Positive Influence by Pacing and Leading – Small Business Show 225

The Small business show episode 225 for Wednesday, May 29, 2019. Greetings, folks, and welcome to the Small Business show here at BusinessShow Co, the show that is by, for and about small business. Sponsors for this episode include linode@linode.com SPS, where promo code SPS2019 gets you a $20 credit. I'm going to tell you all the things that you can do before you ever burn up that $20 credit in a short bit here. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And out on the West Coast, I'm Shannon Jean. How are you, man?

I'm good. Crazy. I realized how comfortable and automatic these podcast intros are for me when, while I was saying the intro, somehow I moved my mouse and it logged me out of my screen. Like it put on my screensaver. So I had to unlock the screensaver in order to. To play the sound at the right time. Yeah, it all happened. Yeah.

That's awesome. Nobody would have known.

I know. That's crazy.

Yeah, that's how it is. Most, you know, most people don't keep track. Most people can't follow along when you make your mistakes, right?

No. And it's true, right? Like, like, yeah, yeah. I often say, you know, there's a phrase out there, fake it till you make it. And I believe in that phrase, except that I define, in that phrase, I define making it as realizing that everyone else is also just faking it all the time. And.

Yeah, that's. That's good.

Right. And then you have confidence in what you're doing relative to everyone else, which is, it doesn't matter how you get confidence in yourself. You just have to have it and then you're good to go. And so there. There you go. Yeah.

Yeah. And we've talked about that on the show. And it's like, it's like if you're doing any kind of performance or speaking or whatever it is, you know, you're gonna stumble on certain things. But, you know, no one else but you knows that you made that mistake. And that's really important to remind yourself all the time as it will make you more confident in what you're doing. So.

Totally true. Yeah.

And sometimes those mistakes are actually can enhance what you're doing and can be an opportunity to, you know, interject some humor and, you know, kind of things up for, you know, everybody listens to people talk and presentations and everything else and, you know, to, to introduce some, I don't know, humanity into it can really humility Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really good. And you know, talking. Yeah, talking about, you know, presenting to people or working with people all the time. You know, we as small business owners are constantly persuading people and in a good way. And I thought we'd talk about persuading and in particularly a few tactics today, pacing and leading, that can really help you with your customers as well as your employees and vendors and that kind of thing.

It's true. And as kind of the parallel to your lead in here, it's worth remembering that when you're doing almost anything, especially when you're speaking in front of people, but even if it's just a one on one conversation, more often than not everyone is rooting for your success. Right. Like no one is sitting there in the audience saying, I hope he fails. Right. That's never what happens. And if you're talking to someone and perhaps selling something to them or whatever, like if they're listening to you, it's because they want you to succeed in showing them something that's going to make their business better or them happier or whatever it is. There rarely are people rooting for you to fail unless you're like, you know, playing on the other sports team or something. But, but other than that, you're, you know, everybody roots for everybody's success, at least at, you know, at a basic level.

Yeah, sure, Yeah, I think so. I think it makes it. No one, no one wants you to, to, to screw up, you know, and I, I think that as, as leaders and managers is what we all wind up being as, you know, along the way is becoming business owners. When you're working with people, whether it's members of your team, your employees, customers, vendors, you know, you have to find a way to create a connection between you and them that allows you to achieve a positive outcome. And it's not that you want to win all the time, as I think sometimes persuasion gets a bad rap in the sense of you're not trying to influence people negatively. Actually quite the contrary, you're trying to come up with a positive, whether it's a win, win situation. No, it's kind of a cliche, but you know, what you, what you think needs to happen and being able to make a connection and persuade someone and lead them to a conclusion is really important.

That's the key. That's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and you know, and I mentioned all the time, and I'm like a broken record, but I think one of the guys that has a, just a great take on this whole concept is Scott Adams and. And he about pacing and leading. And I'll give you a quote that I really like, is that, you know, he says pacing builds trust because people see you as being the same as them. After pacing, a persuader can then lead and the subject will be comfortable following. So let's break that down a little bit. You know, pacing does. It builds trust because you're connecting with people in. I think we all do it. We dress a certain way when we're going to different events. Right. If we know it's a more formal, you know.

Yeah, that's right. And by pacing, we mean putting yourself on the same track as the person that you're supposed to be persuading, for lack of a more politically correct term. Right. I mean, it is what we're doing, but, yeah, making them comfortable, making them feel like you're with them. Right. It's that whole, which side of the desk are you on? No, we're both together here. It's all fine. I'm the same as you. Yeah.

