Last week, I was privileged to be asked to speak to a group of aspiring entrepreneurs embarking on a 10-week course called StartUp Quest. Each team in the course is assigned an actual patented technology supplied by a Florida university and prepares a business plan to pitch to an investor panel.
The course is well-designed and very detailed, so my goal was simply to provide a way to keep everything they will learn in the proper perspective. I told them I would destroy a harmful myth, suggest the right mindset for success, and equip them with a mantra to discipline their approach.
The myth
The myth that entices and destroys most entrepreneurs is the one that says if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.
Thousands of would-be millionaires have taken this literally: mousetraps are the single most-patented devices in history. The first important patent for mousetraps was granted to William Hooker in 1894, and then it was slightly improved by John Mast in 1903. Since then, the US Patent office has granted over 5,000 patents for new mousetraps, of which about 20 have made any money—and the original version still outsells all others combined by 2 to 1!
This may be because not one of those 5,000 designs made any improvement that customers would pay for, or because not one of the 5,000 inventors figured out a way to sell the value of their innovation. Either way, it is a failure of selling, not of technology. I reminded them what Peter Thiel said: “If you’ve invented something new but haven’t invented an effective way to sell it, you have a bad business—no matter how good the product.”[1]
If you want to be an effective entrepreneur, you must eradicate the myth that the product is the main thing. Don’t get me wrong: you still need a better mousetrap, but that’s only half the battle. Life is not like a Kevin Costner movie: if you build it, they won’t come—unless you sell the hell out of it.
The mindset
Destroying the myth is not enough; even if I convinced every one of the 90 people in the room that they had to put just as much thought into the selling process as into the technology, selling is not something you learn overnight. Those of us who make a living selling professionally know that it takes more than “natural talent” and that there is a wide range of skills needed to be consistently successful. That said, the quickest way to learn to sell is to first adopt an outside-in mindset.
As they strive to build their businesses, they must keep in mind that the most important asset they need to acquire and grow is not technology or people—it’s customers. Rather than starting from the technology and projecting forward, they have to start from the customer and work backward. They have to ask: Does the customer have a mouse problem?
That means they have to learn to think like their customers. Customers don’t care what their product does; they care what the product does for them. The best way to answer that question is to approach their strategy, their marketing and design from the point of view of what will make their customers’ lives better: solve a problem, take advantage of an opportunity, adapt to change, or contain a risk.
The mantra
An outside-in perspective is a great place to start from, because it’s essential to understanding the needs of the only people who count: those who will be willing to pay money to fill those needs. But understanding is useless until you can effectively communicate how you will do that.
As they carefully craft their business plans and put together the presentation for their investor pitch, it’s easy to get carried away with unnecessary detail that clouds their central message. They have only one shot where they have the full attention of the people that matter, so they’ll need ruthless discipline to make every word count.
The critical filter that strips away clutter is the essential mantra of persuasive communication:
SO WHAT?
By applying SO WHAT? to every slide, every visual, and every word that they put in their investor pitches, they answer the single most important question in the minds of every single listener. When the panel has to sit through nine pitches of varying quality, the one who best addresses what matters most to them will shine through—I’ve seen it in every one of the previous competitions.
When I had finished speaking, one of the participants asked a question that exposed the fundamental flaw in my whole talk. She asked, if everyone in the room was going to apply the principles I had talked about, how could her team be sure of winning? My simple answer to that question is the topic of my next post.
[1] Peter Thiel, Zero to One, p. 130.
One of the oldest ideas in selling is WIFM, or “What’s in it for me?”[1] It’s a great reminder that you should frame your persuasive message in terms of the other person’s self-interest. WIFM is enormously useful in persuasive communication, because it puts you into the outside-in thinking frame of mind, and forces you to consider your product or idea from the perspective of the person whose agreement you want. I love the idea of WIFM, and have used it for over two decades in my training classes.
But WIFM has limits; it does not always work, and it sometimes can even backfire on you, as illustrated in this story that Chip and Dan Heath tell in their book, Made to Stick: a marketer was testing messages to help sell a fire safety educational film to firefighters. He first asked fire units if they would like to review the film for their educational programs, and the replies were enthusiastically positive. Then, he asked them if they would prefer a popcorn popper or a set of steak knives for reviewing the film. The general response was “Do you think we’d use a fire safety program because of some #*$@! popcorn popper?!”[2]
The problem is that we are often wrong about others’ motivations. Clearly, people do consider their own self-interest when they make choices or decisions, but research has shown that we overestimate to what extent. First, consider your own motivations: how often do you consider other factors besides your own self-interest when making a decision, such as whether it’s good for the company you work for, or it’s just the right thing to do? Next, ask the same question with regard to others.
