Slapping Down Your Childlike Glee

Blair offers some ways to help prevent over-excited new business people and principals from giving away the shop and appearing unprofessional.

Links

2Bobs episode 49: “Selling in One Lesson”

Transcript

David Baker: All right, Blair, so today, we're going to talk, at least I'm going to. I'm hoping to drag you along and keep you on track. The topic is hopefully, a childlike-glee, which sounds very much like a title you would come up with. Before we get into that, I would like posterity to know. I asked you to put a few thoughts together for me about this so I could be prepared. I was just alarmed at how much not safe for work language there was in your note back to me. I'm wondering, what is pissing you? Are you reading too many political articles about life below your border or what is going on?

Blair Enns: Yes, just the one you send me. Trying to get me riled up? No, I was just seeing if you read those notes because you'll notice I buried them at the end. I thought I'll put a few F-bombs in here for David. Those words will not come out of my mouth in this podcast.

David: Okay. Hopefully, there won't be any explicit rating. Back to the topic, a childlike-glee. There's got to be a good story behind this. I think I know where you're going, but bring the audience up to date on what this is about.

Blair: Yes. We recorded an episode called Selling in One Lesson, and that lesson is P equals DB over D. I'm not going to tell you what that formula means.

David: Another very simple formula that works really well in an audio format. Thank you.

Blair: Yes, your power in the sale is a function of your desirability being greater than your own desire. It's a matter of the things that we do to increase our desirability, and then once in the sale, the things that we do to check ourselves to make sure that we are not expressing a sense of desire for the engagement that is disproportionately large or even larger than the client is expressing for us. It's just this idea of paying attention to the power dynamics in the sale because there can be a tendency, I think, in a lot of businesses, but with creative people, in particular, to give your power away in the sale by becoming over-enthusiastic and overly effusive about the opportunity.

David: Wanting more than they want it in a way?

Blair: Yes. It feels like we've talked about this before. We have, but I really want to get into some of the specifics of how this happens and really how to check yourself when it happens to you because the childlike-glee that I see when I get to peek behind the curtains in some of our client's businesses, I see a seasoned, competent, selective professional. Goes through training and conversations with me and behaves the way I think a professional should behave in the sale. Then, along comes maybe the opportunity of a lifetime or a really big, bright, shiny, new opportunity.

All that training goes out the window, all that professional demeanor and mindset that we worked so hard, or at least I think we've worked hard to build goes out the window. I'm left dealing with somebody who's not this seasoned professional, but who is like a child who's been given the keys to the cotton candy machine and is running around in a sugar high. I as the outside adviser look and think, "Well, what happened to all that good work we did? What happened to paying attention to the power dynamics and not giving our power away?" It's a double-edged sword because we'll talk about whether or not this is specific to creatives.

It almost certainly isn't, but it's quite pronounced among people who see themselves as creative. It's part of being creative, is seeing possibilities and getting excited about it. One thing that I love about creatives is just their enthusiasm for the project, but there are times when I see it as being that childlike-glee is being dangerous when you just let it take over you and you just throw caution to the wind and just this unbounded enthusiasm for the project, which is good, but the expression of that unbounded enthusiasm is not so good. I really wanted to talk about walking that tightrope of recognizing that this is a good thing, but also, it can be dangerous to your success in the sale.

David: You're thinking about a young child on candy, I'm thinking about a dog that you finally trained to sit. In fact, one of our kids has a dog who's not been a good dog all of her life, to put it mildly. They put her through this training program. It's called actually, sit means sit. They point to the place in the corner where the dog has been trained and the dog reluctantly goes over there and sits. I'm picturing right after that, the kid comes home from school and the dog simply cannot physically, is not physically capable of sitting there. They just got to get up and run. To tie this together with that previous episode we did, that was such a great episode. I loved that one.

That was more about the philosophical look at the sale itself. This is more looking at the personal side of the sale, but then it carries on too. Some of what you're going to talk about today are concerns that surface after the sale is closed and maybe would carry over into doing work you're not being paid for with a client and all of that. What are the signs that you see this happening? Like when I see the dog just cannot sit still anymore or you see the kid running for the candy, what are the signs that this is happening with intelligent adults who are having trouble behaving at this point?

