293 - Facilitation as Salesmanship: Building Trust and Buy-In with Alan Versteeg

What does it take to make workshops work? And how can we facilitate collaboration that sticks and leads to results? My name is Miriam Hadnes, and with the Workshops Work podcast, I'm on the mission to find the magic ingredients that make workshops work. Today with me on the show is Ellen Verster, and believe it or not, we speak about the similarities between sales and facilitation. And Alan says that facilitators are salespeople because we are selling ideas, processes. We are getting the buy-in from our groups. And the longer we spoke and the deeper we went into the conversation, the more I realized that salespeople and facilitators have exactly the same characteristics. So why are many facilitators not so good at sales? And even if you don't call yourself a facilitator with a capital F, if you're a process manager, a project manager, or product manager, you're also selling because you need to influence to get the buy-in from stakeholders. So this episode is for you to learn how to sell ideas, products, services. Stay tuned. And by the way, if you don't have pen and paper at hand to take your own notes, scroll down to the show notes to download my free one-page summary. And now enjoy and be inspired. Hello, Alan. Welcome to the show. Hello to South Africa.

Thanks for having me. Good to be here.

Yeah. I just kick it off always with the same question. No fluff. When did you start calling yourself a facilitator? And actually, do you?

I do call myself a facilitator. I'm probably more of a salesperson at heart. So I love the passion of selling, but I spend probably about 30 to 40% of my time in rooms or online facilitating. And it's very similar to selling because what you have to do in facilitation is you have to rapidly get buy-in. And I think with sales, you walk into any engagement with a prejudice. People have a perception of salespeople that Hollywood puts out there. And I think you've got a couple of minutes to change that. I think facilitation can be the same. There's a lot of people that can stand up and deliver content, but aren't necessarily professional facilitators. So you're walking into a room and they're expecting often death by PowerPoint, reading through documents. So you've got a short period of time to sell them on yourself. And a good lesson my dad taught me was always demonstrate capability, never communicate it. So I won't start a room and give years of experience that I've been doing something. I'll quickly grab their attention, get them going, get them conversing, and they get to experience my skill as opposed to hearing about it. You know, later on I introduce myself, but initially it's just, you know, breaking through that prejudice that they might have about being in a training room that often they haven't selected themselves to be on. You know, a lot of the companies I work with, they get nominated. So yeah, I think that's, uh, I would say I'm a facilitator, but a salesman at heart.

And I think there are many facilitators listening to that who are Envious, because I think there are many facilitators, especially those who work more in the process facilitation as opposed to the training. They are facilitators at heart, and many of them suck at sales from what I heard, because it's so close to their heart. And I love what you say that I think the mental switch to say, okay, when I walk into a space and want the buy-in of a group. That's a sales pitch. So why can't we do the same when we are in a conversation with a client, actually selling our work?

Exactly that. That's what you're doing. You have to have the courage of your conviction. So facilitators that are good are passionate about their subject matter. They are called subject matter experts. I prefer to call them subject matter evangelists because good facilitators are evangelists. You want to get me talking about sales and sales management, I'm going to talk for days. I love it. So good facilitators are those evangelists. And if you have the courage of your conviction, then when you're selling, it's the same thing. It's persuading someone to see a perspective of the world that you're wanting to share. And for the facilitators on the call that do feel they suck at sales, I will give you 2 quick hints. Number one, selling won't help, but helping will sell. So you need to understand that, take away the Hollywood perception of selling. The reality is selling is a service-oriented thing. And then the second thing I start every day with is I tell myself, Alan, it would be borderline negligent to deny the world the value you can bring. So go out there and go and have the tough conversations. And I think with facilitators, you have a great story to tell, a great influence to have on the world. You're doing the world a disservice if you don't get good at selling because the world needs what you have to offer. So those 2 things, when you realize that it's not this, Wolf of Wall Street world, and that the top salespeople sell with noble purpose. If you're a facilitator and you're a subject matter evangelist, just take that energy into the sale and believe that what you have to offer, the world wants to hear.

Oh, beautiful. Thank you. Amen. I call myself a facilitation evangelist. And I had, um, yeah, I had Dave Gray on the podcast recently, and he said a beautiful thing that if you want to get a job, you have to conform and you have to fit in. But if you're independent and you're an entrepreneur, then you want to stand out and want to be unique. And I think this, for me, it was, yes, of course, but once I heard it, I was like, why haven't I thought about that before?

Yeah, I call them the difference between duh-huh moments and aha moments. Many moments are just duh-huh when you're like, duh, I should have got that a long time ago. It's so obvious. You know, they're not always, aha. They're like, hmm, that's obvious.

So, and I think once you embrace that, okay, I need to be unique because if I fit in, then nobody will even recognize me. And once we dare to be unique and to stand out, then also the sales is just the next obvious step.

100%. Authenticity accelerates trust. So when we're trying to be someone we're not in selling, we're actually doing ourselves a disservice because people pick up authenticity quite quickly. And authenticity takes a lot of courage because you've got to be comfortable in your own skin. You've got to be comfortable with your quirks. You've got to be comfortable with your difference. You've got to be comfortable with your point of view on the world. But let me tell you, it is seen as strength in others when you're comfortable to be yourself and with all the quirks. And, you know, so as you're growing, I think what you're saying is so important is find your authentic voice. Because authentic intent is addictive. People love it and they want it.

Yes. And I think the moment, because it also gives others the permission to be authentic themselves. And I think if we try to fit in or to, if we are uncomfortable with ourselves, I think others will also feel uncomfortable very easily.

Well, you think about it, when you're trying to serve others, if you're worried about yourself, your energy and focus is elsewhere. How are they perceiving me? How are they seeing me? And don't get me wrong, every time before I walk into a room, I need to run some self-talk to go back to, you have a good intent, you gotta get yourself through that. But, you know, Brené Brown is an author on vulnerability. She wrote a book, a couple of books, but one I love is Daring Greatly. And she says it so well. She says, we see vulnerability in others as a strength, but as a weakness in ourselves.

Yeah.

And it speaks a lot to what you're saying about authenticity is that when we see someone authentic, we're going, they're just so comfortable being who they are. And we connect with that because it's a hard thing to do. As crazy as it is, we've been made uniquely, but we seem to go, where do I fit in? You know, as a teenager, that's the hard part. You know, where do I fit in? What's my identity? Where do I belong? But as you say, as you become an entrepreneur, how do I stand out and how do I have a voice? And how do I get comfortable that not everyone's going to like my voice? Because, you know, the minute you have a voice, you have a lot of people speaking against you and your job is not to impress everyone. Your job is to put the dent in the universe you were here to put, and not everyone has to like it or like you. And that was hard for me. I found it very hard to face rejection and people saying things. And, you know, I was always, you're always playing to the, I say the lunatics run the asylum. I'm playing to the people, the one or two people who don't like what I have to say, as opposed to the masses that I'm influencing. And I had to get through that as a young facilitator to go, trust your message, Al, trust your message. Um, it doesn't have to change everyone.