Chances are, the answer to the second question was much higher than the answer to the first. As to ourselves, we know that our motivations are a mixture of narrow self-interest—extrinsic rewards—and intrinsic rewards such as feeling good about ourselves, doing something worthwhile or meaningful, personal growth, etc. But when we think about others, we overestimate their reliance on “selfish” extrinsic rewards.[3]
This is not about logic vs. emotion, although that does tie into it. It’s about what behavioral economist Richard Thaler calls “bounded self-interest”—there are limits to WIFM. It is not the only driver of decisions.
So what? How does it affect our persuasive approach? We may leave a lot of motivational oomph on the table when we over-rely on WIFM. We use the hammer of WIFM to nail down measurable personal benefits, while ignoring other paths to agreement. We hang out at the lower levels of Maslow’s pyramid when there are better benefits and reasons at the higher levels of belong, esteem, and self-actualization. Higher levels of motivation bring powerful emotions on board, which help with commitment and not just compliance.
It’s not time to get rid of WIFM, but it’s a good idea to add other tools. The first is WIFU, or “what’s in it for us?” Many people will do things for the good of the group they belong to, even when it carries a personal cost to themselves. Asking this question in addition to WIFM, will enable you tap into higher motivations. And, even if the other person’s real motive is self-serving, you can at least give them cover to help them rationalize their decision to others.
You can also appeal to how they see themselves. If you can tie your idea to a higher purpose, perhaps their personal or corporate values, or to their professional identity, you can make them not just better off, but proud. How can you make it the kind of decision that the other person would be proud to go home and tell his family about?[4]
Besides our mental bias of overestimating others’ cynicism, I believe we over-rely on WIFM because it’s easier. It’s easy and socially acceptable to have a conversation with someone about their economic and business motivations, but it’s hard—and potentially risky—to dig deeper into their personal motivations. It’s easy to assume that someone in procurement, for example, is motivated mostly by price discounts; what’s hard is to understand him or her as a real person with fears, emotions, aspirations and pride.
But in order to go beyond WIFM effectively, you need to change your conversations and your questions, to try to either specifically find out what drives the other person, or to tease out their intrinsic motivators. If you think you haven’t yet earned the right to ask such personal questions, listen carefully for hints in their conversation, and then probe further into those and steer the conversation in that direction.
I am definitely not recommending that you drop WIFM from your persuasive toolkit; it’s probably still the most important tool you have. But, as the Heaths say, “Always structuring our ideas around self-interest is like always painting with one color.”
Go beyond WIFM—and tap into the rich rainbow of human motivation.[5]
[1] Purists call it the WIIFM.
[2] Made to Stick, Chip Heath and Dan Heath, p. 187-188. P.S. I just realized this is at least the third time I’ve used this example in my blogs; maybe it’s time to find another?
[3] Perspective Taking: Misstepping into Others’ Shoes, Nicholas Epley and Eugene M. Caruso.
[4] This is not just a sales idea; it’s a fundamental leadership idea. I highly recommend Why Pride Matters More than Money, by Jon R. Katzenbach.
[5] Heath and Heath, p. 191.
So far in this series on lean listening, we’ve seen how the second conversation in our heads can be deployed to help us rather than hurt us, and how to use it to listen for value. This article shares ideas on how to use the second conversation to help us cut through the clutter and reduce waste. We do this by listening for the main point, making the logic and language transparent, and filtering out the irrelevant.
Listen for Organization: What’s the Point?
How many conversations do you participate in where you feel like you’re on a hunt for buried treasure? Under a torrent of words, you know there’s a point in there somewhere, and you hope it will show up soon. If your conversation partner is practicing lean communication, they will put the bottom line up front for you, but if not, it’s up to you to figure out their main point as quickly as possible, because having it makes the rest of the listening process fall into place. Not knowing their main point makes it hard to distinguish the relevant from the irrelevant, or the important from the merely interesting.
So, your main listening task is to identify and gain agreement on the main point as quickly as possible. Ask yourself if you’ve heard the point, and if the answer is no, ask. Do they want something from you? If you haven’t figured out their “ask” in the first thirty seconds, ask them: What do you need from me? Why are you telling me this? If they won’t tell you, be on your guard.
Listen for Transparency
Next, do you understand the logic and the language of what they’re saying? Logic refers to spotting the structure of the other’s argument. A clear logical structure makes it much easier to spot gaps, inconsistencies, and irrelevancies.