Blair: Yes, the first thing you see is unrestrained enthusiasm, where they lose all professional demeanor. It happens among their teammates first, like just, "Oh, my God, this is so good."

David: You mean in front of the client this would happen?

Blair: No, no, I mean this happens not in front of the client first. There are two scenarios here that I want to break this into. One is, the problem is you. The other is, the problem is somebody on your team. Let's deal with the latter where-- let's assume that the listener to this podcast is the principal or the business development person. They're the adult in the room who buys into this idea of occupying the expert practitioner position in the relationship, where you're the adult in the sale, and you're discerning, and you're selective, and you're communicating all of this. Let's assume it's you and then you've got team members.

You think everybody is buying into your philosophy and maybe even training, if you'd been invested in some training, but then you let the team know that there's this really big opportunity now that somebody has reached out to you and it's the dream client and the dream job. The first thing you see is unrestrained enthusiasm. I'm not saying enthusiasm is bad, but just people getting just a little bit overly excited and losing all professional demeanor, but even in closed quarters, it's not in it of itself a bad thing, because as you alluded to, David, it's really like, how are you behaving in front of the client?

And what kind of things are you doing for the client? After that, you see them really excitedly begin to solve the client's problem before you've been paid to solve the problem. Do you know what I mean by that?

David: Yes. That could occur, actually, in front of the client. I've seen it happen sometimes or just brainstorming about how you're going to do this before the sale is even closed privately.

Blair: Yes, from my point of view, and some will be listening to this thinking, "Well, this is how all pitches work." We go into research mode, we start to learn things about the client. Yes, there is a point where that almost certainly is going to happen. What are the problems with the pitch, says the one without pitching guy, is that you're asked to make a whole bunch of assumptions. I feel like we're too ready to play that game to start putting solutions in front of the client based on not enough information.

We go googling information about the client or the category or trends in the geographic area or whatever it is, so we can get tiny little bit of information, so then we can start to come up with what we think are going to be really smart-looking solutions. Often, you see this happen even before the deal is fully qualified. By qualified, I mean, vetted in or out. Let's just say you just say, "Hey, I've got this inbound inquiry from so and so. I haven't had a conversation yet. That's set up for next week, but they're looking for this." Then your team members get really excited and they start to go to work to solve the problem.

Again, doing some research and beginning to solve the problem before you put in front of the client, that in it of itself is not a problem, but another sign is just the late night enthusiasm. I know some people are listening to this thinking, "Come on, Blair-

David: Yes, what's the problem with that?

Blair: -all these things are good things." I can think back to some other examples quite a while ago, but just the late-night manic messages. It's like you're creative director, you can't sleep because you're so excited about this opportunity. Again, it's good to have this enthusiasm, but if we think back to that one lesson of making sure that your expression of desire for the client and the engagement is not greater than the client's expression of that desire. You can feel that enthusiasm.

You want to make sure it does not communicate, seep into the A, your behavior, and B, your communication to the client. What I would say is the best way to not let that unbridled enthusiasm seep into your behavior or the things that you say to the client is to actually moderate how you are feeling. Does that sound like an unreasonable request? I think it's a level of emotional intelligence to be able to understand that, "Okay, I'm getting a little excited about this. I'm just going to calm down. I'm going to keep myself from getting so excited." To me, that seems like a reasonable request.

Blair: It's very reasonable, yes. That's really the whole theory around personality profiles, understanding your own, where you might tend to overreact and seeing those signs and shaping that down a little bit. Some listeners are going to be more prone to this thing than somebody else. Say if a principal is not much of an extrovert or a people pleaser, but is a more calculating thoughtful, what looks like glee to them is not going to look like glee to somebody else. It's on different ranges. As you were talking about this, I don't want to throw you off with this observation, but I just keep thinking about the idea of glee, I don't think that word is wrong.

I really do think it's an appropriate word, even though it's hard to hear for people. Trying to translate that to the other areas of professional service expertise. I just can't picture an accountant or a lawyer reacting with glee to their opportunities like we do in this creative field. We are a very strange, but wonderful breed and that's what you and I are talking about frequently in these episodes.