Yeah. And luckily, especially nowadays and with online work, the market is so big. There's a niche for everyone.

It is so true.

Yeah. And I would be curious to hear from you. So how do you differentiate or how do you spot a good sales And I wouldn't say salesperson, an entrepreneur or a facilitator who's good in sales from someone who's not?

You know, as an engineer by trade, you know, and I'm Dutch because, you know, we all have to be engineers. I don't believe we're born a certain way. And I think the challenge with sales is the perception that's created, the Hollywood perception, the, you know, I don't know if you know this, the difference between an introvert success and an extrovert success in sales. It's 0.003%. So it is negligible. It's not a personality type. It's a value system. When I operate from noble intent and I have something to do, I can sell. Think about how many entrepreneurs, Myriam, have never ever been on sales training. They've never been trained to be a professional salesperson. They just have the conviction of it.

I love this.

I use this example in classrooms all the time. We have a brand in South Africa called Woolworths, different to the one in the UK, but it's a high quality brand. It's quite expensive. It's naturally sourced. And anyone at a certain level starts to shop at Woolworths because it's got this brand appeal of quality. They own the word quality in South Africa. And what I do in training is I start telling them that they're stupid. Why are you shopping at Woolworths? And I promise you, I get that room riled up and they are, they go and they're defending. And then I stop. I said, who trained you and who pays you to defend Woolworths in this way? And they go, nobody. I said, exactly. Selling is a natural thing when we have conviction. So, Myriam, what I look for is conviction. And for anyone listening to your thing saying, I'm really, I'm really, you know, I'm not good at the selling thing. Well, it's because you're looking at it wrong. If you're an evangelist of something meaningful, you can sell. Because what happens in the world, my friends, is we try to teach competence. And the reality is competence isn't the problem in sales. It starts with clarity of my value proposition that feeds conviction of the value proposition that builds confidence that creates competence. So when you own your value proposition, and that speaks to what you're saying, you're authentic, you're different, you're yourself, you believe in what you're doing. Selling is not a difficult thing to do. What's difficult is you start with the rejection. I don't want to be that person. I'm a facilitator. I'm not one of those salespeople. Well, my friends, the only reason economies move is because we have salespeople. A business doesn't exist unless we sell.

Yeah.

You know, so it just, I think the big thing I want to get your audience here is Get rid of the mindset that's not serving you. That story doesn't help you. Stories that help me is I'm a professional that's always practicing. I am creating value for the world, and I have to be— have the courage to break through the rejection so I can get something across the line. Because you don't know that one training session that on that day changed someone's life, that they decided not to commit suicide, that they decided they're going to go for a leap in their career, that they decided this isn't the job for them, that they decided, we don't know. And I think, you know, it's typical. I don't know how it is in your country. You know, teachers don't get paid well, and yet they are the influencers of our generations. And I think we undermine the value we bring. The world needs us. And even with ChatGPT and video learning and all the rest of it, the ability to unlock someone's potential through facilitation is a gift the world needs. And if you're not selling, you're denying the world your value.

Yeah, amen, 100%. And I think that the moment where we know what problem we are solving with our gift, our talent, with what we are selling, with our service, then there's also not such thing as a rejection. If someone doesn't need our service because we are not solving their problem, they have a different problem, then that's okay.

And I think it's so true.

Yeah, I think very often we are so much in our head with the hammer we have that we see a nail everywhere and we forget that we're actually there to solve someone's problem. And different clients have different problems. And what I also realize while listening to you, that the salesperson— because I was immediately thinking of our money mindset and that many feel Not as salespeople or have the bad connotation of sales because of the money issue, which is one thing, but then there is an entire internal sales thing where even if you're inside a company and you're facilitating or you're a project manager, you want to get buy-in, you want to influence, that's also sales.

It's also selling. There's a wonderful book by Daniel Pink called To Sell Is Human.

Yes.

And it's such a powerful book because what it's saying is, you know, I get in a room and say, anyone a good salesperson? Then, okay, anyone married? Yes. Okay, so how did you get that sale over the line? You know, and you're so true. If you think about what, and maybe the word selling, the influence and persuasion of, I like to say it this way, we don't sell products, we don't sell services, we don't sell courses, we sell perspectives. When people buy into our lens of the world, then the sale is the natural thing for the problem they have. And in doing that, we have to realize that selling is very human. Persuading is human. We all have opinions we'll defend. You're selling. It's a perspective you're sharing with the world, whether that's, you know, political, religious, how you should gain weight or lose weight, or even, you know, defending your facilitation style. When you're doing that, you're selling. You're trying to persuade someone to see the world through your perspective. And the better you get at that, the more people see your perspective. The risk is, and I think what a lot of people struggle with, is that the neuroscience, the psychology of persuasion and manipulation are exactly the same behaviors. The only difference is intent. So I think people need to give themselves permission to make a change in the world if their intentions are pure. You know, I get frustrated and, you know, I've said this many times publicly that Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street, goes around the world training salespeople. or a man that robs people of their future. Now everyone deserves to be forgiven, but then you shouldn't be teaching them how to sell because you're just making the perception of sales worse. You're not helping our profession. But you touched on something now that comes from a book called Selling with Noble Purpose and massive amount of research. Basically, top performing salespeople globally have a noble purpose. There's something meaning they have that's greater than the commission check. But she says it so well, making a living and making a difference do not have to be mutually exclusive. They can thrive together.

And they have to, because otherwise, how can, if you cannot sustain yourself, how can you make the change in the world?

That's exactly it. Right. So I think the thing is, it's just, there's such a bad perception around selling and people go, I'm not a salesperson. You're a natural salesperson. I got fired from my first 4 sales jobs, you know, when I left engineering. And as an engineer, I want to see cause and effect. I don't believe you're just born a certain way. And one manager changed my life. He said, Alan, is selling a job or a profession? And I knew the right answer. I said, it's a profession. He says, how hard have you studied for this profession? He said, look how hard you studied to be an engineer. How hard have you studied for the profession of sales? And he said these words to me, selling is a profession and it's a practice. Like doctors and lawyers, you're always practicing. You never master it. It's the world's best paying hardworking job and the world's worst paying lazy job. As long as you treat it as a profession, you'll succeed. And the next piece of advice was everything that changed my life. He said, don't go read books on selling. Go read books on psychology. Understand the human.

Mm.