You can even see it among friends. And I mean, I can. You know, I have. I have a pretty broad spectrum of friends, and some of them are kind of the wine and cheese crowd, and some of them are kind of the beer. And I don't know what you'd combine with that, but the beer crowd.

Let's say pizza and beer crowd. Yeah, yeah.

Pizza and beer crowd. And I love both of those things. But I do notice that when I'm in those different crowds, I kind of. Okay, well, we're going to hang out this way and do this, and then the other ones, we're going to hang out this way and do that. And you connect better if you don't bring the pizza and beer person sometimes to the wine and cheese event. Right?

Yeah. No. Yeah, yeah.

And so I think you do it with vocabulary, really. You know, strongly talking and pacing the way someone's talking. And it also. Fundamentally, finding that commonality that you can both agree on is just a great example of pacing, especially when you know you're going to be into maybe working your way into some kind of negotiation or a debate. If you can first pace a person and come up with something you both agree with, you're going to have much easier time, you know, during that debate, during that negotiation, agreeing on something at the end.

Yeah. Because there's trust there. It's like, okay, well, yeah, I know we're not going to agree on everything, but. But it's clear we already are the same in that regard and.

Yes.

Yeah. And you. And it really, it's. It, it's a natural thing for us to do because we always, I think we always tend to want the other person to feel comfortable. Right. Like that. That's where pain sometimes. Yeah, sometimes I think it. Let me, let me, let me walk that back a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah.

Our natural inclination when we're amongst other people is to make them feel comfortable with us. That's our natural inclination.

I would say that. But I, I would agree with you that you are that way. I know I am that way. But I would say there's also people that negotiate and try to persuade by making you feel uncomfortable.

But that's an intentional thing. Right.

Okay.

I want to.

I see.

I want to separate our, our natural instinct. Right. From just. I want to make everyone comfortable with me to. Yeah, I am, I am strategically going to make you uncomfortable so that you, you know, sign this deal or whatever it is you're going to do. Yeah, right. Like that. And there, there's a, there is a totally a negotiation tactic that, that works that way. Many of them, in fact. But I think our, just as human beings, we naturally will do things to, to, you know, make. Assimilate ourselves into the flock, if you will.

Sure.

Right. You know, we, we are chameleons in that way at a very basic level. But of course we can strategically choose intentionally to, to not be that way in certain scenarios. But you can also strategically choose intentionally to be more that way and, and pick and choose. You know, how are you going to dress for this? How are you gonna. Like you said, how are you gonna talk? I find when I am talking with younger people, I use the word like a whole lot more. No, because they do. It's part of the vernacular. Yeah.

That's interesting.

It really builds that trust. And if you watch two, you know, 20 to 25 year old people, even 15 to 25 year old people speak like is a huge part of it. And it's just, it's a verbal tick, if you will, but it's a, it's a shared tick. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, that's, that's great. That's a great example. And I think that even along that lines, when you use those verbal cues to, depending on who you're talking to, it helps to build credibility with your audience. Right. And they are going to take what you say more serious and it becomes kind of more authentic because you're speaking to them the way that they're used to speaking.

That's it. Yeah, it's not so much a verbal tic. It's a verbal cue is what it is. Like, I am the same as you. That's right. Yeah.

And. And I think that as business owners in the small business context, we need to be actively doing this when we are working with our team, our employees and adjusting our vocabulary. And maybe. Okay, I'm not going to have the business owner hat on right now. I'm going into a meeting with my whoever and. And I'm going to sit with this group and they kind of have this. Maybe they're younger like you said, and I'm going to use these vocabulary words and I'm going to you to connect with them on that level. I think you have to raise it up from the subconscious to the conscious, or if you do, you don't have to, but if you do, I think you will have greater success because then once you are pacing and they're comfortable and they've kind of taken you into their tribe, if you will, even if it's just one person, you can then lead them to achieve, to get to a spot that you want to get to. And it, you know, sometimes I think it sounds like it has all these machinations and we're manipulating, but it's not that. It is a positive thing. But as a leader and as the business owner, you get to decide what that positive outcome is. Your goal, you know, what you want to achieve with your group, your team, that person, that employee. By using, you know, by pacing and then kind of leading them, you're going to have a much easier time getting to that result. And that person is also going to be happier getting to that result. There's going to be less, you know, kind of bristling back and forth, I think.

