can practice a habit of not reacting like a viper snake or a cornered bear. It will improve how you sell, it will improve how you manage… and it will improve the quality of your relationships.

Aikido Conversation

I posted a short video yesterday to my YouTube Channel explaining a concept that I teach in my class on persuasion: “Aikido Conversation”.

From: “What I want to say”

The most important step in persuasion is being able to leave behind “what I want to say” and move to what “they need to hear”. It requires emotional control that we don’t have as standard.

To: “They need to hear”

When someone gives you an objection, or accuses you of something – the real issue is underneath, not at the surface. If you react with what “I want to say” you will have a fight, you will lose the opportunity to understand what is really at issue.

How to deal with Objections

Transcript of the Video:

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”

At a dirty plate left on the table: “you never wash the dishes”

What do you say in this moment?

Most of you, and myself included, went through 14 years of school where we were taught one way to respond to questions:

Teacher asks questions “how do you spell cat?”
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 provided an 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.

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 is 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.

Emotion up, Intelligence down

and the 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:

Them: “your product is too expensive!”

You: “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. I call this “Conversation Aikido”

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… don’t be where the energy is arriving. In Aikido the concept is you go towards the punch, go towards the energy

If someone punches you, if someone asks you a question, if someone objects or 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!”: 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.

Photo Credit: Aikido Photo by RODNAE Productions on Pexels.com

50,000 views of Video “Improve Your Speaking”

The big news at YouTube: Whilst Psy’s Gangnam style is rapidly approaching 1 billion views, one of my uploaded videos achieved 50,000 views today.

50,000 video views today

Celebrating 50,000 views of my YouTube vid: 1 way, only 1, to achieve Excellence as a Speaker. http://t.co/3h4uH2Qh

— Conor Neill (@conorneill) December 5, 2012

The top demographics are: “Male, 45-54 years”, “Male, 35-44 years”, “Male, 25-34 years”

So, whilst Psy’s video Gangnam style is reaching 1 billion views, I am dominating the “Male, 45-54 year” category… hehe.

What is the Most Important thing you can do in the next 10 days to Improve Your Speaking?

Transcript of “Improve Your Speaking”

Thinking… What’s the most important thing you can do in the next 10 days to improve your speaking?

and for this Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book 3 years ago: “Outliers”, “Los que Sobresalen” [in Spanish]

What does it take to achieve World-Class?
What does it take to be truly Excellent?
As a musician?
As a sportsman?
As a speaker?

and he looked at multiple different cases…
Is it talent?

Do Irish people just have this inmate knack that they can be great public speakers? and people from Chile will never get there?
The answer is “No”.

What is it that leads to excellence?
in programming?

and the answer:
10,000 hours of practice.

No matter where you start from,
no matter how talented a kid was in school

it’s the kid that practices 8 hours a day that’s now playing as a soloist with the top orchestras of the world.

Leo Messi wasn’t born with a better right knee and a better left foot than anyone else in the world.

It’s what he chose to do every day after school
every weekend
that means he is where he is today.

The most important Commitment you can make to yourself …you can listen to all of this and if you don’t do this it’s a waste

so, as you are considering that €6,000 that you’ve mentally paid and you are thinking “how do i get a Return on Investment?”…

Every laptop comes with a webcam. I want each of you to decide that you’re gonna spend 3 minutes every day for the next 10 days.
You can call them workdays so you don’t have to do it at the weekend.
for 3 minutes every day, start a little program that records
and explain a product…
explain your CV…
explain your vision…
explain what is a good life…

One speech that i get my students in IESE to do towards the end “A Value You Would Share with a Child as the Basis of A Good Life”

So, Day 10 that’s your challenge… 3 minutes: your answer to “What value would you share with a child as the basis for a good life?”.