David: Yes, I've probably said in a previous episode your cardiologist wouldn't say, "I'm really really passionate about your health," that would worry you.

Blair: You'd report them.

David: I had lunch with a guy yesterday and we had two different conversations. The same conversation, but two different topics that were related that just came to mind as you were talking. One of them was he said, just offhandedly he said, "I'm a creative so I have the highs and the lows, I get really, really almost manic and then I get sometimes close to depressed." It was interesting that he tied that to being a creative. Then the other thing we're talking about a mutual friend who's one of the best salespeople in the agency space that I've ever worked with, and I made the observation that one of the things that makes him a good salesperson, is he can say the number $5 million the same way he would say, the number $5,000.

He's emotionally steady, he doesn't get up and down. He does, but you can't tell. That makes you a really powerful salesperson, you're not giving all your power away, you come across as thoughtful, unflappable, and he can still choose the right words to say, "I'm excited about this," and you believe him, but he doesn't communicate it through his behavior and it comes across as a highly reassuring.

That standard creative approach, I think, as part of being a creative, we embrace the highs and we accept that the lows come with it. When we find ourselves getting elated over an opportunity, we don't try to restrain, we don't try to rein that in or moderate it, we let it go Because this is the wave that we're waiting for to surf and we're going to allow ourselves to get really excited about it. I think it's a mistake, I think we go too far, I think we can allow ourselves to be enthusiastic, and we can retain a little bit of that child-like glee, but we can still be responsible and pay attention to how it's affecting our behavior and how we're giving our power away to our clients in letting that effusiveness seep out.

Blair: Yes, and you've clarified probably half a dozen times already that this isn't necessarily bad It just needs to be identified and managed. Because I'm sitting here thinking, we've been addressing the principals specifically and I'm thinking here of a principal who says, “Well, my God, I'd much rather manage a team that I have to tamp down their enthusiasm, than one that doesn't have glee at opportunities.” You're not saying this is necessarily a good thing. It just needs to be identified and managed.

David: Yes, it needs to be managed by the manager, if it's the principal who's seeing this in the behavior of others. You need to manage yourself if you're capable of this. I'm with you on other topics, just the performance of salespeople generally, I'm fond of saying, I would rather reign in a thoroughbred than whip a mule.

Blair: I love that demonstration.

David: Then while we're on animal analogies.

Blair: Animal abuse analogies.

David: On the subject of positioning I like to say, "Agency principles are like wild stallions free galloping across the field going wherever they want to go."

Blair: Messing up everybody's flower garden.

David: Yes, you're a consultant in this space, we do training on it, but your job as the consultant and this is like to put the bridle on the wild stallion and turn them into a racehorse. To channel that energy and that potential, so that you can actually start to win races. I would say the same metaphor applies here.

We have this person who's just bubbling over with all of this energy and all of this excitement about the opportunity. I just think of what a director and acting coach would say, use that energy, but you have to channel it. You can't let it get the best of you.

David: Well, there's nobody listening now who doesn't see this in their firm or in themselves so let's assume they accept that. What are some suggestions you'd have about how they can cane those stallions and turn them into racehorses like specific things for specific people?

Blair: If the listener is the principal or the business development person and you think this is something you're seeing in other people, let's start there, and then we'll go to, "Well, what if the culprit is you?" But if you're seeing this in other people, the first thing you want to do is you want to navigate more of the sale without bringing in those people. I made the point that it's typically creatives because it's the nature of the creative personality, but it's also other subject matter experts.

Maybe I'll ask you to see if you want to speak to that but first, I'll just finish this point of at the very minimum you should have a qualifying conversation, vet them in or out. "This is the type of company we want to do business with they've got the right amount of money to spend. It's in our area of expertise." Whatever your other qualifying factors are. You have that qualifying conversation where you play the agency gatekeeper role and your job is to keep the bad fits out. You decide, "This is a good fit, this is one that I'm going to let past me and we're going to start applying some of the resources of the firm." You have to have that qualifying conversation without even telling people.

If you know people are going to get excited about this because this is the dream client, don't even tell them that this opportunity has come in. You have a qualifying conversation first, and maybe even a value conversation. We talked about that in a couple of previous podcasts, but this idea of you qualify, you vet, and then in a value conversation which can follow right on the heels of a qualifying conversation you endeavor to uncover the value of the opportunity, the value to be created here, and then from there you start to set some pricing guidance.

