Powerful Decision Making

Good evening, everyone. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. Happy Wednesday. Wednesday, yes, that is the day that we are talking. I wanted to talk to you quickly this evening. This is going to be a short live for those of you who are like, oh no, not another 20, 30, 40 minute live from Katie McManus. No, this is a short one for one reason. I'm short and sweet about this topic. For number two, I have bingo night with ladies at 8pm That's 15 minutes from now. So I am watch the clock on that. Anyway, what I'm talking about tonight is making powerful decisions over making power less decisions. Okay? Now, I train in sales, or I call it enrollment holistic selling. It is a way to get clients in a way that, you know, ensures that you're nurturing that relationship. You're not just out for your own, you know, pocketbook or bank account. You're actually wanting to serve this person. Person. And one of the things that I always try to normalize when I'm talking to a prospective client or I'm training on this style of selling. And hi, Ron, Joseph. And hi whoever's watching. Just so you know, I'm on Streamyard, so if the comments, if I don't shout you out from your comment, it's just that I didn't see it. Sometimes Streamyard doesn't show them all to me. But welcome, thanks for joining. So I try to normalize this. You know, no's are okay. And we're in, I don't know where it comes from. Like we're in this culture now where when we say no to someone, we always feel like we have to have an excuse, you know, so like if, if a friend asks me to go to dinner and hi, Joseph King, good to see you. Oh, thank you. I cut my own bangs. I actually, I cut my own bangs. And then I watched Legally Blonde that evening so that I could film that little snippet where, you know, Reese Witherspoon is complaining to her California friends and she's trying to tell them how miserable she is at Harvard. And then one of her friends is like, oh my God, I got bangs. So thank you, Joseph. I appreciate you noticing. Oh my gosh, I got bangs. But anyway, so we always think that to say no to someone, we have to come up with a really good excuse why we can't do the thing and can't do the thing, can't buy the thing, can't participate in the thing across the board. You know, someone invites you out to dinner this weekend. And of course we're in. We're in Covid still, so I totally understand that. But you're totally within your balance to say, no, thank you. I don't feel like doing that this weekend. That's absolutely a complete sentence. You get to design your relationships so that you are allowed to say that. So you can broach this conversation with friends and family members and you can say, hey, listen, you know, sometimes you invite me to stuff and I really appreciate the invitation, but you know, I feel worried that, you know, by saying no, I'm going to hurt your feelings. You know, can we design that? There's something I can say so that I don't hurt your feelings. You know, and these are in personal relationships, okay? So that's no for personal relationships. You can design how that works. Have at it. It's magic once you figure out how to do it. And then you get a lot more cleaner. You're never wondering if your friends are saying no and making up excuses, excuses for why they can't hang out with you. So that's personal. But let's talk about professional relationships, okay? Specifically enrolling people into your program and being enrolled into other people's programs. For some reason in our society, it has become the polite answer to say, oh, I can't afford that, or I just don't have time for this, or you know, I just don't have the bandwidth for this. Maybe I have plenty of time, but my brain is just completely full. It becomes those reasons become like kind of the cop out answers and there's nothing, there's absolutely nothing wrong if you legitimately don't have the money to spend on something. Totally respect that. And that's actually a great thing to bring up with the person because it's great feedback for their product or their service that maybe they've out priced themselves for their ideal clients. Or maybe there has to be a different pricing structure for them. Ron Joseph unfortunately, some people are so persistent and I've had to make excuses. Yeah, cool. So that's bad sales. So you making excuses, honestly just block them. Just block people who don't take no for an answer. One of the things that I train in holistic selling and when I train sales and enrollment to my clients is that you don't do anything without consent, okay? Oh, what a mind blowing concept. Like don't do anything without consent. If a salesperson is berating you and hounding you without your consent. If you have, if you've told them, no, I'm not interested unless they're offering some value add that will help change your decision and you've given them some indication that that is welcome. They shouldn't be like, they can ask for permission to have you on their emailing list. They can ask for permission to follow up with you in a month or two months to see if anything has changed. But we do everything with consent. Okay. This way it doesn't feel pushy, it doesn't feel inauthentic. It feels like you're just tending to the relationship. If ever someone backs you into a corner where you feel like you have to make an excuse, you can say, hey, you know, I'm feeling so berated right now. Like I'm backed into a corner and like I have to give you some made up excuse. This is going sour. You can name that. You can absolutely name that. It actually is beautiful feedback for them that they're crossing a line. One of my best ways to deal with, with something that I, you know, inquired about, thought about buying, talked to a salesperson and they get to the point where they're trying to close me and it's just not the right fit. I say, you know, I'm, thank you so much for your time. I'm sorry, but this just doesn't resonate with me. Doesn't resonate with me. Doesn't resonate with my business. Thank you so much for your time. I understand what you're doing now and I'd be more than happy to refer people to you. Beautiful. No excuse needed. The problem with making up excuses, the problem with saying that, oh, I just don't have the money for this when it's not true, or saying, I don't have the time for this when it's not true, is that your brain actually starts believing it. You start training yourself that there's money and time scarcity. You start training yourself that you're con, that you're worried about it. Because in that moment when you're talking to this person and you're using that as your excuse, you're being convincing about it. You're actually putting on some stress. You're saying, oh, you know, it's, it's too much money, I can't do that, or I don't have time. Your body starts learning that there's scarcity around these things and then what happens? Your, your mind and your body actually collude to make it happen. They look for reasons why you are so busy, why you don't have any time, and they have, you spend all your time on those activities. You become Hyper alert to anything