Read the Room or Lose the Deal

You know, most deals don't die in a huge dramatic fashion. They die politely. You've had a great conversation, good energy. Everybody's nodding along. Then comes the, let me think about it. And suddenly, crickets. And that's What we're talking about today on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode of Marc Haine Live. Of course, this is where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up new skill sets to help them create the jaw-dropping, show-stopping experience that their customers and their employees deserve. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc And I'm so glad that you're here with me today because today, my guest is Jake Stahl. And today, we are going to be unpacking why leaders are losing influence, deals, and momentum. Not because of what they say but because of what they fail to notice inside the room. So, my one ask is if you don't know somebody who could use this information, maybe somebody's struggling with sales or Being able to close sales or whatever. If you know somebody who could use this information, please pass on a link to this episode. It'll help them and it will help this channel. And if you haven't done so yet, please make sure that you subscribe to the show and make sure that you hit the bell as well, just to make sure you get notification when I bring you fresh new content each and every week. So, Let's be honest. Most of us have never been trained to read resistance. We were trained to prepare better slides, have stronger talking points, even trained sometimes on how to answer objections faster. But when the pressure hits, we do what feels most productive. We explain more. We talk faster. We push harder. And that's usually the exact moment that the deal, the decision, or the buy-in quietly fades off into the sunset. And that brings me to our Question of the Day. So, how often do your conversations feel like they go really, really well But somehow, it leads to no decision, no movement, and no follow-through. I'd love to know what your experience is. Why don't you go ahead, share a link to this episode on your favorite social media platform, hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership, put your comments down, and become part of this conversation. It'd be really great to hear what your perspective is. As I mentioned, my guest today is Jake Stahl and he lives in the space where conversations get uncomfortable and unfortunately, really expensive. Jake is a performance strategist and instructional designer who has trained teams across more than 10 industries. He holds 7 patents in sales and communication technology and has won an International Gold Award for Instructional Design. His frameworks are built from real conversations under pressure when the stakes are high And thinking time is really, really low. He is the author of a brand new book called Own the Room: A Practical Guide to Being Seen, Heard, and Respected Without Having to Become Aggressive or Performative. He is the CEO and co-founder of Orchestrate, an AI-powered engine rooted in neurostrategic communications. In fact, go to the website. The link is in the show notes. It's pretty darn cool. I kind of went on it this morning to check it out. Hey Jake, welcome to the show! It's nice to have you.

Hey Marc! Thanks for having me. This is quite an honor to be here. I appreciate it.

Hey, so maybe can you talk a little bit about who your clients are and how are you serving them?

Yeah, so my clients are mostly solopreneurs and entrepreneurs. So, solopreneurs who are out on their own can be a ghostwriter, an insurance agent, or somebody who opened a consulting shop. And all the way up to small businesses up to about 250 people. Nice!

And so, just to plug your program, Orchestrate, could you just tell us a little bit about what that is? Even though it's not the focus of our show, I think it's really important that people maybe have a little understanding of what you're doing.

Yeah, sure. So, I've been doing sales training a long time. And I've been across 6 countries and 47 states. And the one thing I've found over the years is that people are brilliant. The ideas that are out there are staggering, but people have a tough time enunciating them. How do I get the point across? How do I make it stick? How do I keep from being forgettable? And so, I started teaching something called NeuroStrategy, which combines behavioral psychology, social psychology, and neurolinguistic programming, which Tony Robbins has really made famous.

Yep.

And I boiled this into a coaching technique that later I turned into Orchestrate. Which is a web browser SaaS product that helps you develop all of your messaging, but it develops it in a way that is scientifically proven to get people to take action. Every principle that was used to build Orchestrate has been shown over and over again in psychological studies to absolutely work and create an indelible impact.

I love it. And you're leveraging a lot of AI tools in order to make that happen as well. This is really state-of-the-art stuff.

Yeah, the instruction set is based on my 30 years of experience selling all over the globe and based on psychology research, behavioral psychology, social psychology. It takes everything that's out there and it boils it into one product so that the people who use it, the messaging they're putting out It doesn't get any better or more potent. And probably the most important part, it doesn't get more sticky than what Orchestrate creates.

I love it. Like I said, I subscribed to it this morning. I started playing around with it. I went down the rabbit hole for about an hour and a half. I get super excited by AI and tech. So, I'm just a nerd anyway. But that's not the real reason we're here today. Today, we're talking about this whole idea. We've done shows about having really bad meetings and how to have better meetings. But today, we're talking about something a little bit different, aren't we? We're talking rather specifically to a big expensive problem. Can you define that for us?

Yeah. So, a lot of people lose a room in the first 5 to 10 seconds. The problem we have is that we don't know it. So, we deliver to a room. They nod politely. They say yes. They thank you for coming. And then, before you know it, It's follow-up time. And the follow-ups are met with no response or a we're thinking about it or the price is too high or let me run it by my board or turns out we tried this and it didn't work. And as presenters, as salespeople, as entrepreneurs, we just don't know why. And the answer is it's frightfully simple, but it's something that you wouldn't ever think of. And it's all about presence and what a famous social psychologist called pre-suasion. How good are you at selling yourself and your message before you've spoken the first word?