I think you should go that far if possible before you start to involve your subject matter experts so that's the first point, I would say is don't involve them to sell. I want to turn it back to you and ask you, I'm characterizing this as a problem of creative people. Do you see it in other subject matter experts as well?

David: I definitely do when people hear us use the word creative. They may first think of somebody like a designer or a writer and I think that would be a mistake. I think it equally applies to a very talented software engineer that sees the end product with beautiful UX and everything about it and gets so excited about it that they just dive in and begin to lose money out of the gate.

Yes, absolutely. I don't know what to call those people, but it seems like anybody in the business of solving problems where the population thinks it's magic. Those are the people we're talking about. The rain dancers, nobody knows how they get rain and they're not even sure it works, but it does. Those are the people that we're talking about that do the magic whether it's a software developer that listens to a problem and creates this amazing app, or it's a designer that creates a new identity, it's the same thing.

Blair: If you get excited about future possibilities. That's what I mean by a creative person, creativity being the ability to see, to bring novel perspective to a problem. It's not necessarily a designer or director or a writer although most of those people tend to be creative if they're in creative positions. A lot of entrepreneurs are creative, so often it's the business owner.

Blair: I think coaches also suffer from this and counselors because they get so close to their clients that they begin to advocate for them and that empathetically they care and it's hard for them to see it as a business relationship as well. Anybody listening to this can benefit from it. You've said one of the things to help with this is to bring the children on a sugar high in a little bit later.

David: Yes, don't tell them we're going to Disney World until you know for sure we're going to Disney World and then you can tell them. In our Win Without Pitching guidance there's this idea of four priorities in the sale. First, wherever possible win without pitching. Second, if you can't win without pitching, try to derail the pitch.

Third, if you can't try to derail the pitch, try to gain the advantage, gain some behavioral concession and the fourth would be to walk away. If you're trying to derail or gain an advantage, you're probably want to do that before you get the excited people involved because their fear, they're going to have this tremendous fear if they get excited about the possibilities that you're going to do something that's going to blow it.

If you're going to try a maneuver or a tactic to try to get the client to put a defined selection process aside, or try to extract some behavioral concessions to somebody who's really excited about this, these are going to seem like dangerous moves and they absolutely will not be on board. If you have to do some kind of sales win without pitching jiu-jitsu here, you want to do it before the kids know that there's a potentially really exciting project to be had because they're going to say, "No, no, don't do that." That's kind of a subset of that.

Then once you're into the opportunity, again, I'm imagining the listener is the lead person on the sale so the principal or the business development person, give them just a little bit of coaching on what their roles are, where the lines are that they're allowed to cross and not cross. One might be, don't begin to solve the client's problem. Do not cross the line that separates proving our ability to solve the problem from actually beginning to solve the problem. Another would be, "I'm going to do a couple of things. I'm going to try to extract some concessions. I'm going to ask some pointed questions. I'm going to put some objections on the table for the client to address."

Whatever it is, whatever you're thinking. I'm going to leave some moments of uncomfortable silence. You do not feel that silence. I'm going to ask the client a question or make a statement, and I'm going to pause and wait for the client to respond because whatever they say, whatever they fill that void with is really valuable. You do not fill that void. You're going to have to do this multiple times because you can coach them the first time.

They'll say yes, and they'll rush in and fill the void. Then you can debrief on it afterwards and maybe next time they'll be better at it, but that's a really important one. If you're an effective salesperson, you're leaving room and sometimes it's uncomfortable room for the client to give you information and you're excited team members will not allow that space. They will fill it.

Blair: I was reminded of this week, there was a situation where the Atlanta Falcons fired both the coach and the general manager on the same day after a 0-5 start and before that, this commentator made this note that said, "You know what? The owner of the team has really been undercutting, the general manager and the coach." He said, "Matt Ryan, who's our quarterback he's going to be a Falcon for life." He says this before the negotiations between the general manager and the player's agent, and this writer was saying, you go into a negotiation like that then the other side has all the power. It's like whatever we do--

David: You just neutered the GM in the negotiation and the coach, right?