So, nothing I can do here is going to turn you into a great speaker. No amount of watching YouTube videos of Bill Clinton is going to turn you into Bill Clinton

No amount of reading is going to turn you into a writer
only by speaking… that you turn into a speaker

But there are people who are fifty five years old they’ve been in more than 10,000 hour’s worth of meetings and they’re crap at meetings; the 23-year-old who started yesterday is better at making meetings run effectively

So it’s not just about 10,000 hours…
it’s about:
deciding that it’s important
deciding you can get better
and the video allows you the feedback that you can watch and see

Here, there was a pottery class in the United States. Ceramics. Making pots.
And the teacher took half of the class and she said at the end of this term your grade will be given on the weight of pots that you create. Here is a weighing scales, at the end of the class whoever’s total production of pots weighs the most will get the highest grade; to the other half of the class she said you’ll be evaluated on your one most finished piece of pottery.

The group that were told “sheer weight”: what was their way of carrying on everyday?
They produced 5,6,7 pots
they tried random experiments
they tried weird things
they try different ideas
but their hands were on clay from the first moment.

The group that we’re told that they would be evaluated on the most finished pot
they read…
they thought…
they talked about concepts
they talked about philosophical ideas
they read more…
then went to galleries to look at other people’s pots
and the first time they touched clay was about 3 days before the end of the class.

All of the best pots were made by the group that focused on weight.

So, your way of being in the pottery group that was measured on weight is get the webcam going every day if you do it for 10 days you’ll get a lot better if you keep it going…

3 minutes doesn’t get you very quickly to 10,000 hours

10,000 hours…
8 hours a day is 5 years
4 hours a day 10 years
2 hours a day 20 years
but… we will all still be alive
20 years from now
even 30 years from now

Imagine.

if you set a target of really practicing, trying… trial…

and the greatest musicians when you listen to them practice: it’s horrible
when I play piano I play the pieces I know
the greatest musicians when they’re practicing are trying things they don’t already know. They are trying experiments, they are trying random things

So with the webcam don’t just give your perfect speech, try random things because no one else has to see it. It can be deleted rather quickly. but just be careful that no one gets to your PC while you’ve got all the silly ones left on the desktop

so the first Answer is…

This is a waste of time if you don’t decide to dedicate 3 minutes for the next 10 days to put into practice,
to experiment with some of the ideas.

Celebrating 50,000 views of my YouTube vid: 1 way, only 1, to achieve Excellence as a Speaker. http://t.co/3h4uH2Qh

— Conor Neill (@conorneill) December 5, 2012

Overwhelmed or Overloaded?

I hate the feeling of being overwhelmed. It tends to hit me about 2 or 3 in the morning. I wake and can’t fall back to sleep. I go through the motions of little bits of meditation, of focusing on breathing… but all for nothing. I am not going back to sleep. My inner battle is not going to give me peace. I get increasingly frustrated with myself in a vicious self-reinforcing spiral of emotional turmoil. Where is all the efforts I have put into finding myself, accepting myself here now at 3 in the morning when I really need it? What is the point of practicing techniques of mental discipline, of searching for peace of mind if these tools fail me when I really need them?

At this point, I get up, go downstairs and get to work on something.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed with all the work that remains to be done? Overwhelmed because too many things have become urgent all at once?

Overwhelm comes from over-thinking.

If I am in the moment, 100% focussed on the task in hand, I have no time to over-think – and I feel no overwhelm. When I am churning and multi-tasking, then my wheels begin to spin out of control and I over-think. I spend more time switching between tasks than I do focussing my attention at completing a task.

But sometimes the simple fact is that there is too much on my plate. I am not just feeling overwhelmed, I have also allowed too many responsibilities to fill my time. I need to say “No” to some of these tasks.

Everyone Must Learn to Code

When I was 9 years old, my father brought a Commodore Vic 20 computer home for Christmas. It came with 3k memory. It had a keyboard, a tape drive and it connected to a TV. I still remember sitting in my pyjamas and turning it on. As a child with nobody to tell me how I should or shouldn’t program, my first attempt was a paragraph in english describing a game. I was surprised when I reached the end, hit the return key and: “Syntax Error”.