I love that. And we'll get into kind of defining all that, what it is. At the moment is we have a problem that to your point, we don't know we have. So, why do so many smart leaders kind of misread this? Because it's happening time and time again.

We're never taught this. From the time we become leaders to the time we learn our first persuasive words or our first pitch that seems to work with 10% or 20% of people, we're always taught it's what you say. And if you craft your message just right, if you do 2 yeses so you get a 3rd yes, or if you get a no right away so you can get a yes later, we're taught all of that stuff. But we're never taught what happens before any of that verbiage takes place. Like, what impact does my headshot have? What impact does my breathing or my stature or posture have? What impact does all the nonverbal have on the decision they're making? And the scary part is, Marc, it's been proven time and time again that people make their decisions about you before you even start talking. Hmm.

So, is this an episode then on personal branding?

No, this is an episode on presence. This is an episode on how do we get people to understand and know and trust us before we start doing the pitch.

Gotcha.

And then, once we start doing the pitch, how do we notice when resistance shows up and how do we know what the real resistance is? I'm a firm believer, Marc, we all have 2 profiles. We have the one we show the universe, the one we hang out on LinkedIn, and the one we give out when we're at a networking meeting. But there's a second one. It sits behind your eyes. It's the one that responds to fear and loss aversion. And it's the one that makes all the decisions. So if you're talking to the forward-facing profile, you're missing the boat. When you learn to talk to that second profile, that's when deals are made. And deals are closed.

Amazing! So, when it comes down to people being in these rooms and then, because we're not just talking sales, we could be talking, it could be a staff meeting. It could be a department meeting. It could be anything.

It could be with your spouse. Yeah.

It could be with your kids. Yeah, so it's any, really any situation where we need to communicate some important concepts or content and we need buy-in from the other person at some point. So, are there any early signals You mentioned the word resistance. Any early signals that resistance is present even when people are nodding along going, that sounds like a great idea. Oh, that's fantastic. Hey, great idea.

Yeah. Well, and see, this is the beautiful thing. This doesn't require a doctorate in body language or kinesiology or anything like that. This is actually really simple. It's in the small things, Marc. So, let me give you an example. I'm in a board meeting. I'm talking to somebody and they're the decision maker. And I see them lean back in their chair, put their hands on their chest. Now, it's easy to think, ah, do I have to read a book? What does folded hands mean again? And if they lean back, is that good or bad? Don't worry about that. The thing you want to do is ask the question. Hey, Mr. Prospect, saw you lean back in your chair. I think I might have touched something there. What's on your mind? Get them involved in the conversation. Because what happens is 80% of conversation is nonverbal by some studies.

Right.

It goes above and below depending on who you look at. But 80% is nonverbal. So, think about that. If we're missing 80% of the message, What are we doing to pick that up? And my advice in my book, as well as when I coach people, is just learn to notice and call it out. Hey, Mark, I saw you started tapping your pen there when I talked about finance. Want to help me poke holes in what I just said? All of a sudden, I've heard you. And if they say, no, nothing, I just like to tap my pen. Awesome. Great, then we let it ride. But 9 times out of 10, that person's going to come back and go, you know, Jake, we went through this last year and we took a bath on pricing. Now, the real conversation begins.

Right.

So, the question mark is the signal I give is here, but what do I trigger in that other person? And the noticing of the trigger is everything.

Would it be fair to say that some people would notice triggers but ignore it on purpose because they don't want to have— they're fearful of the tough conversation? Is that a fair assessment?

It's a very fair assessment. And we're not taught that in sales school. I've been selling for 30 years and I've been teaching sales for 30 years. And one thing you never hear in a sales class is what you do when there's a certain modicum of discomfort in the room. You're taught to sell harder and hit benefits more and just talk through it and hope they change gears. They don't. They've already left the room. You just don't know it yet.

It's interesting because I really love the theory that you had about the 2 personas. Is it 2 personas?

Yep, 2 profiles.

Yeah, the 2 profiles. Because you're talking about maybe the prospect has 2 profiles and you have to be talking to the one behind the eyes. But is it fair to say that we also have 2 profiles? And Ourselves are in like behind our eyes is things like desperation, meeting quotas, evaluating our bonus structure. Like there's all sorts of different agendas happening outside of that that is outside of me being the service provider to this prospect, right?

Yes, there's a war always being fought in your head. The unfortunate thing is you're both sides. You are both sides of that battlefield. I can do this. No, I can't. I can overcome this objection. You're never going to succeed. So, that war is always being fought. But the important thing—

Sorry, yeah. How does that manifest in our body language? Because part of it is we're looking at the body language of our prospect and saying, now it's like, let's be intentional and be able to focus on those cues. But what about our body language? Because every time we have that sudden doubt, I can't help but think that that's going to flash in our eyes at some point.

