1 Million Pages

Much of business involves inducing people to do what we want them to do. Whether it is to sign a proposal, return a call, set up an appointment, provide information or pay a bill, we are constantly nudging.

In business, to exist you must persist. But what happens if your nudgee is flat-out unresponsive? Can you still advance your agenda?

In many cases you can. Execute a classical Poingo inversion, top it off with a half-gainer and a solid plant at the end, and you’ve got your deal.

In English that means to look for opportunities to invert the situation wherein the inaction, rather than the action of your nugdee prompts the furtherance of your cause.

Your answer may be a self-serving letter or email. Example:

Your customer ordered a load of snipe bracelets, but now that you have them and are ready to deliver, you can’t get a returned phone call. After a few attempts, move into self-serving mode.

Leave a phone message, followed by a letter and an email which essentially says this:

Self Serving Message (paraphrased)

“Hello my esteemed customer, bringer of light and feeder of my children. I have spent a few seconds of my unworthy life calling to bring you excellent news about the arrival of your magnificent snipe bracelets.”

“Alas, all which has occurred to date is that I have has the distinct pleasure of hearing the music of your voice on your voicemail machine.”

“But now I must plan on your behalf, to ensure that your valuable merchandise arrives in time for the upcoming “Accoutrement’ de Snipe” convention. I will take it upon myself to defend your interests, my friend, and deliver your valuables this Friday at 3PM.”

“If for any reason you need to modify this plan, please call me before end of day Thursday so I can best meet your expectations.”

Sucking Up
You may have noticed a certain Alladin-like obsequiousness to this message. Good catch! You are basically ramrodding your customer. At least be nice about it. Remember what Mary Poppins said about the spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down. Frame your actions within a context of the customer’s best interest.

Multi Media Approach
Remember, I suggested a call, a letter and an email. Each additional medium of communication reduces the ability of your customer to ignore you. Where appropriate, you may also use smoke signals and carrier pidgeons. Tatoos on prominent body parts can also be effective.

Don’t Hurt Yourself
Use self-serving communications sparingly. Even more important, don’t overreach:

“Hello my most wonderful customer whose radiance shares the skies with the great deities while his feet bless the Earth with their touch. I surmise that in your greatness you may have overlooked signing the contract I have humbly offered”.(so far, so good)

“Knowing that you will soon be wanting the 7 shipping containers filled with the finest New Zealand Kiwi fruits we discussed, I am ordering their placement on the next barge coming your way. They will be nicely ripe when they arrive. I am confident that when you inhale the fragrance of these delicacies, you will immediately sign the contract and accept delivery.”

It’s easy to break agreements. It is especially easy to blow off agreements when you feel overwhelmed and overworked.

After all:
You have way more work to do than time to do it in.
You keep putting off important tasks in order to put out fires.
You don’t have the information you need to complete the task at hand.
You have a large stack of business cards you collected while networking.
You have no idea how to prioritize the multiple tasks you face every day.

One form of self-discipline to solve this common dilemma is to commit to ONLY MAKE AGREEMENTS THAT YOU ARE WILLING AND INTEND TO KEEP!

Just doing this can keep you out of lots of trouble.

1. It means you must stop automatically agreeing to do things.

2. Instead, you must take time to think through any agreement you make.

3. Don’t say “yes,” say “MAYBE.” Then say, “I will let you know in (15 minutes, 24 hours, or ??) after I check (the availability, my schedule, etc.) This time agreement is one you must keep.

4. Think about your priorities and resources, including time, energy and money before you decide whether to make the agreement.

5. Make your decision. It should be yes, no or an alternate proposition that takes what you need into account.

6. Communicate your decision within the agreed time period.

7. Now, make an agreement you are definitely willing to keep.

8. Keep whatever agreement you make.

9. If you encounter something that makes it impossible to keep your agreement, don’t wait. Communicate about the need to change your agreement at the earliest possible opportunity.