Yeah. And I'll. I'll put it another way. Just put it in context here. Yes, we are talking about doing this to manipulate people. And it's. It is what's happening. But what you're doing is you are fast tracking things. This is sort of how I think about it. And I'm fast tracking to build trust with these people. And yes, I may be manipulating them to build trust in me more quickly than it might otherwise take. But I know that in the end, either way, they're gonna trust me because I'm a trustworthy person. So, yes, I'm manipulating you, but really what I'm doing is saving time for both of us. I. I'm not here to screw you.

Yeah, you're not trying to take advantage of them.

I'm just Some time, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it really, that's really what this is about is just how, how can we get more quickly to the point where we've got, you know, this shared trust going back and forth. And I will say, as someone who is a natural pacer, a friend in high school, he called me this in a musical setting, but really it applies everywhere. He said, oh, you know, you're the chameleon. He said, you always fit in whatever scenario you're in. It's like, well, yeah, because I listen. You know, in music we call it big ears. Right. If you're playing music with people, it's much better to listen to what somebody else is playing than to play, you know, something of your own. It's like listen to them more than yourself. And that's true in this environment too. And it's to build that shared foundation so that you can move forward together and everybody just trusts everybody. But I will say, as someone who does this and is always working towards trust and assumed trust, if I am dealing with someone that is not trustworthy, that's actually where I get screwed. Because I assume the trust is there in people that maybe I should not assume that in. And I mean, you realize that and then you get out of it. Or I get out of it quickly. But I've gotten screwed a couple times because I, I always say people will see in others that which they see in themselves. Right. And, and so I, I really, you know, maybe this is tooting my own horn, but I'm a pretty trustworthy person. It's just easier that way. Certainly I could go around trying to screw people, but it's a short term gain. Yeah. You know, so it's just easier to just be the rock. Right. Somebody that you can trust. I have extended that trust in the wrong way to some people. I would probably do it over again, you know. Yeah, yeah, that's there.

I don't think there's any way to get around that.

No, there's no just because. Yeah, yeah.

And being, being trustworthy and connecting with these different groups, being able to connect with different groups, different people, whether they're customers, vendors, employees, and you are trustworthy. And if they do feel like you are working in everyone's best interest, they may not be, you know, 100% thrilled with the result. You know, if you're negotiating a salary for a person or let's say, a deal, maybe they don't, you know, you get, you, you've paced them, you've kind of led them to where you want to be. They may not be 100% happy with it, but hopefully they will understand it and go, okay, well I get that they have to make some money or they have to do this and I didn't get exactly the price I wanted, but we're close and we're going to do more business together because, you know, I enjoyed the process or something like that.

Yeah. Because everybody feels like they're getting something out of it. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah.

And that's that. And I think that's real important to, to understand is you're, you're kind of creating this circular process here because if you are, if you do pace and lead and it turns out neg really negatively for the other person. Well, there is no circular, you know, thing that's going to come back next time because next time they're going to be very suspicious. Right. And they're, they're not going to be on board with you pacing and leading them down the road because they're going to go, oh, I got screwed last time. This gu did this. So you, you need to be transparent and kind of show what you're doing while you do it. But it does take a little bit of finesse. But I think if you practice it enough, you can have some great success.

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So I wanted to bring up too, we've talked about this on the show a couple of times, this concept of the two tokens method of customer service. And this was John Louise guessay. Is that how you pronounce it? Former head of I think Apple Europe and he. And we'll link in the show notes and he wrote a great article about pacing and leading in this context, a little different. But his concept is that there is only two tokens when a customer service situation comes up and the one token is someone can take that says, well, this is really no big deal and I'm not going to, I'm not going to worry about it too much. And the other token is, oh my gosh, this is a huge deal and I'm really focused on it and I'm either upset, I'm going to take care of that kind of thing and you get to choose as a customer service person which token you take. So if you take the token that it's not a big deal by the way you're phrasing and talking to your customer and the solutions that you're coming up with. Well, they can only take the other token. Right, which is the big person has.

To take a token.

Yes.

You get to pick which one you take, which therefore defines which token the other person's going to take. So if you take the it's nothing token, guess you're in trouble.

That's right. You're in trouble. Yeah. And I think this is a great example of pacing and leading. I thought about it first. I thought it was a little contradictory to what I wanted to discuss today, but you really are pacing because you are kind of elevating things on your side to let the customer know, wow, this is a big deal for me. And the customers kind of, you know, coming along with you and going, oh, yeah, it is a big deal. They're thinking, it's a big deal. So I can. I can take a step back because someone else has taken this role and.

