YouTube video by Adam Bensman (the Roof Strategist) offering a practical technique for redirecting politically charged conversations with customers without damaging rapport or losing sales. He frames political remarks as a sign of trust, shares a personal anecdote about deflecting a heated exchange with a lateral "speaking of" segue, and gives a simple behavioral script to change topic and preserve the relationship.
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We're going there. What do you do when it turns political? And usually correct me if I'm wrong. These political conversations are initiated by a homeowner only after you've been invited inside, built rapport, created a friendship, they've offered you coffee, and now that you're relating as friends, they make the assumption, well, everybody's just like me and therefore shares my political views. And they begin spewing their political agendas with an emotional passion that makes you want to crawl out of your skin to because you feel the polar opposite. And you're stuck because you have one of three choices. Choice number one, you play pure chameleon mode, violate your own values and morals and pretend to be just like them, even though in your heart of hearts you know that you're not, but you're just trying to save the deal. Not a good choice. Choice number two is you share your opinion, which basically means you're gonna throw a grenade right in the kitchen table and blow this deal to smithereens. Or number three, where you just try to skirt the conversation and bring it back, but you've got really awkward deer in the headlights look on your face, which basically screams to them, I don't agree with you, and will later cost you the deal once they send you out of the house by saying, thanks for coming out. We'll call you in a few days if we're interested. Now, this video is for you regardless of what end of the political spectrum you lie. Quite frankly, I don't care. What I care about is how you treat other human beings and specifically your customers, which is a great introduction. Welcome, welcome back. Adam Bensman here, the roof strategist. And speaking of taking care of your customers, my mission is to help you and your team smash your income goal and give every customer an amazing experience. That's what it's all about. Because money is just a thank you note for us to serve and receive thank you notes back. And I don't know about you, but to send me a thank you note can come from anybody. I don't need to be on the same page on everything. In my heart of hearts, all I care about is helping good people who are value driven live their life by a sound set of morals and principles and are dedicated to being of use and serving others. So for me, I have to check my emotional baggage that's associated with my political views in order to be of service in the highest degree possible, and I encourage you to do the same. But you are your own being and get to decide what makes Sense to you. I'm just sharing my view. So in this video, I want to share with you a really simple technique that I learned on how to take this conversation once it goes political, which, by the way, is it's a seemingly good thing because it means that they like you, they trust you, and they feel like you're a friend, because people assume that their friends are just like them. So it is a good sign. But we don't want to throw the grenade into the kitchen table and lose a sale. So I want to teach you this technique, and you're going to be able to use this the very next time a conversation gets thrown off the rails, whether it's politics or something else. So here it is. True story. I'm out on a hike the other day. Neighbor and I run into each other. He's become a good friend. We first met. We walk our dogs on the same trail in the mountain. We kept seeing each other. It turned into a sound friendship. In fact, I just finished a hike in the snow. We went over to his place. We were watching the playoffs game right before the Super Bowl. We had a blast. And we never talked politics. But on our last hike together, it turned political. And I knew it did when he made a very charged comment. And that charged comment I quite didn't agree with, frankly. But I knew that getting into that dialogue and sharing, when someone's that, like, emotionally charged, almost to the point where they're using derogatory names towards another group of people and not quite that extreme, but you get the idea. When it's like there's that much umph in it, you're like, I'm not going to say anything that's going to change your perspective. So how do I reel this back? So I waited, and I'll share this story and you'll see the message and we'll tie it back together. I waited. I let him kind of continue. I'm like, I don't even know what to say. And he literally said to me, this is where I made the third mistake. So I told you you had three options. Option one, agree even if you don't. Option two, combat it head on. Or option three, you just are, like, kind of quiet. And they can tell. Well, that's what happened. It was option was quiet. And he goes, well, I can tell you don't share those views. And I didn't know what to say because at first I was like, if I share my views, then we're just going to end up in this. You're right. You're right, you know, total, no one's going anywhere. But quite frankly, I'm rather open on my political conversations. I'm like, I don't think things are black and white. I'm going to leave it at that. All the big topics, it's not this or that, there's a whole story. And I like to look at things a bit more holistically rather than black or white. And I start having this conversation a little bit and I can tell, you know, this really isn't going to go anywhere great. So I let him go on and I just waited. I'm like, I got to figure out how to get out of this thing. And he goes on and on and on and on. And he's talking about the system. And I was like, there's my moment. So I found an appropriate way where I could kind of casually interject. And I said speaking of the system, which he just meant like the man, the operation, the system. I don't know, I totally changed the subject. I just, I had a story about my sister in law and something that came up and it was about the system. And I was like, speaking of messed up systems, let me tell you this. And I just completely shifted it away from politics on a personal experience that she was going through. And it was just like a lateral move. And then before I knew it, I'm sitting there thinking to myself, did he pick up on that? Was that okay? And five, ten minutes goes by and the conversation naturally evolved and it was like it never even happened. And it was so beautiful. And the coolest part is that it was we were able to artfully dance this topic that's like, listen man, we can, we can be buddies, we don't need to agree on everything, but like, let's just get away from it a little bit. And it was so, so light. And that's why I wanted to share this video with you because I wish I had known that earlier. So here's the takeaway of this strategy. So you can use this the next time it comes up and it goes like this. Speaking of. And then just grab something that they shared and even if it's not related, change the subject to a completely different story. Have fun with it, you got literally nothing to lose. Speaking of the system, man, let me tell you about what happened to my sister in law. And then I just told a story about some system. So speaking of, grab something they said, change the topic. And now my friend, you have a tool that I wish I had decades ago to jump me out of those conversations. But before we wrap it up, just remember these political conversations are a good sign. Means they like you and they feel like you're a friend. So learn the art of dancing around this topic and then carry that friendship on so you can earn the business. Hey, that's all for this video. But just because our time here is about to wrap up does not mean you're in. My time has to. So if you haven't jumped into that free training center yet, click right here. Here. Or if you want to hang with me on YouTube. YouTube thinks you're really going to like this video, and we'll see you soon.