Yes. And unfortunately, people are much better at reading you than you are at performing. So, if we try and perform through that, it's going to be a problem. And part of this, Marc, is grounding yourself before you even go into a meeting. Feet firmly on the ground. Feel the ground pushing up. Feel you pushing down. Lower your shoulders. 4 nice deep breaths. Make sure your sympathetic nervous system is just as relaxed as it can be before you walk in the room. Because people do, Marc, something fascinating. They do what's called thin slicing. Thin slicing means they read 5 or 6 different components of you and then form an opinion within 2 to 10 seconds.

Mm-hmm.

And then the rest of the time after they form that opinion, They're not only trying to justify what they decided, but they're contradicting signals that it may not be true.

They're trying to prove themselves right.

Yes, they're looking for compliance bias, right? I mean confirmation bias.

So the confirmation bias being I've just formed a I just formed a impression of you, and now everything I'm going to do is try to prove. make sure I prove myself right even though there's other things in. Like how many times has it happened that we've had that and then like days later, we meet the person again. It's like, I think I read them wrong.

Yeah, yeah. And we think about this. Think about it in terms of dieting. We think to ourselves, I'm going to eat less. I'm going to exercise more and I'll see it on the scale. And if we don't see it in 2 or 3 days, we go, I knew this wasn't going to work. I knew I couldn't lose weight, and then we're off to the races. But our brain's always looking for ways to say you were right, and if anything contradictory comes up to say I was wrong, we systematically ignore it. And I found this with my coaching of this, Mark, is a lot of people will say, "Well, this is too esoteric. This is too woo woo," and I just need to talk better. But I got news for you: if they don't like the first impression and their thin slicing says you're bad. Your talk can be the best in the world and you're gonna get ghosted.

It's interesting that you say that because recently, I had a meeting with somebody. And I came back home and my wife said, how did it go? And I said, you know what? It went really well. But there's something about the guy I did not like. I can't put my head on it. He was friendly. He had all the signs of confidence and everything. But there was something about him I did not like. And to this day, I still can't put my finger on it. Would I do business with him? Probably because everything that came out of his mouth was positive. It's what I needed to hear and so on. But something about that feeling makes me hesitant to say, I trust him.

Yeah.

What dynamic is playing there? Because I know this is— I'm not the only one this happens to. And I know it's not the time I felt this. But what kind of dynamics is at play here that we should be aware of?

Well, from an evolutionary perspective, this makes perfect sense, right? Back when we couldn't communicate real well, back when it was live or die, we had to make snap decisions, right? That tiger doesn't look great and it's coming right towards me.

Oh, kitty!

Like nobody ever stands there and goes, well, let's see. It's about 500 pounds. Sharp teeth. You know, we don't ever debate that. Our brain has just said, hey, that's bad, we got to get out of here. And our brain has never stopped that. So we're constantly scanning to look for reasons to either enjoy or to say, this isn't for me. And when you think about this, I, I don't mean for this to take a dark turn, but think about when people talk about like Ted Bundy when he was a serial killer. Everybody said about Ted Bundy, he's charismatic.

He's a nice guy. Yep.

He's the nicest guy. You really want to talk to him. So people form a great first opinion. And then when things start to turn bad, your brain's like, no, no, he's good. This can't be happening. This isn't real. So we do this all the time. Think about when we do it with our spouse. You know, we come down at the end of the day, we have a lousy day. And we want to share and we see our spouse has had an equally ugly day. And we go, hmm, not a good time to share. So, we do this all the time. The big blind spot, Marc, is why don't we think we do this in business too?

Well, and the other thing that occurred to me was I had this judgment about him. How many of my business relationships have said the same thing about me?

Yes.

Everything's going well. Everything's to be. But they walk out and they go, there's something about this guy I don't like and I don't know why.

Yes.

So, from this idea, is there any sign? Is there any signs, any kind of indicators, anything that we have to be aware of? Or is this human nature? You click with some people. You don't click with others.

Part of it is human nature. But part of it is also how you come into a conversation. I'll give you a great example. You're a podcaster. You have a great show here. If I came to you on a first meeting and I said to you, Marc, nice to meet you, couldn't wait to talk to you, that's a lot different than, Marc, I've been a fan of your show for I can't even say how long, and the fact that I finally get to meet you is extraordinary. 2 different opinions. With you, with me, right?

Right.

And then how many times do we get on a Zoom call and we go, hey, nice to meet you. Yeah, I was glad somebody connected us. We're sending a million signals all the time. I'll give you a great example. Think of your headshot. Psychologists have shown there's 3 things in a headshot that can actually make people trust you before they meet you. Big smile. So something that produces crow's feet. Bonus points if you have teeth showing in your smile. Second is good posture or leaning in.

Mm-hmm.