If the other person is communicating lean, following their logic should not be a problem, but if you can’t spot an underlying pattern, you can help the other person communicate more clearly to you by asking them for the structure that you prefer. For example, most business proposals fall into either a problem/solution structure or an investment opportunity (and they’re not mutually exclusive). If you can identify which of these applies, you can trot out your own mental template to help slot the incoming information in its proper place. For example, if they’re proposing something to solve a problem, listen for these four main areas:
What’s the nature of the problem: is it described accurately, are the root causes clearly understood, and what are the consequences of not solving it now? What criteria will they use for a solution? What alternatives have they considered? What are the advantages of their recommended solution?
As to language, there is so much room for misunderstanding in ordinary conversation, but we often don’t ask for clarification because we think it might make us look slow or ignorant. Don’t let your ego get in the way of effectiveness; make it a practice of asking for clarification or definition, or a concrete example of an abstract term. If you can’t picture it, you may not understand it—and often they may not either. For example, if someone says they want to improve quality, ask them to describe the gap between what is and what should be, or get specific examples of customer complaints.
Listen for Waste
Once you have identified the main point, it will make it easier for you to organize and classify the incoming information. You can apply the Four-I test: concentrate on identifying the integral and important information, enjoy the interesting without getting too distracted by it, and ignore the irrelevant. You should mentally ask yourself “So What?” periodically to ensure that what you are hearing contributes to the purpose of the conversation. Once again, you are perfectly within your rights to ask the question out loud (as tactfully as you think you need to be), to ensure that the content of the message is aligned with the purpose.
In the previous post, we said that lean listening is about listening for lean—paying close attention to the elements of the conversation that add value and minimize waste. This article focuses on the value part of that equation.
The thing about listening for value is that most of us are already pretty good at listening for value in conversations—as long as it’s our value. But in persuasive business conversations, there are usually two other parties that could potentially benefit: the other person, and the larger purpose.
Value in lean communication is defined as communication that improves outcomes for one or both parties while respecting the relationship. In lean communication, value can be added by one party, or jointly created by both. Listening is crucial either way, but especially so for the joint creation of value. It’s the key to getting the best thinking out of all parties in the conversation, first by allowing you to ask questions that dig deeper into the situation, and second by making it safe for the other person to bring up thoughts they might have kept to themselves. And, by involving the other person in whatever is agreed to, it makes it more likely that they will follow through.
You may recall that one of the tests of lean communication is who did the work. For example, the speaker may dump a mass of details and expect the listener to make sense of it. But lean listening does not care who did the work—just that the work gets done. In a conversation, you should take more than 51% of the responsibility to ensure that value is created, even if it’s you who has to do the work for the other person.
This 51+ rule means that if you are the one presenting the idea, you need to pay close attention to how the idea is being received, and whether you are getting active commitment rather than passive acquiescence; if you’re unsure, don’t hold back from asking questions to ensure the level of agreement you’re getting. If you’re the listener, listen for the question: what do you want me to do and why? If a question is asked, did you or they answer the question?
You can extract more value by taking positive control of the second conversation. If you don’t take control, your second conversation will default to looking for and noting negatives, such as differences between you and the other person, or obstacles that stand in the way of getting what you want. Try to listen actively for intersections of your interests and theirs. If your individual differences seem to be too far apart, listen for a higher purpose that you both can support, such as a specific value or goal of the organization.
Remember that value is defined by the customer, which in lean communication means the person you are speaking with. But the customer is not always right, because what they define as value may not be what is best for them or for the larger purpose. So, besides listening carefully for their view of value, you must always be on the alert for signals that indicate additional chances to add or create value. It’s like driving: your eyes are fixed on the road ahead, but your peripheral vision is alert for signs of unexpected danger.
In conversation, these signs fall into two categories: intentions and obstacles. Intentions are where they want to go, such as their plans, goals, desired future states, and values. Obstacles are elements of the situation that hinder their realization of intentions, and they fall under four general categories: Problems, Opportunities, Changes, and Risks (POCR).
They may not be explicit in these, or even be totally aware of them themselves, so listen carefully for the signs of value; it’s amazing how much extra you can pick up if you’re alert for these. I once videotaped a sales role play in which the “buyer” revealed five potential intentions or obstacles in about thirty seconds. When we reviewed the tape, the seller had missed all five, and the buyer was not even aware of three of them that had come out of his own mouth! But what’s interesting is that when we reviewed the video and looked specifically for signals of value, they popped right out.
All this may seem like a lot to remember, so here are just two questions you should have in mind to help you listen for value:
- How can I help?
- What can I learn?
If you keep these questions involved in your second conversation while listening, you are almost guaranteed to improve outcomes for all parties concerned; and you will definitely respect the relationship at the same time.