10. Renegotiate a new agreement, repeating your original decision making process.

When you think through your agreements BEFORE you make them, it becomes much easier to stay on target, follow through and achieve success.

Copyright 2004-2006 Laurie Weiss Ph.D.

When being polite and understanding gets you nowhere, you may be trying to cooperate with a bully. It simply won’t work. You must start by giving him a reason to listen to you.

“He didn’t refund my money. I’ve called three times and actually spoke to him once, and he agreed that I was entitled to a refund. He explained that his bookkeeper was on vacation and told me she would issue the check when she returned. He has not respond to my emails at all since then and I have sent 5 or them in the last month. I don’t know what I should do now.”

After questioning this highly ethical, hard working professional, I learned that the original payment had been made with a credit card.

“Have you thought about reporting the problem to the credit card company?”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that. I don’t want to get him into trouble. I would rather resolve the problem with him directly.”

She was determined to be nice about the situation. It did not occur to her that he apparently had no intention of refunding her money.

My client made the mistake of believing that everyone is as ethical and responsible as she is. She is using tactics that would work well to resolve a problem if someone asked her for a refund. Those tactics are obviously not working here.

It’s hard for her to imagine how differently someone else can approach the world. Some people play by an entirely different set of rules.

Sharks, opportunists or bullies or whatever you choose to call them just don’t care about cooperating-that is they don’t care about playing a game where everybody wins. What they care about is that they win. It doesn’t matter what happens to anyone else.

If they can manage to avoid you, they have no reason to solve a problem with you-they don’t even see it as their problem.

Mathematical research* shows that if you want to win, or at least not lose, with an opportunist, you must seize the initiative and command attention. Sometimes you need to use tactics that are distasteful to you.

Once the bully experiences being confronted, s/he may start to behave cooperatively again. Then your original tactics may work-but only AFTER the bully has shown evidence of cooperating.

The ethical professional recognized that this bully had completely ignored her approaches. She decided that complaining to the credit card company might get his attention and was her best current alternative.

*”The Evolution of Cooperation” Axelrod

Copyright 2006 Laurie Weiss, Ph.D.

When I was 15 years old, I found a book on body language. I purchased it because I wanted to read something on a train journey that I was taking that day. I read the book with some fascination.

Later, during the day, I struck a conversation with an elderly Irish clergyman, in the dining car. He was amazed when I told him that I could tell what he was thinking and feeling. He challenged me. And for the next 15 minutes, I told him what his passing moods were.

I laughed when he asked me if I were psychic. I explained to him that a person reveals his inner life by the way he moves his body. There is a language that one can read if you know the symbols. I spent a fascinating time revealing the secrets to him. He said that he would find the information very useful in counseling and advising people.

Today I still find the study of body language interesting. It is useful in getting to know anyone and helps in communicating with them. I suppose it can be used for sales, negotiations, relationship building, and any other kind of human interaction. I find it useful in getting a psychological profile on someone without my asking.

To illustrate my point, I will talk about confidence. How can you tell if someone is confident? Also, if you learn the language of body confidence, you can project an air of confidence and actually become that way.

Here are some traits of the confident person. By the way, you will be pleasantly surprised to find that you knew this already, but just had not put it together into an entire pattern.

Speech. A confident person is spontaneous in their speech. They speak without hesitation, and often with a great deal of enthusiasm. They also tend to be charming and entertaining.

Eyes. A confident person establishes more eye contact and has longer eye contact than someone who is nervous or bashful. They rarely blink, although this is not always true.

Hands. Hands usually gesture outwardly, away from the body, as if seeking to push or change the surrounding air around him. Internally, this signifies that the confident person has a belief that he or she can positively influence people and events. A common gesture, when sitting, is to steeple or taper the hands, so they resemble a church steeple.

Face. Usually the expressions on the face are in line with the flow of the conversation. If it is bantering, the face looks as playful as a child’s face. If it is serious, the expression is stern and determined.