But the third one is the cool one. If you have a slight tilt to your head in a headshot, scientists have said when you do a slight tilt, you expose your jugular a little bit, and that's the weak spot of any human.

Right.

And so, you're showing you trust them. And if you trust them, they often trust you in return. This has been proven. FBI profilers use this kind of stuff all the time. And yet, we see headshots all the time of somebody holding a dog or skydiving or whatever because they think it's great. But the impression you're giving, the pre-suasion, is way off. And people are making decisions about you based on that.

Like, that makes so much sense because one of the things I do is I train speakers like emerging and aspiring speakers. And I can't tell you how many times when somebody is on the hot seat, they do things like— and they're covering their neck.

Yeah.

They're like, oh, that's really interesting, right? And they're covering their throat area because that's the sign of nerves. It's protecting ourselves. And now, you've just given kind of the opposite component of that, that having that in a headshot can be really dynamic. I have to go back and I have to look at my headshot now.

It's all your fault. Everybody said that. I'm gonna go back and look at my headshot now.

I love this. Hey, I'd like to like understanding what the problem is and some of the consequences that we're having because this is brand new to us. I'd like to talk about some actionable strategies that the people tuning in can take so that they can maybe be a little bit more successful when they're having these meetings. And we'll get to that right after this.

When the spotlight shines on your business, are customers applauding or yawning? In other words, how is your business performing? Make your business a star with a new book, Lights! Camera! Action!, Business Operational Excellence Through the Lens of Live Theater by Marc Haine. Marc uses his business and acting experience to help Help you see your business like a live show so you can create a performance your customers will never forget. Buy Lights! Camera! Action! today at your favorite online retailer or directly at marchaine.com.

Welcome back! I am speaking with the author of Own the Room, Jake Stahl. Jake, maybe you could tell us a little bit about your book.

Yeah, so my book is Own the Room: How to Communicate to Be Seen, Heard, and Respected. And it talks specifically about 7 things to consider when you're going to present to a room. It breaks it out in very clear detail. It has real stories, things that actually happened to me over the years, what worked, what really didn't, and how to become seen, heard, and respected. I've had the people who read it say it just— it's made them unforgettable. It's made them think about things they never thought of before. But most importantly, it brings people who feel they're invisible out into the spotlight and makes them remarkable.

I love that. You really hit the— I don't know. I'm terribly sorry. I have the wrong name on the bottom of your screen.

That's okay.

It's not okay. There we go. There you go.

Call me whatever you want.

It's really interesting because especially this invisible part because part of the challenge that we have is that people show up We have a lot of talk in leadership circles about giving people space at the table. But having said that, we can give space to the table all we want as leaders. But people have to be able to take that space and take that space up and make it productive for them. So, the fact that this book also helps kind of overcome that component, I think is really important.

Yeah. And a couple of pieces to think about when you're trying to take up a space at a table is try to be more assertive when you're talking about things. And what I mean by assertive, I don't mean bumping in or yelling or talking over people. I mean, instead of using phrases like, I just wanted to say this, or have you ever considered this? I thought this might be a good idea, or my absolute all-time favorite, is when somebody says, I don't know if you've thought about this, but be more assertive.

And so, give me some language then that creates that assertiveness.

Yeah. Yep. So, I've worked with companies like this before. This is the pain point I've seen. When I've talked to salespeople, the pain point they've brought up is A. So, you want to make it that they can start to form a picture in their head and they can see it's comparative. Oh, Jake's done this before. Oh, he's worked with other companies that have done this. So, you're establishing a presence. The other thing I hear a lot of times, Marc, is when people lilt up at the end of a sentence versus down. And that's huge.

Yes.

So, people will sit at the table and they'll go, have you thought of this idea? My name is Jake. How would you like it if we did this? It forms a question mark and it shows uncertainty when it should be down at the end. My name is Jake. This is something you may have thought about. So, even little things like that can establish who you are and what you're doing at that table.

I love that. And that makes perfect sense. And you were talking about this idea of assertiveness. And the one thing that occurred to me as you were kind of sampling what assertive talk looks like Number one is there's a credibility piece that you are assuming the persona of a thought leader or an expert. And the other part of it is you're giving based on that persona. You're now giving the facts as you know it.

Correct. And you're even tying in social proof. So, I've worked with other people before. So, it says they've hired me. So, anything I can give in the way of social proof. And yet, all of that was done, Marc, in 5 or 6 words.

Yeah.

We think this is a big grandiose thing that we have to think for hours. But really, it's just little snippets that help you command that first 2 to 10 seconds where all the thin slicing takes place.

Yeah, it's interesting because I've met with a lot of leaders and stakeholders, people who are in negotiations for something. And I've heard time and time again that they come out of the meeting and they go, You know what? If I hadn't, I spent so much time preparing that my preparation seemed to make everything worse. Is that a typical scenario?

Yes. And not only that, Marc, but that leads into giving more context than you need to. So, authenticity is, well, authenticity is the word of the day with people.