And selling's a natural thing. And I hit number 1 that year. I doubled my quota the following year and everything was different. I was the same guy. My skillset was no different. My personality was no different. The only thing that was different was my mindset. I showed up. I didn't rock up. As a different person.

And that is very interesting because what just crossed my mind is all the things that you touched is abilities or skills that you need as a facilitator. Read books on psychology, not about on facilitation.

Yes.

I think the reason why I'm good in facilitation without ever having had formal training is because I'm a behavioral economist. So I studied human behavior and group dynamics. That's facilitation.

Exactly that. And you've touched on, basically we've almost come full circle because that's where I started. Facilitation is a sales job. It's always a sales job. You're just selling a perspective. You're not selling a product. You're selling, you know, something you want them to see and understand or deliver or potential within themselves. You know, you're trying to unlock the human potential and it's psychology. It's not logic.

So what are the top abilities or skills of a salesperson according to you?

It's a great question that I want to challenge. So I think it's the question we ask and it's the wrong question because it's actually asking what are the values of top-performing sales professionals? The skills happen anyway. If you're a great communicator and you're not interested in the customer, I don't care. I'm not gonna listen to you. I'm not gonna buy from you. If you're pushy and aggressive and you lack tact and you, you don't have a good EQ and you, I'm not listening to you. So the high-performing sales professionals, they are completely customer-centric. They speak about the impact they're trying to drive for the person. As you said, the problem we're trying to solve for you. So that's a default stance. Even when they work with big companies that I work with, they are an advocate for the client. And that's why they say they're not customers, they're clients. They're under my protection. So that's a value system. The other thing is they have conviction of their value promise. So they're not selling it because they got the job. They're selling it because they believe it matters. And there's a lot of research on this, but effectively in my, so what I teach is I think we've spent too much time on value-based selling. So how do I sell value as opposed to values-based selling? Because when you have the right values, then all of the stuff you learn comes from a different place and you can make the mistakes and you can be more of yourself. You know what I mean? I spent so many years. editing myself, editing my personality, editing my opinion to fit into a mold. Because I didn't have the courage of my convictions. I didn't trust that I was good enough. And that people would forgive me for my flaws, they'd forgive me for my vulnerability, if they trusted my intent. And in facilitation, people walk into a room, they don't trust you off the bat, doesn't matter what your track record is, unless they've experienced you before, they don't trust you. And you've got that moment to demonstrate that your values, your purpose for being in that room, Is them. You know what I mean? It's them.

Yeah. How do they know that?

So my view is coming back to something you said earlier, you have to demonstrate the intent of your values. So for example, meet them where they're at. Most of my training sessions, I start with an acronym on the screen and I always make the joke. I say, there's an acronym on the screen. If you don't know acronyms, you shouldn't be in sales because acronyms are everywhere in sales. And it's W-A-I-D-H-A. And I said, you got 1 minute and I'll start my clock to tell me what that stands for. Don't shout it out. Don't collaborate. Just write it down. Don't worry if you don't get it right. I've got your resignation letters with me. And then everyone starts to laugh. I haven't introduced myself. I hadn't let my host introduce me. I just start there. And they go around the room and no one knows. And then someone says, well, I had one. And I go, what is it? And they go, what am I doing here again? And I said, ouch, you're not exactly a nice crowd, are you? That really hits me in the gut. Like, Does somebody have something a bit more positive? And generally they don't. And my next slide is, what am I doing here again? Because when you meet people where they're at, they understand that they sitting there often told to be there. They don't know what they're doing there again. It's not like when we're, you know, as entrepreneurs, you know, I hate to go on courses with my own money, right? Where in the corporate world, you get sent to world-class training and you rock up going, oh, I hope the lunch is good. So for me, it's, it's immediately meeting where they're at. So that they start to go, oh, okay, so this isn't about Ellen. A lot of facilitation, people's first slide is all about them. And I tell you what I can tell you. I've been facilitating X amount of years. I've trained more than 4,000 sales managers in over 49 countries, of which I've been to 30 of those countries. I can have a whole list of my CV that nobody cares about because they want to see if I demonstrate empathy for them and a desire to help them. And then through the journey, I lace those things in. So I was stuck in an airport in Australia and my bag was here. And so I drop those things in. So I start elevating my credibility. But long before that, I've demonstrated that they are the heroes in the story, not me.

Yeah, it's connection before content. You first have to win their trust and their hearts, and then they're open even to listen to your CV. Because if you showed the CV, if they don't like you, they were like, oh, what a bragger. Oh, I don't know whether this is correct anyway. But if they like you—

Let me Google this guy.

Right? Yeah. And I see more and more connections with the facilitation, and which just makes me doubt why facilitators are not better salespeople. We'll change that. And I was wondering, so what I get is that you do mostly sales training, and I hope that I will hear later about how you transitioned from engineering to sales anyway. I was wondering, do you have actually only salespeople in your trainings, or do you also have process managers such as project managers, product managers in your sales training? Because I think these are the ones that need to influence. Their client is inside the company, and if they don't have these air quotes sales skills, they're running after their stakeholders. Like hamsters.

Yeah. To answer the question, let me just elevate a little bit further back. So our departure point for our company is we develop sales managers because we take top performing salespeople. We promote them to people leadership and they don't know how to lead people. And then we blame them because they're only talking about the numbers. So we believe that the highest leverage is in the sales manager. However, that brings us to work in the sales space. And then in the sales space, what we say is that It is everybody's job in the business to close the gap between what customers expect and what they experience. So you're all in sales. So when we run account training or value communication training, we have project managers, we have specialists, we have engineers, we have, you know, depending on the client, you know, we've got people that manufacture engines like Cummins. We got John Deere who built tractors. We've got Adobe that builds software. It's no different. The reality is the organization is the value proposition, not just the salesperson. So that's a key area we work on. But probably a bigger passion for me, and I think where my future will move, is really starting to get leaders to master buy-in. Because we operate from a perspective. And the way I say it, Myriam, is you're having a party in your head, no one's invited, right? You're so certain of where you're taking people, they don't even know where they're going. As a good leader, you've got to be so strong at selling. And selling the vision, because in the tough days, in the extra hours, in the too many meetings, in the, why can't we just go back to the simple stuff? They have to have something to hold on to. And what they have to hold on to is the vision you sold them. And I always say that, you know, everyone says, no, no, it's the vision they buy into. So I said, no, no, no, it's the vision I sold them because I've got to sell this thing. And that's the key thing for me. Part of going from an engineer into sales was I felt with technology, I could control the game quite easily. You know, there's a saying where we go, well, it's not rocket science. You're damn right. Rocket science is very predictable. It is complicated, but they can land a module 1,000 million light years away and it arrives— this was in the news the other day— 0.04 seconds later than they had anticipated. My friends, everything works on paper till people get involved. Try dealing with people. And my growth was that passion of psychology, reading those books going, wait a minute. And there was, Seligman about, you know, learned optimism. And, and I got excited about that behavior. And that was the difference. Machines are manageable. People, it's a different day every day. And sales gets me right in the front line of that, those differences and those challenges and those personalities. And, you know, I had a tough call, uh, 2 nights ago and a lot of our clients in the States. So it was 10:30 PM at night. It was a long day. And one key stakeholder in the business we're trying to get over the line and he's completely different to me. He's a different personality. He's a different race. He's of Asian descent. And it's a wonderful game to learn to go, I'm going to get this skeptical person over the line because we have value to give you. And you don't get that challenge every day. And you know this from facilitation. Every room's different. Your content can be the same. Your process can be the same, but every room has new personalities. And I think that's the richness of selling we forget, you know, the luxury of dealing with people. Where for 2 years I worked on machines. And then I read a book called You're Born an Original, Don't Die a Copy. And it said, if you hate what you're doing for more than— it says, if you hate what you're doing for more than 2 weeks, stop. Because you don't live once, you die once. Live every day, find your purpose. And that hit me in the gut. And I was like, I'm not enjoying this. It's right. It's in my blood. It was my dad, dad, you know, you know, I mean, you know, if we're Dutch, we're good engineers. But I didn't enjoy my job. I didn't enjoy the predictability of it.

