The adrenaline hit me right before the presentation. I walked into the room armed with case studies, results and projections. I had all the answers, I just had to convince them.
I launched into a detailed explanation of our process, designed to put them at ease.
Once they saw how much I knew, they’d jump at the chance to work with us.
But something was off. Their eyes were still on me, but they were gone. And the harder I worked to bring them back, the more they pulled away.
It happened more than once before I finally got it:
My knowledge made me credible. But that alone didn’t earn their trust.
The Starting Point
You can sound credible and still be wrong. Which I frequently was. Not because I didn’t know, but because I had the order backwards.
I was trying to make people understand me instead of understanding them first.
In an hour-long presentation I might spend most of the time covering the size and complexity of our projects, the prestigious clients we had, and the results we achieved.
But the whole time, they’re filtering everything through one question: how does this relate to me?
Maybe they cared about our global capabilities. Maybe instead what mattered most was that our core team was based in the US.
Maybe their priority was self-sufficiency and a smooth transition to their team. Or instead they needed to know we could support them in perpetuity.
Sometimes I didn’t ask. And neither did they.
We were both afraid. Me that I’d look like I didn’t understand them, them that our solution might not work for their situation.
Everyone in the room, hiding their fear. No one getting what they needed.
The Real Decision
The real decision clients are making is not whether to buy, it’s whether to change.
Whatever it is that they’re buying, if they want it to work, they’ll have to do things differently.
Change feels risky because learning something new exposes what you don’t know.
But we form the deepest bonds with the people who teach us. Because we had to open up to let them in.
This is your opportunity to be that teacher and build that trust.
Questions can help them learn without feeling exposed. Especially when the question points to something they’re experiencing but haven’t put into words.
When that happens, they realize on their own that you’re an expert. Not because you impressed them, but because you understood their problem.
That’s when trust forms, and change becomes possible.
The Cost
Most clients:
- Don’t know what’s actually wrong.
- Don’t know how to evaluate options.
- Don’t know what the problem is costing them.
You act in service to them by asking questions that help them understand these 3 things.
Instead of telling us their problems, clients usually tried to tell us how to solve them. But they weren’t experts in the solution. That’s why they needed us in the first place.
They were experts in their problems. That’s where the conversation needed to start.
In my analytics business, if we priced and built the solution the client said they wanted without asking the right questions, we priced and built the wrong solution.
A common question I’d hear: “Why is your company better than company X?”
I eventually learned to respond with something like this:
“I’m not sure that we are. I’m not sure that you need our solution yet. But what I’m wondering is, does the board ever ask for data you can’t produce with confidence?”
This always surprised them. Once they realized I understood their world, the connection was formed and they’d start to visibly relax.
Their World
I had to practice the art of asking and listening. It meant I had to stop talking, which was hard for me to do because I was so hell-bent on proving my worth.
I laughed when I first heard the acronym WAIT: Why Am I Talking?
I use it to remind me that when I’m talking, I’m in my world. But when I’m listening, I’m learning about the other person’s.
And their world is the only one that matters in the decision to change.
Every conversation is an opportunity to understand the people in your world. What they really want, and what they’re afraid of.
That understanding is the most valuable thing you can offer them.
Not instead of your expertise, but before it.