The Vic 20 came with 2 books “Learn to Program BASIC I” and “Learn to Program BASIC II”. I went through these books by the end of January. It was more fun writing my own games than playing the ones that came with the computer.

I learnt maths because I needed binary to create sprite graphics. I learnt quadratic equations to solve for collisions in games. I learnt basic physics to create realistic missile flight. Maths in school was easy because I had already learnt it to serve my computer programming hobby.

Computer Programming saved me from boring school lessons

I never paid too much attention at school. It was generally boring. I spent a lot of time daydreaming. I would think through which of Superman’s superpowers would be most useful to escape the boredom of school. It was always a toss up between flying and laser eyes.

I was lucky. The traditional school environment was built for my style of learning. Exams tend to bring out my best performances. I was never good at the sustained effort. I am best in the hurried sprint to deadlines.

I used to read a lot. I had read the entire SciFi section of my local library before I was 10. I would take out my full quota of 6 books and read them in a week. I had whole collections of Dungeons and Dragons books. I loved Frank Herbert’s “Dune” (all 7 or 8 books). I loved Tolkien (LOTR, Hobbit).

Reading is great, but it is not an activity that allows the development of mastery. You can’t get “better” at reading after a certain point. You might be able to get a bit faster, but you don’t develop beyond basic reading in any significant way.

I loved sports, but was always a bit small so got pushed off the ball in football or relegated to wing when playing rugby. My younger brother was superb at any game with a ball, and there is nothing more painful to an older boy than being beaten by a younger boy in sport – even more painful when it is a brother… and the gap is 5 years.

Computer programming was my first world of mastery.

Computing is taught poorly in schools. We need a change in the role of computing and style of learning supported by computers in schools.

The Failure of Computing as taught in our Schools

Most school systems teach children how to use Microsoft Office. They teach students to be users of computers, not creators with computers.

A computer is not a car. We need people to know what is under the hood as well as knowing what the pedals do.

Programming computers is a wonderful environment for children to explore, test, trial, experiment, hypothesize, fail, succeed…

Programming taught me Important skills.

Any programming language is essentially the same. Java, PHP, C++, Basic, Python, Lisp… even Fortran, Cobol or Assembly code. Master one, you will quickly learn any other.

It teaches you to be clear. It teaches you how to trace and remove errors. It teaches you how to test. It teaches you how to think about systematically solving problems – not one-offs, but full systematic reproducible solutions.

As you grow you learn about building code that scales. Efficient use of memory. Efficient looping.

As you collaborate you learn to write code that can be easily understood by others. One half is good commenting, but the other half is using the clearest code to achieve the given outcome.

You learn how to isolate specific parts of the code to test for correct function.

You learn how to describe solutions to other people.

You learn how difficult it is to predict human behaviour. You learn that human beings will tend to do the unexpected. You learn that if it can go wrong, it will go wrong.

Everyone must learn to code

I do truly believe that I learnt more in my own self-guided programming of computers than in any classroom. The social stuff I learnt in the playground and through sports.

What were the teachers doing?

Keeping me off the streets.

10 Commandments for Business Development from Goldman Sachs

John Whitehead, co-head of Goldman Sachs in the 1970s, wrote the following 10 commandments that guided their business development efforts:

Don’t waste your time going after business you don’t really want.
The boss usually decides— not the assistant treasurer. Do you know the boss?
It is just as easy to get a first-rate piece of business as a second-rate one.
You never learn anything when you’re talking.
The client’s objective is more important than yours.
The respect of one person is worth more than an acquaintance with 100 people.
When there’s business to be found, go out and get it!
Important people like to deal with other important people. Are you one?
There’s nothing worse than an unhappy client.
If you get the business, it’s up to you to see that it’s well-handled.

Good list. What do you think?

I came across this list thanks to Mark Graham’s post over at The Entrepreneurs’ Organisation blog.