I know.

And what they've actually done in social psychology studies was they found that to be the case. So, we'll get back to your point in a second. But I just want to highlight this because it's really important. They did a study where they showed this CEO of a Fortune 500 company give a talk. And then, they showed to the same audience a small business owner locally who came on stage and spilled coffee on himself when he got up to the podium. And they asked people to rate the talks. And overwhelmingly, they thought although the CEO was more important and had more clout, They enjoyed the second talk more because they could relate to them better. So the authenticity is a huge, huge piece of this. And so when a person overprepares, that shows lack of authenticity. And when we have a script running in our head, it's so hard to deviate from that script, which is why I hate sales scripts. And that's another show.

Yeah, it's really interesting because to your point, authenticity seems to be the hot topic all the time. And we're talking. But authenticity really is a misnomer because we're not necessarily being authentic. If we're having a bad day, we're not coming into the meeting pissed off and wanting to throw things and bitching and bellyaching like that. Our authentic self might be like, I'm having a crap day. I'm just having a crap day. I don't want to—

You know what?

Human beings don't serve me today. I'm going to go and sit quietly in my room. We would never do that even though authentically, that's my— So, I really do think that this definition of authenticity is a little strange because I don't really think that it is authentic. But I haven't figured out another label for it outside of being performative.

I think with authenticity, And I agree with you 100%. And I think with my version of authenticity, it's speaking from your true self.

Right.

Like, if I'm not the type that would typically speak in numbers, don't speak in numbers. You know, if you're speaking more metaphorically, then speak metaphorically. And I know there's this thing about match the room and match the vibe, and that's good to a point until you lose yourself and you step outside of it. And you're no longer in your comfort zone, which again shows up immediately to your audience. So, I agree with you about the firm definition and I'm not going to go in in a bad mood. But I think there's a point where you have to be faithful to what you're saying, what you would normally say inside.

So, the authenticity is being faithful to your values and to your belief systems and not being able to sway kind of counter to that. Because to your point, when reading the room and you have to match the tone, you have to match, right? The minute you go into conversations and I could see this. I saw this with union negotiations, right? Where you go in and you're the HR manager and you're sitting down and it feels hostile walking into the room.

Yeah.

Because on the opposite side of the table are 5 or 6 people. They have their agenda. that they want to slam through it. And if you kind of go in there and become the room, then I have a sneaking suspicion staplers are gonna fly.

Very true. We're together on that point.

So, I really love this idea what you were mentioning about pre-suasion. And so, that's why I asked, is this about personal— the pre-suasion side? I think is about maybe the personal branding component.

It certainly can be. And it can be part of the branding component. But it's not traditional like, what's my logo? Because they've already— studies have been done that says your logo just doesn't matter.

Right.

People see it and they recognize it. But it's not a big deal. But how they see you as a person is very, very important. And that's why we had that headshot discussion.

And so, knowing that, knowing that you're going to be judged before somebody ever walks in the door, how do we go about doing an audit to be able to say, you know what? I want to make sure that this pre-suasion component of my exposure is going to be on point. What do we need to do to test for that?

Right. So, one thing I always suggest to my clients to do a couple of things. Before you walk into any room, before you get on a Zoom call, Before you talk with, have a tough conversation with your kids, plant your feet. Just feel where you are. Feel that things are solid because oftentimes we get to the point where we're so in our head, we get, we're no longer in touch with everything around us. And it's been proven time and time again that if you just center yourself, grab something, hold something, it tends to center you. This is why when people are having an anxiety attack, if you hand them a book or have them twirl a pencil, It calms them almost immediately because now they're touching reality again. The second is do box breathing. Box breathing is just 4 seconds in, hold for 4 seconds, 4 seconds out, and then hold it out for 4 seconds. Do that for about 1 to 2 minutes, and that's been shown to physically reduce anxiety. And to get your nervous system just centered and regulated and out of your head. The third is your shoulders are really the biggest indicator you're under stress. Holding one up, holding them both up—it's a lot of tension that goes into your neck and into your head. Make sure you consciously drop your shoulders. Just relax. Do that while you're breathing. And then the last piece is remind yourself that you're not there to give a talk. You're there to share information. Don't ever think of it as a one-way thing. Think of it as a— you're going in to create dialogue. And that centering is really important. Now, I'll give you another trick. This one's been proven quite a bit. Talk to yourself in the third person. So instead of saying, I'm gonna do great, I'm not gonna be nervous, I say, Jake's gonna do great, Jake's not gonna be nervous. Psychologists say that when you separate you from yourself and actually advise yourself, it has a calming feeling because you're not in your own head anymore. You're now an observer. And I use this all the time before a keynote address. Jake's gonna do great. Jake's gonna wow the audience. Kind of like the Elmo Sesame Street thing.

And gosh darn it, people love me. Jake, this is absolutely fascinating. I love getting into the kind of the psychology behind it all. For the people who are tuning in, can you let them know how they can get in touch with you if they want to work with you?