Well, if you think about it from a pacing standpoint, right. The customer is coming in. It's not really that there are two tokens. There is. When the customer walks in, it's awful. Right. Whatever complaint they have, they're already there. You get to choose whether you pace them or.

Yeah, there you go.

Whether you. Whether you disagree with them. Right. And. And, yeah. And go counter to their pacing. So. And. And to your point, right. Once you now are pacing them with the. Oh, yes, I agree. This is awful. You can actually go a little bit further on the it's awful scale. That's what Jean Louis GSE used to do. He used to say, great, we'll send you a box and a check. Just send us the compute. And they'd be like, whoa, yeah, no, no, slow down, buddy. And. And now you're slowing down together to a point where you know.

And.

And again, but you're still pacing the customer down. If you can get the customer all the way down to where they say, you know what? I didn't even need to walk in here. Nothing's wrong. Well, that's great. Most of the time, they're not going to go that far down, but you just follow them down to as far as they can go once they know you're with them. And it is. It's that two sides of the desk, right. Are you sitting together or are you sitting across from each other? It really. You're right. This is a classic example of pacing. It just seems like it's not because you're sort of this false. There's this strawman of this other token that doesn't exist. And if you try to make it exist, that's when you have a problem and you try to say, oh, it's nothing. Yeah, good luck with that.

Yeah, you've blown it. And I love that analogy of both sides of the table. The minute you, you know, if you accelerate it and, and you know, oh, wow, this is a big deal. We're going to get this taken care of. You know, I'm, I'm really focused on it. I'm, you know, whatever with you. Yeah, I'm with you on this. You've, you've gotten up and you've gone on the same side of the table with them, and they know, I think they, the feeling is, okay, like, to your point, Dave, we're going to get this solved together. And you can do that with everything. You can do it with, you know, your customers in customer service like this. You can do it with your employees because when you do a review or you're negotiating salaries or, you know, this kind of thing or trying to hire somebody, you can do it together. You don't have to be, you know, okay, I'm on this side, you're on that side. So I'm trying to get something in, in order for me to get it, you have to give something up. It doesn't need to be that way. And the same with vendors. If you're negotiating deals you want to have, I mean, unless you, you're sure it's only going to be one time. You ever deal with this? I just don't think happens. You want them to feel good when they're done. Even if you've got the greatest deal ever and you know you want it, you feel like you won the negotiation. You want them to come back to you and you have to pace and lead them. Yeah, yeah. The circular thing. You either want the customer to come back to you because you know, they feel like you, you listen to them. You had, this is a really important part of it. You had empathy for their problem. And one of the ways that I think it's a good method to pace your customer when you're dealing with these problems is to really focus on that empathy and even use an example where perhaps you had a similar experience and you don't have to provide a lot of detail. But even something as simple as saying a phrase as I know how frustrating it is when X happens because I've had it happen to me. My package didn't show up on time. Right. If, you know, logistics company, you're sending out e commerce things and somebody was waiting for something, or my package was lost or my thing was broken, or it didn't, didn't work when I got it. If, you know, if you get them on your Side, you know, a little, little quicker by, you know, having that empathy and using the example of when it happened to you, I think you can be far more successful in your. Your negotiations.

Really, it comes down to listening to people, and you can practice this all day long. I. My grandfather was the master of this, but I didn't realize it at the time, but, you know, I always used to say he had the gift of gab. He. What he had was the gift of listening. He could talk with anyone, but it was because people wanted to talk to him. And the reason they wanted to talk with him was because he listened to them and engaged with whatever they were going through. And then he would slowly, you know, kind of lead them to whatever he wanted to lead them to. And my grandfather was a. He was an inventor. You know, I think I've mentioned on the show those. Those binocular viewing machines that you see all over the country. He invented those.

That's awesome.

And, yeah, and he then went around the country and. Because if you invent something that's great, but that doesn't actually pay the bill.

You gotta sell it.

Yeah, exactly. So he went around the country and would like, you know, replace all the other ones that these people had from different folks that weren't taking care of them for them and go and do it. But it was because he listened. And. And I catch my. I learned a lot of this from him, just via osmosis, I think. But you can. You can practice this. For example, show up at the doctor's office, right? And you get to the receptionist, and, you know, invariably this person is frazzled, right? By 2 in the afternoon, whatever it is, things have gone sideways. The schedule is all screwed up, and everybody that gets there is focused on themselves and they need to be seen. And it's this person's fault that the schedule screwed up. And nine times out of 10, of course it's not. But even if it is, well, you know, you can. You can yell at them or you can empathize with them. Now, you can't necessarily empathize over the schedule, but invariably they'll say something like, oh, man, my computer's being so slow. And it's. That. That's my in. It's like, oh, don't you hate that? Gosh, things.