Jim Collins on the Writing Process

My favourite business books include Jim Collin’s “Good to Great“. It is easy to read, simple but clear about the hard decisions that differentiate the great companies from the mediocre. His new book, “Great by Choice” is out now. Jim Collins is renowned as someone who has intense discipline in his life. I loved when I found this text he wrote about his own process of writing:

Jim Collins on the Writing Process

Jim Collins

“When I first embarked on a career that required writing, I devoured dozens of books about the process of writing. I soon realized that each writer has weird tricks and idiosyncratic methods. Some wrote late at night, in the tranquil bubble of solitude created by a sleeping world, while others preferred first morning light. Some cranked out three pages a day, workmanlike, whereas others worked in extended bursts followed by catatonic exhaustion. Some preferred the monastic discipline of facing cinder-block walls, while others preferred soaring views.

I quickly learned that I had to discover my own methods. Most useful, I realized that I have different brains at different times of day. In the morning, I have a creative brain; in the evening, I have a critical brain. If I try to edit in the morning, I’m too creative, and if I try to create in the evening, I’m too critical. So, I go at writing like a two piston machine: create in the morning, edit in the evening, create in the morning, edit in the evening…

Yet all writers seem to agree on one point: writing well is desperately difficult, and it never gets easier. It’s like running: if you push your limits, you can become a faster runner, but you will always suffer. In nonfiction, writing is thinking; if I can’t make the words work, that means I don’t know yet what I think. Sometimes after toiling in a quagmire for dozens (or hundreds) of hours I throw the whole effort into the wastebasket and start with a blank page. When I sheepishly shared this wastebasket strategy with the great management writer Peter Drucker, he made me feel much better when he exclaimed, “Ah, that is immense progress!”

The final months of completing Great by Choice required seven days a week effort, with numerous all-nighters. I had naively hoped after writing Good to Great that perhaps I had learned enough about writing that this work might not require descending deep into the dark cave of despair. Alas, the cave of darkness is the only path to producing the best work; there is no easy path, no shorter path, no path of less suffering. Winston Churchill once said that writing a book goes through five phases. In phase one, it is a novelty or a toy; by phase five, it is a tyrant ruling your life, and just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public. And so, exiting the caving blinking in the sunlight, we’ve killed the monster and hereby fling. We love this book, and have great passion about sharing it with the world—making all the suffering worthwhile.”

My reflections

Writing is work. You have to push through. Every day. It doesn’t get easier.
I am a different person at different times of the day. I must use this better. I start days slowly. I am inspired at midnight through to 3am.
Sometimes throwing everything out is progress. It is not a step backwards.

What do you think? Do you write? What daily disciplines do you have?

Procrastination, a definition

3 criteria for a behavior to be classified as procrastination:

counterproductive,
needless, and
delaying.

Pro = forward

Crastinus = of tomorrow

By the way… blogging a definition of procrastination is clearly an act of procrastination. This week has been highly unproductive for me.

I hope you have a great weekend.

Maybe a past post on Self Disciplinewould be better reading?

How not to waste a life. The real responsibility of parents and schools.

This week we decided where my daughter will go to school – potentially for the next 15 years. I have spent a lot of time thinking about what criteria are important in selecting a school and this blog is a summary of 3-4 months of that reflection.

To Prepare One for Living

How do you best waste a life? Quite possibly the worst thing in the world is “what could have been” – the waste of human talent. How do parents or schools contribute to allowing a child to waste their potential, to live a stressed life, to be unable to connect to others, to constantly feel that there is “something missing” in their life?

I believe that we are the first generation that really doesn’t face any risks to our survival (other than the “run over by bus” end). We have endless choice and the perception of a classless, meritocratic society. There is a widespread assumption that financial, relationship, social success is because of the innate goodness of one or the innate poorness of another.

In a world where survival is pretty much guaranteed, what is required in order to thrive as a human being? In this blog post I want to think through the aspects that are most difficult to change later in life that are key to a fulfilling life – and argue that the role of parents and schools is to develop these habits during the 18+ years of early development and school.