Yeah, so you can get in touch with me on LinkedIn. I'm Jake Stahl. I'm the one that looks like me. If you're listening to just the audio, I'm also the CEO of Orchestrate. You'll see that on LinkedIn. You can follow me on social media as Jake the Mind Mechanic. I'm on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. I do YouTube Shorts. And if they want to get in touch with me through my company, it's orchestrate.com. And that's O-R-C-H-E-S-T-R-A-I-T-E.com. G-H-T, like a straight line.

Gotcha. And so, Rick Denley put a comment in. Jake's going to nail it.

Yes, he is. I agree.

Thank you for sharing that, Rick. You've just given Jake the boost of confidence he needed to finish off this podcast. Hey, so Jake, we have this idea. There's this idea of naming the devil. And it becomes less intimidating. You have a theory about naming it to tame it. And you have this method around it. Can you talk a little bit about how that affects being able to read the room?

Yeah. So, I would love to say I invented name it to tame it. But that's been used a million times over. I just proudly say I stole it. So, let's just start there. So, name it to tame it is what we were talking about earlier in that if you see a shift in body, If you see a comment, if you see somebody turn their head to talk to somebody else in a room, don't ignore it. Don't talk through it. Name it. Hey, I saw you said something over there to Joe. Just curious, was there something I said that raised a question, or is there something I can help you with? Listen, I realize this sounds far out, but help me poke holes in it. Help me figure out where I may be going wrong with this. Invite people in. And when you can name it, it starts to lose its power because now you're not wondering anymore what's happening and you're acknowledging them. And let's face it, most people want to just be seen, and many people will not interject what their real objection is unless they're called out. So this person might have taken that objection, left the room, talked about it with other people. And you have no idea what's going on until you're ghosted or until they say to you, we're not interested. This often happens with stress too. I talk to my clients about this all the time. If you have an errant thought that comes into your head, instead of ignoring it or trying to push it down, write it down. God, I was just thinking about how tax season's gonna kill me. Write it down. Oftentimes, if you just get it out, it, it loses its power. So, in Own the Room, we talk a lot about reading other people. Not in detail, not body language, just reading that something took place and then naming it. And oftentimes after that, you can just tame it.

Is there a chance that when you do name it, when you see a behavior that the person on the other side on the receiving end of that would get defensive?

There's always that possibility, and that's why it's important to establish what your own verbiage will be when you name something in a crowd. You know, the last thing you want to do is call them on the floor and say, hey, I saw you talking to other people, what's going on? That's a lot different than, hey, it looked like what I just said kind of drew some attention, let's circle this up and see if I can answer questions. Still calling them out but 2 totally different feels. So yes, you're right. You don't want to start pointing and yelling. You want to casually bring it out into the open.

I get a sense as well that there could be a wrong way to say that as well. If we become defensive with it, like if we see a behavior and we interpret it that, oh shit, he thinks I'm an idiot. Or, oh shit, he's gonna back down. Like we start doing our own agenda. So then, what comes out of our mouth might be completely negating what we're trying to achieve. Does that happen?

Right. And Marc, you teach public speakers. So, what do you teach them when somebody heckles them from the audience or openly disagrees while they're up in front of everybody? What's the first thing you tell them to do?

Tell them to acknowledge the, thank you for your comment. Can we take this offline? I'll look forward to talking to you afterwards.

Yep. Name it.

We don't get defensive.

Yeah, that's exactly right. And this is no different.

Okay. No, this is again, I think this is fascinating because it's something within the context of having really good meetings that we haven't talked about before. I'd like to get into some pitfalls and cautionaries to watch out for as people kind of consume this information. What tools can they use and what do they need to watch out for so that it doesn't land in the opposite of what they're trying to achieve. And we'll get to that right after this.

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Welcome back! I hope you're getting tons of value from today's episode. As you could tell, Jake and I are on a mission to support businesses just like yours. So, if you belong to an organization that could use our help, or you or somebody you know might be planning a leadership retreat or a conference, Gosh, drop us a line. We'd love to explore how we can be of service to you and your people. Jake, in your notes, I came across this idea about the 2/10 rule of communication.

That's a big one.

What is it and why does it matter, especially when we're under pressure?

So, there's a pretty commonly held belief that for every 10 minutes you present, you generate about 2 minutes worth of questions. So, if you present for 60 minutes, you're going to generate, give or take, about 12 minutes worth of questions. So, I developed this rule years ago that I've used with sales teams and even public speakers that speak for 2 minutes and then check in. So, you know what, Marc? We've been speaking for a little while. Just want to make sure I didn't overlook something. Or, Marc, how would you use this in your situation? Or, Marc, does what I just said make sense? So every 2 minutes, I'm gonna do that with the other person. At the end of 10 minutes, I'm gonna give a brief summary and ask for questions. So listen, Marc, I've been babbling for 10 minutes now. My guess is I lost you somewhere. Let's just talk about any questions you may have before we move forward.