That's right.

And now you're in a conversation about something that's impacting their day, and you're empathizing, they know that you're able to understand. Like, yeah, when are these things supposed to. Where's all the time we're supposed to get back from these things now. Of course, we could talk about all the time. Computers have actually saved us. That's not what that person wants to talk about at that moment. They want to talk about how frustrating this thing is. It's like, yep, man, you know, I thought our lives were supposed to be so much better with these. Gosh, it's so frustrating. I know. And now suddenly they're your best friend. And it turns out that a. Not only is that a nice thing to do, because now you've sort of cheered up this person and maybe brightened their otherwise gloomy day, but if they get to pick whose chart goes next, it might just be yours.

Yeah, that's a great example.

And I do this all the time. When I get on an airplane, I start talking with the flight attendants, but I don't tell them what's going on with my day. I ask how their day's been and. And I listen and then say something quick and then go sit down at my seat. I'll tell you, a handful of times I've gotten upgraded to first class. Another handful of times I'll be sitting there and they'll come and bring me. They'll ask me, do you want a meal? Like, we've got an extra meal from first class. Do you want that?

Nice.

Like, all kind. They'll bring me drinks. And it's just because I speak with them. I don't do it in order to get these things out of them. I do it because they're humans. And it's. It's good, it's nice to talk to them, but it's also just good practice to do this all the time, because then it's so natural when you are in the pressure situation. And it does matter. Well, at least you're used to, you know, the small talk, if you will.

Yeah, it's powerful.

The important stuff. Yeah, yeah.

And. And I, and I love, you know, you bring up the, you know, asking questions to them, that kind of thing. And, and that is a technique I use all the time because sometimes when you get in a group that you're not familiar with, you don't quite know how to start things. And questions are the absolute best fallback way to learn about a person or a group to where you can start pacing and leading and getting things going, even if it's just casual, but you want to engage with them and make those connections. And questions are a great way to do it, especially if you don't know how to open a conversation. Oh, you know, what's your name? What do you do? Who do you know here? This kind of thing, simple questions that lead to more questions. And everybody likes to talk about themselves. I don't care who it is.

And, and so do you. I mean, I don't just mean you, but I, I do talk about myself as well. But in, in those environments, it's better to let them start. I, I go to these, you know, these press events or whatever, and you can tell who the seasoned press, you know, like successful members of the press are and who the, you know, the, the absolute, like, you know, failures are by listening to what they say. To the, you know, some vendor, it's like, you know, some hard drive vendor or whatever, right. You know, and they're just there to tell you about their new, whatever the new size of drive is. You go up, you say, hey, cool. What do you have going on? And then you stop talking and listen. That's. That leads to success. I've seen people go up and say, so, hey, oh, you're, you're Western Digital. You know, I have a few of your drives and man, I've had these problems with them. Can you help me with this? Like, right. It's like, what? Like, no, no, no, they're not, these are not the people that are going to help you down the road.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So the question is just a great way to break the ice to. And, and I think you can also, you start to gauge their responsiveness. And I always, you know, when, when I'm meeting people for the first time and I'm asking these questions and all that kind of stuff, I think you can really tell, like, do they ask you questions back? Because often you, you'll do it and they won't. And it's like, okay, that, that's that kind of person. But then if you, you really are fortunate, you know, and you make a connection and then they start asking you questions back and forth, you can, I mean, you know, create some great new relationships. It is an easy way to connect with people. When you're all standing around and let me tell you, it beats, you know, staring at your phone and you never know where it's going to lead. You just never know, you know, and you, those, the connections are just critically important to our, not just our success as business owners, but just mentally in our social, you know, network and this kind of thing, how we interact with people. It's really important. And I would highly encourage you to get out there and, you know, pace some people practice, actively think about what you're doing. Think about a win win that you're trying to achieve with people and focus on pacing and leading to you succeed. I think it'd be and then let us know how it works for you. Feedbackusinessshow Co. We would love to hear from you and share your stories or come over to the Small Business support group at BusinessShow Co Facebook. Thank you for listening. We really appreciate it.

Yeah. Such good stuff folks. Of course, thanks to linode@linode.com SBS get that $20 credit with SBS 2019 and you can lead the charmed life with your own server. It's awesome. See you next.