Blair: Yes, that's like we got to keep these people. You got to coach the owner. Don't say stuff like that. Yesterday, he came out with a statement. Somebody asked him that question, "Will Matt Ryan be a quarterback for life?" He said, "Oh, I hope so, but that will be entirely up to the new general manager." Somebody coached him on how to say this well. That was a good illustration.

David: Yes, great recovery after the fact-- I think those are the key elements around how to walk the line and bring the creatives in late. Do your any sales jiu-jitsu around derailing or trying to get an advantage, do it first and then coach your people.

Blair: What if it's you though? What if it's not your people?

David: In preparation for this yesterday, I was at like, "What's step one in the 12 steps? We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives have become unmanageable." So step one. Is that really the first step?

Blair: Yes, step one is to admit that you have a problem. It's like, "I have a problem." That's step one, and then step two is electroshock therapy.

David: I don't think that's step two. I don't know. I can go look it up, but I don't think you're right.

Blair: Yes, what step two? Step two is get help in whatever forms. Again, this is like trying to resist the urge to just plug by own training programs and so I won't better than what I just did. I got a note the other day from an old client who wrote a really great review of my first book, To Win Without Pitching Manifesto and he finally got around to reading my second book and he wrote another-- He's a very good writer. He's an owner of quite a well-known independent agency.

He had this great line. He said, talking about reading, pricing, creativity. He said, "It was like a shot of granite to directly to the spine." I thought, "Oh, that's a great line. That'll show up in my marketing at some point," but that idea of a shot of granite to the spine, backbone. First, you have to recognize that you're the problem, and then you have to go looking for those sources of inspiration that are that shot of granite to the spine. I would say, read the manifesto, Win Without Pitching Manifesto.

The goal of that book is to have you put it down and as somebody once said to me, "Think you could go wrestle a bear, just be inspired to do things the right way." Whatever your source is just try to find some form of inspiration for you to show up like a professional rather than a childlike creative. I've used the term childlike in all of the sense, like good and bad. Show up like a seasoned, discerning professional, rather than a childlike creative. There are times for you to play that role, to be that childlike creative, but put in front of the client in the sale, you're just going to give your power away and possibly make them nervous.

David: Could you have somebody else point out when you're starting to exhibit those signals? I'm thinking of that episode of Cheers, where Cliff Clavin, who always talked too much. He got a shock collar that had a remote control. He came to the bar that night and he gave it to somebody and said, all right, anytime I start to talk too much and he couldn't even finish the sentence and somebody pressed the thing and they passed it around all night and Cliff Clavin never got a sentence out. Could other people recognize that and send some sort of signal? Or is that too gimmicky?

Blair: I am totally advocating the shock collar. I'm with you. Man, if that was legal, I'll just built that into my business. If you're the problem you have to ask yourself, should you be doing the qualifying? Let's say you're the principal and you've got a biz dev person who's doing the qualifying.

Maybe just say to them, "Listen, I want you to do the rigorous vetting before you get me involved and because I have a problem, I know I have a problem. You know that I have a problem. You can't tell me that so-and-so my most highly coveted client has just reached out and wants to talk to us about X because I'm going to make the case for us to do everything we possibly can to win that business even if it's not in our best interest and I won't see it until afterwards."

David: They're going to derail your internal pitch process. The opposite of derailing that you're hoping for.

Blair: I've worked with a lot of team members at various agencies, who'd say, "Yes, this win without pitching approach, I'm completely on board and I'm pretty good at applying this, but I have this problem and the problem is the owner of the business." It's just because you're the owner doesn't mean you're the adult in the room, especially if you come from the creative side of the business and you see yourself as a creative person that can be hard.

Whether it's you or whether it's somebody else, you don't want that overly effusive person on the front line. You want somebody who's ruthless. I think we talked about this before. There's this old David Spade character on Saturday Night Live, I think he played Dick Clark's secretary and he would not let anybody pass him like president of the United States could not get a meeting with Dick Clark.