You know, I thought the Germans were good engineers and the Dutch were good entrepreneurs, actually.

Well, you know, you know, I'll just say that, you know, the Dutch invent and the Germans perfect, but that's just my view, you know.

Oh, yes. Yes.

I don't offend any of your audience, but yes, my dad always used to say that.

I'm German living in the Netherlands.

He used to say, the Dutch innovate and the Germans perfect.

The Dutch dare to fail. That's what makes them good in entrepreneurship.

Yeah, true.

Where do you think is the biggest difference between selling an idea and selling a product or service?

I think the biggest difference is to understand that even if you're selling a product or a service, you're selling an idea. And I think that's the piece we miss. And it is for me what ties directly into facilitation. Facilitation is the selling of an idea. It's the selling of a perspective. So whether I have a product that is tangible, I've got to educate you on a problem you don't know you have and offer you a solution you didn't know you needed. That's selling. Otherwise, it's just order taking. You need some training. I've got training. Here's your training. Let's go. Selling is persuasion. It's influence. It's driving a thing. So you're always selling an idea. And we forget that we do not make logical decisions. We make decisions highly influenced by emotional. feelings towards things, body language, you know, all these subtleties. But I don't believe in teaching body language. I don't believe in teaching these things. I believe in one thing. When your values are clear, your customers can smell it. They can smell that you have a real intent and purpose here. If you're a facilitator and you're that evangelist of your content, they can smell it. It's tangible in the room because you get that.

Yeah.

I think we forget that we're always selling ideas. It's just that the product and the solution may be the mechanism. But it's the fact that you bought into an idea that what I have to offer will help you in whatever you're going to be doing moving forward.

Yeah, and I already hear the audience saying, yeah, but as a facilitator, as a process facilitator, not as a trainer, I am neutral and I'm not selling my ideas. It's all about their ideas. And there I just want to clarify that. That's still, if I understand you right, Nancy, at least that's my interpretation, it's about getting the buy-in of the group to follow your process. Because if they don't trust you as a facilitator to guide them through a process, you will lose them and they will not get to the solution, to the goal, and to the collaboration or agreement at the end. So even if we are content neutral, And we don't have an idea to sell, we're still selling the process and the trust in the guidance that we bring in, in the facilitation. That's at least how I understand it.

You're definitely on the right path. I want to double-click on this though, because I think, you know, I'm, I'm very conscious of language we use with ourselves. You know, I'm a process engineer. I mean, a process facilitator. I'm neutral for content and I'm teaching you how to do something. You're gonna be a mediocre facilitator at best because your job is not to teach them how to do something, it's to get them motivated as to why they should do it. So I've seen a lot of facilitation. The biggest lack is you don't give them a framework.

Mm-hmm.

Let me give you something simple. I go to companies, I say, your account plan is the report card of your customer centricity. Tell me that your account planning process is about the customer and they can't. It's always about the data that the business needs to protect themselves if you lose. I say these words. What if the account plan was a report card of your customer centricity and it was a plan about how you close the gap between what customers expect and what they experience? And they go, oh, that's what it is. Then I can teach them the process. Once you give people the right ingredients, you can follow the recipe. But you think the ingredients of your process facilitators, if you're listening on this call, it is your job to get them on a mindset shift that gets them to want to execute the process because without desire, they just painting by numbers, but they're never gonna be Picasso. They're not getting to what their genius is. And you can take a set of ingredients and a recipe, and I can take the same ingredients and recipe. We're going to do something different because of how unique we are. So if you're a process facilitator, the first thing you have to do is you have to connect the human being before you connect the human doing, which is what you said, I think, is the convictional commitment. What did you say over connection? Connection precedes content. So I think you're doing yourself a disservice when you go, well, I just teach process. Well, teach me the why. You know, I'll give you an example. I was training a guy and he said to me, Al, I love your story. It reminds me of my story. He says, I was working in Australia as a dot matrix technician. So the dot matrix printer, he used to fix it. And he says one of his first jobs, and it was a pretty mundane job. And, you know, he says, but Qantas have a culture of walking the floor. So leaders, you know, proper walking the floor, not talking about it actually. And he came to him one day, said, you know, senior executive said, you know, you have one of the most important jobs. in our business. And he laughed. He said, I'm not joking. He says, our business has 2 metrics: land them safely, land them on time. Without a flight manifest, we can't do that. Without a dot matrix printer that works well, we can't get the flight manifest. Never underestimate how mundane work is critical to saving the lives of people. He said he never got paid more. He just came there differently. So, sell your facilitators, even if you're process-oriented, how do you sell them a frame of reference, a perspective that gets them excited about learning this? Because desire is the first part of learning. Frustration and desire, ironically. I'm frustrated because I can't. I have a desire to want to. Who can help me? And sorry, I know I'm speaking a lot. There's one thing I want to add to this that hits my point home. I remember when I was studying e-learning and how to create engaging e-learning and micro lessons and all the rest of it. There was one quote that really stood out for me and they said, But never forget that if your computer's broken and you have to find a way to fix it, and the instructions are in a one-page black and white document in Arial font 10, and it gets you to your outcome, you will value the learning. So always remember that substance trumps style. And that sat with me and I was like, ah, there it is. So to the facilitators that think it's, I'm agnostic of whatever, if you're not selling a perspective, Then you're not driving motivation and engagement. You're just teaching people how to put the recipe together, but you're not getting them excited about the meal they're creating for someone else to enjoy.