Hmm.

So all I'm doing is I'm putting police tape Around when you are checking in and when you're asking questions. And Marc, I've had sales teams do this with stopwatches and it's increased sales for them because it forces them to shut up. Right? I have to shut up every 2 minutes so they don't ramble on and on. Second, when you've checked in, it gives you time to think and regroup. Third, it makes a person you're talking to know that you're listening and you're genuinely interested. And last, I have found almost across the board that when people do the 2-10-minute rule very well, there's no questions at the end. When you say, do you have any questions when you're done? People are like, nope, I'm clear, everything's good. And just by doing this with some sales teams, I've helped them double and triple sales because it forces the rep to stay inside these cattle chutes of time and actually pay attention to what's happening. So, that's my rule.

I can definitely see that it would build intentionality within the conversation if we're that disciplined.

Yep. And honestly, it sounds really strict. But if you and I sat silent for 2 minutes, that's a long period of time. Yeah. I've had so many people say, wow, 2 minutes isn't a lot. I've been doing this for close to 30 years. I've never had somebody say, why do you check in so often? Why do you always ask if I have questions? Instead, people like, wow, you, you really paid attention. I had— here, I'll tell you a quick story. I had a prospect I was working with as a coaching client. I always give people a half hour free, so we just talk back and forth. I try to help them out. I think according to my Fathom note-taker I talked 1% of that half hour. I kept checking in every 2 minutes and 10 minutes and making it happen. At the end of that call, I said to my wife, there is no way I got that account. No way. Within 20 minutes, I had an email that said, don't think it's lost on us that all you did was ask questions and listen. When can you get started?

Hmm.

And I got the account. So, don't ever think your lack of talking is causing a loss of sale.

In my book, I talk about a story about getting hired. I was being interviewed and I got interviewed by the HR manager and then introduced to the COO who wanted to interview me. And we sat there and the whole time, his mouth was the one working. To your point, if I gave 1% of the time It was blah, blah, blah. Our values are this and another. What do you think about that? Hey, that sounds like it's a really strong value system. That's great. And blah, blah, blah, blah. And he just went off. And I thought, you know what? There's no way he knew anything about me. He didn't learn anything. He just got onto his soapbox. And I thought, you know, I'm going to be really surprised if this amounts to anything.

Yeah.

The HR manager calls me the next day, goes, oh my God, he just loved you. And I realized what had happened was he was so busy talking that I just became a mirror to him.

Yeah.

He was so busy talking that when he talked about values and I agreed, it's like, oh, he thinks like I think. And at the end of it, he went off and telling you that that was one of the best interviews I've ever had with anybody.

Yeah. I think Dale Carnegie relates a story too that somebody talked his ear off for 45 minutes. He didn't say a word. And later on, he them comment, he's the best conversationalist I've ever worked with. And Dale goes, I don't remember saying anything. Right.

So, as people tuning in, we're giving them— we're giving them some awareness today. We've given a couple of ideas as far as tools are concerned. When somebody wants to make this change and become intentional, what kind of pitfalls and cautionaries should we be aware of?

One of them is providing too much context. You know, we tend to go into a conversation and say, hey, we're number one with Fortune 500 companies and we've been around for 600 years and we're the best on 4 different charts. Honestly, who cares?

Yeah.

You're not only showing how insecure you are that you have to back things up, but you're taking up a lot of time on something they may not care about. My advice to people always is save context unless you're invited to provide it. So that's one piece. The second is use keywords during a conversation. And here's a big one. Always use the word because. Always give justification. And this is based on a huge study done in a library in New York City. They took a bunch of social psychology interns and they said, we want you to butt in line at the copier at this library. Now, as you may realize, New York City people aren't real fond about you butting in line. So they tried to butt in line. Nobody let them. So they said, this time, say, can I butt in line to make copies? And give them a good reason. Because I'm double parked. Because my spouse is expecting me. Because I have to pick up the kids. And what they found was there was a 60% compliance rate. Now, on the surface, that's not even remotely impressive. People are human. They'll respond to a good reason. So who cares? What was cool was the third leg. The third leg was they were to butt in line and give a nonsense reason. They were told to say, I need to jump in line to make copies because I need to make copies. The compliance rate stayed almost identical at 60%. So the takeaway from the psychologist was we are raised in a society of cause and effect. Our kids say to us, you know, why don't birds crash? Why don't fish drown? Why is the sky blue? And we're always living our lives saying because, because, because. So we're conditioned to hear the word because and not worry about the reason. So one piece of advice when you're trying to make a good first impression or trying to get business. is say the because and the reason. And what they found was it can increase acceptance rates by 60%.

Wow! Wow! That's mind-boggling. That's absolutely mind-boggling. And so, are there any— before I go into my last question, are there any other cautionaries or pitfalls we should be aware of?

Yeah, another cautionary is watch how you hold yourself.

Hmm.