He just did not give a shit, this character. He didn't care who you were. He would just ask this, "President Clinton, he would know you from?" You want somebody who's like ruthless that way. It seems a little bit counter-intuitive, but trust me on this. If that's you take yourself out of the qualifying role, or if for whatever reason you can't take yourself out of the qualifying role, get somebody else to give you the qualifying questions. What I mean by that is say to somebody, "Okay, since we all agree that I get a little overly excited about this, what questions do you want me to get any prospective client to answer before I agree that we will meet with them?" Have somebody on your team give you those questions.

David: Then hold you accountable to them just in a fun way.

Blair: Yes, and good luck with that. The last thing I wrote under what if the culprit is you? "Just calm the fuck down. You're not a child and this isn't goddamn Halloween."

David: This is what I wondered what you were reading. Set you off.

Blair: Beep, beep, beep.

David: Yes, but it's so true. It's comical. While we're on this thing, we could name this whole thing premature engagement or something. Engagement is really helpful and it should be a part of it, but it just needs to be managed or we give away the shop and we don't appear professional. That's how I'm hearing all of this.

Blair: Yes, I love premature engagement. Do you suffer from engagement dysfunction disorder? Engagement dysfunction? There's a pill for that. I'll just make this other observation that the few times when I've been an advisor, and I see this going on, there's a point at which it just all gets away from me. It's like, "Okay, well, you're clearly doing the sugar high thing, so I'm going to let you do your sugar high thing, and then afterwards, we're going to have a little debrief on it." Then afterwards, because there's a moment, whether it's me as the outside advisor, whether that's the listener trying to coach somebody on their team, at some point, it's like, "You've just lost this person. Their sunk costs are so high, there's just no turning back."

What do you do in that moment? You just let go of this opportunity, and maybe it pays off, maybe you're able to win, who knows? Maybe some good things will come out of it, but then regardless of the result, just make sure you have an after-action review, let's just, "Okay, so that opportunity we won it or we didn't win it. Let's talk about the things that went well, let's talk about the things that didn't go so well." Do you remember me trying to coach you on these things?

David: Do you remember me holding down the remote control button while you were shaking and wondering where you were?

Blair: Remember me saying, "Go sit in the corner," and you just kept running around chasing your tail? The older I get, I think, "Well," There's always another opportunity even if you think this is the biggest one that's ever going to come your way. There's always another opportunity. Win or lose, it's always a good coaching opportunity. You just make notes of how you're trying to coach your teammates on this and how they're responding and then just have an unemotional detached conversation about it afterwards. "How did that go? Do you remember me trying to nudge you in this?"

Without any accusations, you didn't feel it was the right approach or you had a hard time seeing the merits of that approach. There's a better way to do it than the way I'm modeling it right now, but the key point is if it doesn't go well and it happens again, don't beat people up, yourself, or others too much. Just make sure you treat it as a teachable moment and everybody learns from it. Then you try again next time. Over time, if you decide that this is something that your team members need to get better at, over time, you'll all get better at it.

David: You were more gracious right then than I might have been. You said, "Let's not accuse." I would say, accuse, and make fun.

Blair: No, you wouldn't.

David: Not make fun, but just joke about it, and then say, "All right, let's do this. Let's come up with a safe word that we will use later." Let's say you were pitching IBM in this meeting. You agree, whenever I say the word IBM later, then that's a sign that I need to bring you back in. In the next pitch, you say something like, "Do you remember all that fantastic work we did for IBM and how they were not excited at the beginning but were later?" Anyway, that's maybe a strategy here. A safeword, too. I don't know that we've done an episode before where everybody's going to identify with this and hopefully have a little bit of fun in it.

I think we've identified a serious problem, giving people some suggestions. I'm excited to hear maybe on Twitter, what people do with this and how they get better at it and how they make-- Because really, we're mainly talking to either the salesperson or the account person who's a little bit too excited or the principal. Often, it's the principal. Maybe this needs to be listened to by somebody else who then says, "Hey, I heard a great episode. You should listen to this. Maybe you're listening to this because somebody else asked you to and you're the problem."

Blair: It's group therapy. Everybody's listening. Well, we're not together anymore, but yes, have the team listen to it and have a conversation about it afterwards.

David: Yes. Okay. This has been great, Blair. Thank you.

Blair: Thanks, David. I enjoyed it.