that is an unexpected expense and it just becomes scary to you. And that's what you focus your energy on. You start coming up with evidence as to why it's true. This is a. This is humans. If you are not a sociopath or a psychopath, it means that your thoughts, your words and your actions all meet up. If you ever lie, sometimes everything else will align to keep it true. Because you don't want to be out of alignment. Making powerful decisions is not only kind to the person that you're working with, far kinder than giving them a polite excuse. It is actually far kinder and far productive for your life. To actually be honest, this just doesn't resonate with me. This doesn't seem like the right fit. Thank you so much for your time. You know, anyone you speak to who's selling someone or selling something. Sorry, Selling someone who's selling something or a service, they anticipate you saying no. Sometimes they anticipate that a certain percentage of the people they talk to are, are going to say no. And that's just part of the deal. That's just part of living in the world. You don't walk into Best Buy and see all of the signs for all of the deals that they have and just buy all that shit. No, your brain says no. No, no, no. Oh, maybe I do need a DVD player. No, actually, no. But I do need a refrigerator. That's what I came here for. I'm going to say yes to this and I'm going to buy, you know, Fast and Furious 2 on DVD, Blu Ray, because, you know, whatever. Oh, I should probably get that DVD player now. Weird tangent. Your brain can sort and make decisions powerfully if you give it permission to. If you give your brain and your body permission to say absolutely yes. I'm so excited for this. And absolutely no, this is not a good fit for me. You know, when you start making powerful decisions, like even just saying that, like my, my shoulders feel more relaxed and lean back, I'm leaning back more and there's just a sense of groundedness. Making a powerful decision owns the fact that you are the frickin narrator of your own life. You own your story. You can make decisions that serve you and only those decisions. Everything else doesn't matter. You know, when you worry so much about hurting people's feelings or you know, not wanting them to think that their service is bad or that their product isn't good, you're actually not serving them at all. You're giving them bad information for them. To build feedback on or to get feedback from. When you're honest and just telling, you just tell them, you know what, I'm just not the right customer for you. That is the kindest thing ever. And then you can say, here, you know, here are some things that just don't resonate with me about your product or your service or here's some things that I'm looking for that I don't see having with you. That, that is super valuable rather than giving them bad information about pricing, about not having time or, you know, the other thing is that when you make up those excuses, they know it's an excuse. They absolutely know it. I was in sales for a really long time. We absolutely know that it's an excuse. Where our minds go then is you must not like me, you must not like me, you must not want to be in business with me. And it becomes personal then. So it's this backwards way where we actually not just screw up ourselves, we screw up this other person. When we're not honest and we don't make decisions from a powerful place and speak to that powerful place, we convince ourselves that we're powerless and we make this person in front of us question whether they're liked in the world, which is not anything that any of us want to do. And yes, and I want to just go back to what Ron Joseph said. There are some salespeople, there are some people out there who don't like taking no for an answer. Consent. Consent, always. I think that's just the best. I think that is the absolute standard that we should just be living by, you know, collectively. You don't do anything without consent. Okay? Including the next part of a sales call, including follow up, including adding you to their newsletter, all those things. You know, there's a reason why there are permissions and everything that people give when they submit their email to be added to something, something. But anyway, and also, can we just own that? You are powerful. You are powerful. You're a badass mofo. You can do whatever you want. You can create the life that you want. And if you, if you actively make decisions from that powerful place, guess what's going to open up to you? More decisions that empower you. More decisions, More opportunities that offer you more power. If you make, continue making decisions from that powerless place and then you continue gathering evidence to support that powerlessness, you're making a case for why you're so powerless. And that's not going to open opportunities up for you, you know, and again, you know, if you're really wanting something, and money or time or any of those things is legitimately something that's getting in the way, Bring it up to the person. If you really want to work with that person, bring it up to them and say, is there any way we can customize a program for me? People are more than happy to get creative with you. And if they're not able to bend their rules or the company rules, one of the things that they can do with you is let's brainstorm some ways for you to be able to afford this. You know, if you're a software company and you are thinking about, you know, hiring a vendor, and they do one thing, but your budget only allows for a fraction of what they would charge, and they say, listen, let's look at what else you have going on, because the thing that you want to use this for is only a part of what we do. If there's something else that you have because you really want to work with us on this side, if we can eliminate something else in your. In your toolbox that you're paying for so that you can free up some money for this, would you be open to that? Because these are the other functionalities we have. Completely reasonable. And then what happens there? You become co collaborators, you become partners, you get creative together. I mean, I don't know about you, but, like, for me, that is where relationships get built. That's where trust and loyalty gets built. Oh, my God. That is the magic way to do it. Anyway, I have to get to bingo. Guys, I'm so excited. It's a virtual bingo night with the ladies on LinkedIn. I hope this was useful for everyone. I know. I know it's uncomfortable telling people no. I know it's uncomfortable giving honest, honest feedback about things that resonate or don't resonate. But feel free to use that. This just doesn't resonate with me, you know? This just isn't what I'm looking for. Thank you so much for your time. Use those terms and own your power. Stop putting yourself in powerless positions, even if it's just verbally, okay? You are robbing yourself of energy, power, all the things, and you are worth so much more. Anyway, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. Can't wait to talk to you tomorrow. Wish me luck, and I will see you later this week. Okay, bye.