How Do You Cope with a Client Like Lauren?
I was watching a re-run of The Catherine Tate Show recently and one of my favourite characters is Lauren, the stroppy teenager. I think it is a brilliant representation and with her standard comment of “ Look at my face. Am I bovvered?” she reminds me of so many of the youngsters I have taught in the past. It was always a challenge to persuade the Laurens of this world as to the benefits of studying physics! But what has this got to do with your business?
Well, versions of Lauren appear everywhere. Have you ever met someone at a networking event or in a sales meeting that is the equivalent of Lauren?
Someone who is not “bovvered “ by what you have to offer? Who looks bored or may not even be listening to you?
And what do you do in those circumstances?
Do you leave hurriedly apologising for wasting their time?
Do you carry on regardless with what you were going to say, because you’ve turned up so you might as well do it?
Do you write it off as a failed attempt and move on to the next one?
And how often does this happen? What is it costing you in terms of lost opportunities and even maybe lost sales?
How do you make the most out of every opportunity and engage with people like Lauren? By developing your ability to connect and the flexibility to adapt your communication so that you can engage everyone you meet in such a way that they think they have met you before.
In previous blogs I’ve talked about the importance of first of all becoming more aware of what happens when we do communicate at an unconscious level and developing your sensory acuity. Taking the first steps to communication mastery involves becoming more aware of what you notice happening on the faces of others that lets you know what is going on for them without them having to ask Lauren’s question.
In the next couple of weeks be aware of situations where you encounter each of the following emotional states in others (not yourself- we’ll come to that in a later issue).
For each one think about how you know you know from the facial clues that you
observe.
The states are :
(a) Bored
(b) Anxious
(c) Curious
(d) Confident
(e) Angry
(f) Disinterested
How can you tell that the person is in that emotional state simply by looking at them? What lets you know? And how do you know when it changes?
Because it’s when you become more aware of how you and others communicate unconsciously that you begin to develop communication mastery and the more we practice it the better we get.
Until next time,
With best wishes for your success,
Cath
Cath Daley Ltd.