And you're making them dependent because only if you understand the framework, you can replicate it and do it by yourself. Otherwise, you're just serving them fish.

That's exactly that. So every piece of content that I create as an instructional designer will always start with what's the framework of thinking. If I can't get to the framework of thinking, I haven't done my job. And that's why I'm blessed. So my dad was an engineer, my mother was an artist, my grandfather was an executive, and my grandmother was an entrepreneur. Um, so I feel like I'm blessed.

You have all the genes you need.

Yes. But it's exactly that, that instructional design, I start by what is the perspective I need to sell them? Because if I got that, I can keep bringing up that point of view because they're operating from the same lens I'm operating from. So the content feels different when you know the why. And we've all heard this, you know, Simon Sinek, Start with Why. And when, you know, psychology better than me, you know, behavioral shifts are purpose-oriented, even if the why doesn't make sense. You know, if there's a beeping sound and everyone's standing up, I look around me and eventually I'm standing up because it seems like that's what I should do.

Yeah.

It's human behavior. And I think that's, for me, we don't realize as facilitators how much we're influencing human behavior, actual The way people think, the way they grow, the way they learn.

Yeah, and that makes this profession so beautiful. And I think that's why I'm always coming back also to the roles that might not identify themselves as facilitators, but a project manager has to facilitate, has to sell. And the currency is actually time instead of money. And I am curious to hear from you, what is the difference in strategy when your sales proposition, when your currency is time instead of money? Is there anything different?

Explain it.

So for instance, when I sell you a training, I want you to pay me, I deliver the training. If I want you to deliver me the report or the data that I need to continue working on my project, I have not much to offer you than my vision or my please give me, and you have a million other priorities. a full schedule, no time because you're only in meetings, and your last thing is to provide the report to me that I want from you. So how am I— what is the difference in sales when I want to get your time and your buy-in as opposed to I want your money?

If you want either, you have to appeal to my values. You have to appeal to my values because if you understand something, I'll give you an example. I was working with a coach and we were working with a group of people. And he said, going around the room, he said, what are your values? And someone said, no, I'm a family man. I'm a— he said, great. He said, show me your calendar. And he looked at his calendar and there was no time for family. Working 12 hours a day and then playing golf the whole weekend. And he said, you have an ideal. You don't have a value. Value is how you spend your time. When you're asking people to give up the one commodity we can't get back, right? We, you know, time, money, they'll keep printing. But time, you know, once that grain of sand's gone through that glass, it's gone. We're not going to get it back. You have to find something that appeals to people's value. And for facilitators, you've got 10 to 15 minutes when you start to get people to go, I'm comfortable sacrificing time for you. And that's the key thing. So when you're selling a product or service or asking for money, it's got to be something that aligns to my values. If you're asking for the time, it has to be something that strongly aligns to my values. So for example, if I'm a project manager asking for a report, how are you compelling me to get bought into the why and sell the why and sell the perspective. They go, okay, that makes sense. I want to say no to this and say yes to this. And often we don't. And I want to add something here because I think it speaks to a point you were making. What is a facilitator? Because why am I not a trainer? And the best example I heard was, well, that I experienced, but then I use. I went and bought a new laptop. It was about 12 years ago. I had clear buying criteria. It needs to travel well, it needs to be light, it's wonderful. I walk into the shop and there's this beautiful big Toshiba. The monitor was huge, it folded forward, it was very sexy, it was heavy, it did not have a solid-state drive, and I bought it contrary to all my buying criteria. I then also at that time bought a legal version of Microsoft Office because prior to that I was, you know, found it on the internet. And I get home to install this and I realized, I didn't even realize that this machine I bought does not have a DVD drive. So back then it was a, you had a DVD drive. I said, didn't have DVD drives. How am I going to install the software? So I open up the Microsoft Office box and I realized there's no CD here. So I'm saying, oh good, maybe it's got a memory stick. No memory stick. So now I'm thinking, what am I going to do? And all it has was, it was a card with instructions on it. And basically what it said was, if you do this, then you do this, then you do this, then you put in this number and Office is there on your machine. Office is always installed. The code and the process unlocked Office. As a facilitator, the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding is already with the learner. It is our job to facilitate that moving up.

To understand.

And then obviously there's new things. I'm going to teach you a new process, teach you a new step, teach you a new something. But it's that awakening of, okay, I've got this. I need this. I want this. Let me learn. Because that's often the challenge is just because they're in the room doesn't make them learners. They can just be passive observers.

Yeah. I love that with the code. Yes, it's already there. You just need something to unlock it, the right key.

Yeah. And you'll see those moments. You'll see those aha moments where they're going, ah, you know, oh man, I always used to do this and I stopped doing this. I don't know why. Oh, but now account management makes sense to me. Oh, now I know why I've got a coach. I'm gonna give you an example. We're doing a coaching program for a big bank here in South Africa. And they've been in coaching programs for 6 years. No one's ever done anything. I said, well, has anyone told them why coaching works? So what do you mean? Has anyone spoken to them to the neuroscience of why coaching is the number one thing to change behavior? No. I said, so no one knows why coaching is important. They just get told it's important. They get told to do it and you expect them to do it. And then you think if you teach them the behavior, they're going to do the work. But guess what? You haven't sold the why. If you sell the why, the rest is much easier. And I remember in school, You know, I was blessed. I can take in information, retain it, and regurgitate it. I got the highest marks in the country for my engineering degree. I go to my first job interview. He says, Al, well done on your marks. I'm like, thank you, thank you. Very proud of myself, young and cocky and certain I'm gonna take over the world. He pulls out a PC board. He says, show me 3 transistors. And I was like, what? He says, show me 3 transistors. I said, can you give me the schematic? He says, there's no schematics in the real world, Al. Show me 3 transistors. And he then said to me, there's a difference between knowledge and understanding. You have the knowledge. My job is to get you to understanding.

And what this brings up for me, and you being persistent on, if you understand the why, you can sell it, even more so when you want people's time instead of their money. And I'm just thinking how difficult it is even for Me, us, I think I speak for many entrepreneurs, to articulate our why or to articulate our value proposition. What do we bring to the clients? What are they really, really paying for? Or what is the purpose of a workshop? If the people in the workshop cannot explain why they're there and what the purpose is and what the value is, of course they won't be engaged. And then I think, I wonder, I'm not a project manager, how easy or difficult it is to really articulate the why someone needs something. And I would even bet that in 60%, it's actually not necessary. It's just, oh, we need this, but nobody really thought about why they would need it. And then once it's delivered, nobody even looks at it because then they realize, oh, actually, we didn't need that anyway.

