Will Your Next Conversation Be a Game Changer?
Will your next conversation be a game changer? Or will it produce more of the same?
Here’s my thesis, based on a lot of business and life experience:
The breakthrough that you really want in your business WILL ONLY OCCUR in a CONVERSATION.
The opportunities that are all around you, right now (see previous post), present themselves through people. And to seize those opportunities, you must engage in conversations. Conversations are where sales are made, agreements forged, visions are cast and caught, and decisions are implemented. For the entrepreneur and executive, the conversation is the core tool of your trade.
A conversation that changes the game is not an ordinary, business as usual conversation. It is one that changes the trajectory of the business.
Most likely, this conversation will take you into the danger zone (as in, beyond your comfort zone). The stakes are high and outcome is not certain — yet you can shape the outcome through intentional preparation.
For example, let’s say the breakthrough you want is “more sales.”
When we really dig into why you want “more sales”, we find that it is not simply about the incremental revenue. If that’s what you really want, then just go sell more of whatever it is that you currently offer. That is operational sales. But simply increasing operational sales does not produce a breakthrough.
The real desire behind “more sales” is often to strategically change the nature of the business. As I look across my clients right now, “more sales” means several things:
- More international sales, instead of domestic
- More multi-product solution sales, instead of just a single product
- Different customer, instead of the current client segment
- Higher fee/margin
- Larger deal size
Notice that upon further examination, our desire for “more sales” actually means “different sales.”
At some point in the future, these conversations will be second-nature, but now they are new — and likely beyond the existing skillset of you and/or your company.
The other most common scenario? You are resisting something, which is keeping your business on the current trajectory. What are you resisting? Here are some frequent examples I see:
- Asking for what you really want
- Confronting unacceptable performance or behavior
- Telling someone that he/she is no longer a fit
- Killing a project that is going nowhere
In other words, you are afraid of something — typically the possible reaction of other people, so you avoid it. Then things stay exactly on the same trajectory.
Taken to the extreme, avoidance becomes like addiction. If nothing occurs to change the dynamics of a system, the system will continue on its course. My father was an alcoholic, and unless he changed his behavior, the likely outcome for him was not good. So the game-changing conversation that we had with him was essentially an intervention. The other person can choose to change, or not, but we are changing.
After reading this post, you may see that in order to truly change the trajectory of your business, you need to engage in a series of game-changing conversations. If that is the case, be aware that:
- You may not know exactly what to say. You’ll need to learn new language.
- The language will seem very awkward at first. It won’t sound like “you” — it will sound like a much stronger person that you are growing into. The comfortable and current “you” is defined by your old story, personality, and rules — which is exactly where the breakthrough occurs.
- The inertia of your existing environment and system is very strong and will react with resistance. If you are not prepared to deal with this issue, you will crumble. Not only will you return to the status quo, but it will be stronger.
If you would like help preparing for your next game-changing conversation, contact me.