So, try not to lean back even if everybody in the room is comfortable. Try to always sit up straight or lean forward a little bit to show interest. Your body language is always being judged when you're in a room. And people can say, no, it's not. That's ridiculous. But I can promise you, it's absolutely the case. People are constantly thin slicing. And this was proved by a study too. They took a bunch of students and they forced them to watch a series of professors give talks with no sound. And after 2 to 10 seconds, they were asked to write down their impressions of the professors.

Hmm.

So they did that. Then they took students who had been with those professors for a full semester, had heard them talk, been through multiple classes. The fascinating part is the assessments of Group A matched Group B Almost identical.

Amazing.

It is. So, a good way to avoid this is take a Zoom call that you did or a Fathom call that you did, turn the sound off, and watch you. And what impression do you get? And if you can master that impression, what you say will actually matter.

I love that. So many good tools. One concern I have is that when we get this kind of knowledge, how do leaders apply these tools, these lessons without crossing into manipulation?

You know, it's a great question, Marc. And I hear this all the time. How do we stay away from manipulation and how do we change that? And manipulation in my opinion, my opinion only. In my opinion, manipulation is for Evil. It's not for good. It's using your superpowers to rob the bank versus to save the kitten from the tree. So the best way to do that is just to be someone with ethics and scruples. Just know that the reason you want to use these things is to gain attention, keep attention, and be able to read what other people are thinking. What more altruistic thing is there for me, Mark, than to want to know exactly what you mean? So I can address your concerns.

Right.

That to me is the highest form of communication. It's not manipulation.

It's funny that you said that because before we went live, I was telling you how I used to go through leads. And I came to an epiphany back in November of 2024 that my calls, my reach-outs, and it was all focused on trying to get me hired. And things radically changed for me when I changed my verbiage to really make it absolutely clear that I was there to serve.

Yeah.

And I think that made it all. So, this fits that whole idea right there is that if you're going in, if the manipulation is to help serve, then it's not manipulation. If it's contrary to that, then it might be a little wishy-washy.

I agree. And if I can give one more thing to be aware of in a meeting, Marc, and this is really important. Is notice the difference between the use of nouns and verbs. And again, I know this sounds woo-woo, but hear me out. So, if I say to you, I love dogs, and then I say to you, I'm a dog lover, which of those has more impact and an impression on you as to my feelings for dogs? Which one sounds like—

The last one.

Right. So, I'm a dog lover is a noun. I love dogs is a verb. It talks about transience. I may not have loved dogs before. I may not love them in the future, but I do now. But as a dog lover, it says I've always done this. So, what does this matter? Why am I even talking about it? Because it helps people feel included. They did some studies in kindergarten, and what they did was they said to the kids, you should really pick up your toys. There's your verb. When they converted that to, would you like to be the teacher's helper, being a noun and including them as part of a group and part of their identity, it made a difference. And that's the difference between saying you don't pick up your stuff and you're a slob, right? Verb, noun. And lawyers use this in the opposite. He's not a criminal, he just did some bad things. So when we talk about ourselves as solopreneurs and we talk about things in a business, we're not into marketing, we're marketers. I'm not a person who likes to paint, I'm a painter. So Watch your nouns and verbs because it makes a huge difference on how people perceive you, what you do, and their ability to be included.

And so, you want us to skew towards the noun, which is more of an identity definition rather than an action.

Correct. Don't operate individually. We're a team.

Yeah. This has been brilliant. Jake, this was just really awesome. So many nuggets in this almost 55 minutes. Before we wrap up, do you have any last thoughts about what we've been talking about today?

Yeah, the key through all of this is listening. But not just with your ears. Listen with your eyes. Pay attention. Just if you see something, name it in a polite way and you'll be amazed at how much it cracks open a room.

Love it! Could you remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you?

Yep, you can find me on LinkedIn under Jake Stahl. Again, I'm the one that looks like me. If you are listening to just the audio, I am also the CEO of Orchestrate. You can find my social media as Jake the Mind Mechanic. I'm on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. My book is out there on Amazon, Own the Room: How to Communicate to Be Seen, Heard, and Respected. And please, you can listen to my podcast. It's Own the Room with Jake Stahl, available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Thank you so much. Thank you for doing this today. This was absolutely really brilliant. Lots, lots of really cool nuggets. I really appreciate you making time to do this today.

My pleasure, Marc. Thanks for having me.

Lovely! Hey, if you have any questions about today's episode or you'd like a complimentary 30-minute brainstorming session with you and your team, feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is down below. It's the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com. As always, I am at your service. And if what Jake was telling you today really resonated and you want to connect with him, his contact information is in the show notes as well. And hey, if you haven't done so yet, Make sure that you subscribe to this feed. Follow me on social media. I bring you fresh new content each and every week with articles and all sorts of insights. I'd love to have you as part of my tribe, my team. Thank you very much for joining me today. It's been an absolute blast having you here. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception. See you next week!