Exactly.

And that's why nobody wants to do the work.

Yeah, well, I mean, it's unfortunate because we've created working cultures where we no longer value thinking, planning, and reviewing. We actually think thinking is cheating. If I take some time, I step back, I kind of review how we did, I think about what I can do better, I apply some frameworks of thinking, some ideas, I plan, and then I run hard for 12 weeks. I can do more in 12 weeks than most people do in 12 months. But we don't do that anymore. We literally have what I call brain fart disease. You have a brain fart, an idea in your head, you get in an email, goes out, someone does a whole bunch of work of it and later, 3 weeks later, you go, I didn't really need that, but yeah, I think thanks for sending it to me. It's, it is, it is crazy that we're doing that. Um, but when you think about applying back, you know, the alignment between sales and facilitation, and if you want this, I'm happy to send it across. I've got a document called the 6 Ps of Persuasion that I'd love you to share with your audience. I can get you the document. You can host it somewhere and make it available to them. But the key thing is I speak about, and you spoke about it earlier, the 6 Ps of persuasion are this. The first one is what's your punchline? What's the compelling thing that gets my attention, gets me past the bodyguard and the door of my mind? You know, so I remember when I started selling sales training before sales management, I would say, you know, punchline was sales training sucks. It sucks your money, it sucks your time, it sucks, it sucks the energy, and then nothing changes. But then I then educate the real problem. The problem is not the content. The problem is that you're targeting the wrong thing. You're focusing on competencies, not clarity of value proposition. You're focusing on value, not values. So I then sell a specific problem and then I lead with my perspective. My perspective was selling won't help, but helping will sell. Your big differentiator is how you show up as a high value person. And then you go to the logic brain. What's the path? So how are you going to get me from here to there? What's the proof? Have you done this before? And then what's the prize? What's the personal prize for me for giving up time, money, or both? And that simple 6 things works with the, I mean, you know, the brain, but it works with the brain because it's how we respond. We spend so much time talking about the logic, not the emotion. What's your punchline? What's the problem you're educating? What's the perspective? Because when they buy their perspective, I normally eliminate most of my competitors at that point because I'm solving a different problem. And the customer feels that. Yeah.

And that's why, and this brings us full circle to where we started, it's so important, this uniqueness of our perspective, because if it's just a ChatGPT general statement, it's not a perspective. So it's not unique and it's not worth anything. So how can we—

It's a commodity.

Yeah.

It's a commodity. And I mean, people going against ChatGPT, I'm like, I use ChatGPT, it's a thought partner. I call it a thought partner. It is my thought partner. It accelerates thoughts for me much quicker than I could before. It's wonderful, but it's not me. It is a tool in my arsenal, right? And I get so frustrated. I'll try not to get too high on my soapbox here, but I get so frustrated. You know, I don't know where it is in your world, but schools in South Africa are banning the use of it. And I'm going, what? Isn't the job of education to prepare us for the world we're going to enter?

Sure.

And now you're removing the one tool that is changing work at rates we don't even understand, and you're not preparing them for that. So I'm like, what are you doing? You can't stop it. You know, it's like, They tell us not to cheat in school, and then the first job they say, please collaborate. You're like, I've never had to collaborate before.

Yeah, that's an entirely different discussion. I think it's shortsighted and I guess born out of laziness because if you allow students to use ChatGPT, and I know this from being a teacher, air quotes, myself, at some point I allowed the students to bring a cheat sheet. I even asked them, okay, you can bring an A4 double-sided cheat sheet with you to the exam. And so they prepared small letters, they were perfect, and then I asked questions that they cannot answer with their cheat sheet. But those who prepared a cheat sheet, actually, they were better at the exam because they did the work and they prepared.

Exactly, because you know this, and I mean, they have to take complex stuff and make it little is where the learning happens. Yeah, you know, but I think it's 3 hours of content, it's 30 days of content that it could be.

Exactly. But the thing is, to correct an exam where there is not the one correct answer that you could have written on a cheat sheet is much more work. So correcting students who are allowed to use ChatGPT is much more difficult because you have to ask different questions and to use your brain instead of just the exam you, you posed last year. Yeah, I can get very enthusiastic about this topic.

Yeah, we can get it. Yeah, I could talk for hours on this and share my opinion. I can't predict the future, but there's no future that's not going to have generative language as part of the model in any corporate environment. So we're educating and spending stupid amounts of money on education that isn't preparing them for the world they enter. And it frustrates me because there's one thing, you know, we're up against big competitors often. And it's easy for me because they haven't updated their content in 9 years because they think the content is— I'm changing every 90 days. I'm tweaking, moving because the world's moving and I want to move with it. It's got to be, it's got to be relevant. So it's easy to differentiate because I'm going, okay, when last did they update their content? I mean, think about how the world's changed in 9 years. And then these are big companies where, you know, it's a, it's a $15 billion industry, sales training in the world. It's not small. Yeah.

And it's interesting because then it becomes a self-enforcing system because if you don't update your content, this means how can you stay enthusiastic? How can you really have the heart for the thing that you're selling? And then you won't be able to sell it anymore because then you don't have the persuasion because you don't believe in it anymore. But if you continue to update it, then you stay enthusiastic and hence you will stay on top of the game.

And you demonstrate growth mindset. You're demonstrating a growth mindset. You're going at no point is this is a profession and professions you practice. I'm practicing at this. And, you know, I look back at my content 5 years ago and I'm going, oh, what were you thinking? Um, but the reality is, is that at that time it was the best I had and it was good enough to get me an opportunity and a client and whatever. But I keep it to your point. Like the curiosity is probably the word. I have a high value in curiosity. I'm, I read 60, 70 books a year. I want to know stuff. It's just, It's just, I'm wired that way. But it's that curiosity that says, but I'm demonstrating a growth mindset. I'm telling people where I failed. I'm vulnerable in the challenges. And then they connect with you very quickly.

What is the one thing that you would have liked to, you had known before? Or what is the, what would be your advice to your younger self?