What is the purpose of school? I will use some thoughtful answers from teachers at The Fischbowl “The purpose of education is to appropriately prepare our children for their future.” or “The purpose of education is to make the world a better place” and A teacher writes “to prepare one for a living”. One of my favourite bloggers, Seth Godin has a list of 27 objectives for school. My father says “its from the Latin, educare: to lead out”

I feel that these definitions leave out some important aspects – a better place for whom? For each child? For parents? For the wealthy patrons of government, banks and corporate? We can categorize thinking 5 levels to which schools could purport to be making the world a better place:

5 Levels of Purpose for School

To keep children off the street (conversely, to provide employment to teachers; or to give a few hours of peace to parents)
To prepare children to enter the workforce (to provide fodder for the robber barons, to create a legion of obedient wage earners)
To prepare children to be good citizens (to understand and follow the norms of civilized society, to not rob, cheat or otherwise make the world worse for others)
To assist human unfolding emotionally, socially, intellectually and physically
To develop the unique strengths of each individual and prepare them to thrive and have a fulfilling life

I think there are clearly examples of all five levels in place at all levels of formal education. We have university professors that see their role as a teacher taking them away from more valuable research time; Secondary school teachers who spend more time thinking about strikes and the unfairness of the unequal rises in private sector pay over the last quarter century. Exam systems that serve to divide children into passes (successes) and fails (destined to McDonalds) without looking to help each child get an ‘A’ in their own personal exam. Schools which develop students that are fantastic at following the 23 steps to get an ‘A’, but completely collapse when they come out into the real world where there is no clear set of steps to develop a career, life, relationship or social life.

I have seen some interesting stuff on how parents and schools can weaken their children’s ability to thrive by inappropriate praise over at NY Magazine, “How not to talk to your kids” (definitely worth a read for parents). Praise and coaching should be directed at aspects that a child has control over (hard work, solving problems, patience, working in a team, overcoming frustration) and not at things outside the child’s control (their looks “you are beautiful”, their intelligence “you are the smartest”).

The Habits of a Good Life

I think there are habits for a fulfilling life and personal competencies that are very difficult to change, and some that are much easier to change.

Easy to Change	Harder to Change	Hardest to change
Education Communications First impression Goal setting	Self Discipline (hard work, completing projects) Judgement (decisiveness, understanding consequences) Excellence standards Resourcefulness Likability Persuasiveness Stress management	Integrity Energy Passion Ambition Tenacity Intelligence Physical aspects (height, build, looks)

My answer is that school should serve to develop the human competencies that will be hard to change later on in life – and parents and teachers need to praise, coach and help children develop these disciplines. I will outline three that I now believe are key to the purpose of school:

Develop the discipline of hard work.

“The real happiness comes from the work you’ve put into winning. If it’s too easy, it means nothing to you.” Rafa Nadal

Nothing feels worthwhile without real hard work. Not what looks like hard work to others, but what you personally know is long-term, disciplined, difficult, challenging hard work.

Finish what you start (completer/finisher). Only start what you mean to finish (judgement).

Nothing is worse than a life lived with 100 half-finished projects. The hardest part of a project is the last bit – finishing it. Saying “this is it”, “this is me” is tough – but if I don’t get my projects finished I will continually be the guy who could have been.

Passion and Tenacity.

Jim Rohn has a speech called “The Ant philosophy” – ants will never quit – you put an obstacle in their way and they will search for another route… for as long as it takes. This is a great philosophy not just for ants, but for people as well.

We need it from our parents and our early school. It is incredibly difficult to change integrity, passion, energy, ambition and tenacity if we don’t have it nurtured during our early years (Aristotle viewed age 12 as the limit for really incorporating ethics and values).

We decided upon Betania Patmos for my daughter’s (potentially) next 15 years of schooling. I think I have said “you are beautiful”, “my princess”, and “you are so smart” at least 1000 times to my daughter in 2 and a half years… I hope my newfound wisdom and the support of the teachers at Betania Patmos can help my daughter overcome the challenge of having me as a father! (but she is beautiful, smart and my favourite princess!)