I spent some time recently talking about my Black Friday offers. Honestly, sales offers usually feel a little awkward. But I remind myself that I’m offering it because I think it’s a good deal on a good course that will really benefit you. And whether you chose to move forward or not I would be doing a disservice if I didn’t offer it. And you know I’m a business so I wouldn’t be able to keep helping people if I didn’t sell things.
Similarly, there are often conversations I hear my clients not wanting to have. And with a little coaching, we’re usually able to start to reframe the benefit and importance of the conversations. Both for them and for the people that they’re talking to.
- Networking – For some reason, this gets a bad rap. It’s as if we’re only trying to meet and talk to people because we have our own agenda we’re going to force on them. When in fact it is quite the opposite. We are social creatures. And by taking the opportunity to meet and connect with people we learn more about them we enjoy ourselves and yes we find ways we might be able to support each other. There’s an expression that “Strangers are just friends that you haven’t met yet.“
- Self-promotion – I talk a lot about the importance of making sure your manager knows what you’re doing well. But this isn’t just a matter of bragging. It is your job to let your boss know what is happening and it is their job to know. This is about talking about the successes of your team and your role in those successes.
- Sharing feedback – I had a conversation with a client who inherited a lot of staff and had basically made the decision as to who was an asset and who wasn’t cutting it. When we talked further it turns out they’d talked to other people to confirm their assumptions but they had never really talked to the people themselves. If you’re not clear with people what expectations are and how they can meet them you’re doing them a huge disservice.
- Boundaries – People tend to think of boundaries as negative and so assume they’ll be poorly received. But boundaries are typically things that you and your team need in order to perform well. If you communicate the optimal way to work with you and your team it will benefit everyone.
So stop holding yourself back from conversations that would benefit you and the people you would have them with. And also stop approaching the conversations with such a negative energy that you’re impacting the conversations themselves if they do happen. Reframe these conversations as beneficial.
What conversations are you avoiding? And what’s a way you can look at that conversation as a win-win?
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