There are so many people that are wanting to help you, but when you come from a place of feeling you need to prove yourself, you never let them in. I have been running a business for 11 years and my first executive assistant started this week. And I, I don't have the capacity to have not had an executive assistant 7, 8, 9 years ago. I can't believe what she's done for me in, in this short week. So my younger self is, you don't have to do it all. Someone wants to help you.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that's the key thing is I don't have to be perfect. I don't have to know it all. I don't have to do it all. And in reality, I'm robbing the world of value by planning my flights and booking my calendar and, you know, doing all the things that someone else can do that is their highest and best use and their unique capability. So for the facilitators, even if you're not great at selling, create an engine that sells, create something that drives that for you, get a team around you, especially as entrepreneurs. I think we sometimes forget we're entrepreneurs, but we're not business owners. Because they're not the same thing, you know, as we set a goal this year to 10x our business. So we wanted to do 10 times more this year than we did the previous year. And we're about 85% of the way there. So it's going to happen, but it's been painful because I have to get executive assistants. I'd have to get a whole team of facilitators. So 15 new facilitators we're onboarding. I've got to do different things, but speaking to the entrepreneurs and my younger self would be get help sooner. And stop being so egotistically protective that you're the only guy that can do this. You know, there's things I can do uniquely, but there's a whole bunch of things other people can do well enough. Um, and I find when you're really passionate about something, it's so hard to let go because they can do it 80%. What, what my coach tells me is 80% done by someone else is 100 times better than 100% done by me. If it's the stuff that doesn't matter. And I think that's, for me, that advice as a younger man, a younger facilitator, because the sacrifice you don't get back. I don't get the birthday with my son when he was 3 back when I was overseas facilitating. I don't get it back. There's no do-overs. Even now when I have a lot more time and a lot more balance, there's no do-overs. It's not, it's not the same. Ask for help. It's there. There's a whole bunch of passionate people that are keen to do what things that you think are mundane are the reason they get up in the morning. Yeah, yeah.

And I'm even thinking, so yes, getting help in the team, administrative help, outsourcing the stuff we don't enjoy doing. And I think the other one is also asking for help in terms of advisors or a wisdom circle or a group of people who— mentors who have the experience already and who would be so happy to share it and who are happy to share it. Yes.

And I love that you've said that because, you know, executive coaching is very popular now. And, you know, coaching and mentoring are not the same thing. But I think that specifically in the world of sales, we've lost a generation of mentors because as of '95, '96, technology replaced management. And what I mean by that is we still got sales managers, but they're sitting on the wrong side of the mouse. They're not with their people. They're not developing human talent. They, they're looking at data. And there's a void of that mentorship. And exactly your point is that it's like any support group, right? You can feel like you're the only one that doesn't have this thing sorted. Like you're the only one that doesn't have your life together or whatever area of it is. And the minute you're in a group or with a mentor, you're going, well, this is par for the course, buddy. Like, this is what it is. You're like, what do you mean? Like, no, this, this is how it works. This is life. It has challenges. And I love that you've shared that because I think we've, we've. almost forgotten the power of a mentorship network, um, you know, and so important because my learning in the last 2, 3 years has been mentorship networks is, is investing in my own training. You know, I expect other companies to, but when do I go and get trained as an entrepreneur? I mean, it's a, it's a, it's not something you just wake up and you know how to do.

Mm-hmm.

And I've been on, you know, the Strategic Coach program. How do you 10x your business? How do you, and I'm, I'm on the Buy Back Your Time course, which is phenomenal. Um, and I've got mentors and coaches and people helping me because I've learned to ask for help. Why learn the hard way? Or even worse, sitting there questioning your values. And let me be vulnerable here. Am I a fraud? Am I an imposter? Do I have the right to influence people's lives with my mouth and my thoughts? Do I? Because I don't know. So you know what, let me just try harder. Let me do more. Let me be more. And not realizing that that time is so such wasted energy because all the evidence says you're driving impact. But then because of that, you hold on, you hold on to your calendar, you hold on to your email, you hold on to your, your, the font you want to use, you hold on to, you hold on to these things and your growth is slower and harder. A mentor will say to you, sorry, you don't have an executive assistant? Okay. Al, so you, you've traveled to 7 countries this year. You've done 7 international trips. You've done 29 local trips. And you do all that stuff? I'm like, yes. He says, what if you at that time spent facilitating, being on podcasts or selling? What would your business look like? I'm like, well, and it's logical when they say it, but it's still hard. You know, it's our, it's our ego is protecting itself saying only Al can do it this way. Meanwhile, and I want to have people do better.

And thank you for sharing that. And I I wonder whether it's the ego protecting us, or I can do better, or whether it's actually the opposite, whether it's the voice of the imposter that's not allowing us to do better because, oh, if we hired this executive coach and we would do all of this ourselves, what if we then fail? What if actually we don't do better? What if they find out that actually we don't know? And then, oh no, I would have grown my business so much further if only I had the time, but I had to do all this kind of booking and all the administration.

And I think— We tell ourselves stories and your facilitators do the same. It's exactly that. So the imposter syndrome for me, just to put in context, the, the ego is the defense of no, no, no, no, no, you're an imposter. So you need to do more. You need to earn your stripes to be the person you are when you've already earned your stripes, you know? So it's, it's, it's that fight that's happening. And it's the same fight when we go, well, I don't really want to grow a big business. Well, you know, I'm not really a salesperson. Yeah. Well, I'm not really, no, no, no. You're just, you're not choosing to make the trade-off and the growth that's required. And for me, the hard part was I read 60 books a year. I should know better. I should have known this a long time ago.

The knowing-doing gap, you know, the knowing-doing gap. I'm sure you teach it.

Exactly. And what I realized was the answer isn't within me. The answer is within the help. And I'm talking about, you know, personal psychologists and, you know, mentors in business and specific business growth coaches and all of these things, you know, I would have, wouldn't have dreamed of the fact that I think I've now done, you know, 38 podcast interviews this year. Where did I find that time? Well, I didn't. Someone protected my calendar for the important stuff. And this is the important stuff. It's either getting a message out to the world. Why wouldn't you want to do that? Alan's busy choosing the exact bed he wants in the hotel. Why?

Like, why? Yeah. So yeah, it's so relevant. I remember my very first coach, she at some point pointed out that she had the impression that I'm running through life with the handbrake on. That costs a lot of energy.

It's so weird you say that. It's so weird you say that. Because my coach said to me, the first thing he said to me, he said, Alan, you keep adding power, but you're not adding traction because your handbrake's up. He literally said it like that. He said, your handbrake's up. I said, what do you mean? He goes, you're holding onto this handbrake and wondering why the car isn't going forward at the pace you want, wondering why you're sacrificing your health, sacrificing time with family, sacrificing social, you know, time with friends. You think that one day you're going to emerge, but the reality is you're driving with the handbrake up. Let's get the handbrake down. and figure it out. And, you know, I'm hoping it's— this is beneficial to your listeners, but if you're in their place, just get help. I mean, just be vulnerable to go, someone might know better, or just give me a new perspective. And the irony is, is it's, it's the irony of that my job is to grow other people and help them when they haven't asked for my help, convince them that they need it. Yet I will sit there and go, I can't ask for help. Like, it's, it's, it's the irony of asking other people to spend, invest, and trust me to change their lives, and I don't trust others to your mind. Well, didn't. I do now. And it's been phenomenal is the only word I can use.

Yeah. And I wonder whether this is the story of the shoemaker who was wearing the worst shoes.

It's exactly that. It's exactly that. And I think that's what coaches do well and mentors do well. They create mirror moments that we actually see those ironies and we do something about it, you know. But if you're listening and you're there, You know, even if it's just a network, even if it's a podcast, even if it's a something, realizing you're not as isolated as you feel and you're not a, you're not an imposter. None of us have got everything figured out. And let me tell you, there's someone out there that's going to share one insight, like Glenn did with me when I was a failing salesperson, that starts to change your life. And for me, it's interesting. For me, it was the handbrake. As an engineer, I can go, oh, that makes no sense. I'm driving with a handbrake up. I'm adding force, I'm tweaking the engine, I'm putting in better fuel, but the handbrake's still up. It's like, just go put the handbrake down.

Oh, okay.

That works.

Yeah. I think we've all been there. What remains your facilitation challenge?

Speed. I struggle to slow down my voice when I get really passionate. And as I train in different countries and different cultures, I am actively actually working with a coach now. On how I just get that pace right because I find that I have a story that if I'm speaking slowly, you're going to not think I'm passionate. Yet they're showing me speeches and dialects and things you can do where you can, you can still get people's attention. And sometimes it doesn't have to be loud and it doesn't have to be fast. You just have to change the pace. So that's currently my biggest challenge. On every single feedback report I get, they love me as a facilitator because my energy, But they go, if you could just slow down sometimes, you know, and you can imagine that if your first language isn't English and then Alan's getting really passionate. So I'd say that's the challenge. Um, but then also I'm building a network of facilitators. I'm going to elevate myself up to global keynotes at big events where, you know, I'm trying to build the business because there are people that are naturally better at that. But to answer your question, mine is getting the balance between energy and pace. Because I find that if I, if I speak fast and I'm excited and I tell you about this and my pitch goes up, I'm going to get that room energy moving, and I do, but they have no clue what I'm saying. They're all excited, but they don't know what I'm saying.

Oh, it doesn't matter. Just sign here, please.

Yeah. Yeah. While you're excited.

Yeah.

So I'd say that's my challenge.

Thank you. Yeah, it makes sense. And I can sense that and I love it. And at the same time, I also can see how very often a slower pace Also gives you more of the expert status and helps people to think along. Yeah.

I mean, what they're teaching me is, is actually it's just, it's tonality shifts. So if you change your pitch and your tone consistently, you keep people engaged. And I want your audience to think about this. Hollywood will spend $1 billion trying to entertain people for 2 hours. And we sometimes have to entertain them for 2 days. 3 days. We've got to keep people engaged. You think about how taxing that is on your own energy and your own thing. So, yeah, anyways, I'm doing a lot of learning. They've got me mirroring Tony Robbins because he's a master of tonality and pitch things and, you know, doing work in that space. It's really now, it's like obvious as I hear it, because if I speak really excited at a fast pace consistently, you're going to get bored because it's, it's no different than talking like this for a long time. So it's, it's really about variation. So yeah, I'm working on that. And it's interesting because it means if there's someone out there fixing this problem, I'm not the only guy with this problem.

Yes. Yeah. I have actually interviewed a speaker's coach on how to facilitate with your voice. Very interesting. And where to get actually the energy from and how, yeah, how to help your message come across. independent of the content, just with your voice. Fascinating.

Yeah, because they said to me something that was so profound. They said, because they were observing some of my videos and saying, look how passionate you are, look how excited you are. And I said, yeah. I said, okay, when did they have a moment to think about what you said? I said, what do you mean? I said, when did you give them their right to think? He says, you're just building on your narrative, building on your narrative. They haven't given you the time to think. And that's where I realized it's not so much the pace being the problem, it's that I'm not allowing them to absorb Anything. And that's why he says that's when the pace is good, because the minute you stop talking or lower your voice or slow down saying, before I carry on, what is the one insight you've taken from? And just like that, he says, now they're in a different place and they're paying attention again because you're not one tone. Anyway, it's exciting stuff. And it's, uh, it shows, you know, that this is a profession. We're always practicing. We're always getting better at it. You know, if we're choosing to grow.

Yeah. And I think that's maybe One additional similarity between sales and facilitation and speaking, the comfort with silence, that sometimes just shut up, let the other person think or let them feel or land the idea that you just communicated.

Well, I mean, that's the irony and the contradiction. I teach a coaching program based on a book called Quiet Leadership, which is about quiet leadership, meaning Don't stop talking. Ask the questions, get them to percolate, get them to think. And, you know, look, it's a lot better now because then I bake it into the training. So, you know, I let the slide guide me and then there's a question up there. It's like, okay, well, great. Now we've gotten there. Let's take a moment to reflect. So you start to learn that, but you're right. It's the comfort of the silence to allow them the time to let it percolate, you know, like a strong coffee. It's, it's going to drip a bit before they go, aha.

Yeah.

So yeah, that's an important area.

Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

That was a lot of content, a lot of food for thought in a very high pace. It's funny, sometimes I—

Oh, the irony.

Yeah, and it's interesting. So I listen again to the podcast interviews to write a one-page summary. And very often I put the speed to 1.5 or 1.75. Just in order to get faster through the job. And this interview might actually be one of the few where I drop it maybe to 0.75, just to take notes.

Okay, so obviously there's still lots of work to do, it's clear.

Wonderful. That's for me the second best moment after the interview. Of course. Thank you. We'll put all the links to how to find you, how to get in touch with you, how to listen to the other podcasts on you've been in the show notes, and hopefully also the cheat sheet with the 7 Ps.

Yes, 6 Ps.

6 Ps.

I'll get you the 6 Ps cheat sheet, and then you're more than welcome to share that with the guests. It's a very simple, practical way to start persuading if that's what you're struggling with. Wonderful.

Excellent. Thank you, Alan.

Thank you so much for having me. I do appreciate it.

Thanks. Thank you for staying tuned and for listening until the very end. I hope that you found the inspiration and the wisdom that you are looking for. And I hope that you will subscribe to the show so that you never miss any of the interviews with another inspiring facilitator from across the world. I'm devoted to continue this podcast and to deliver weekly an episode that maintains the quality that you expect and you deserve. And if you would like to help me to maintain this quality and to keep the podcast free, please help us visit workshops.work/support to make a small donation to keep the podcast free. Thank you so much. I hope to be in your ears next week.

Bye.