Another Monday, another grab-bag of things that caught my attention. But first, I have to just celebrate with you that our twin boys graduated to being able to wear bicycle helmets. At 11 months, no they aren’t riding bicycles, but they are now riding in the Burley. There is very little I have to complain about being parent. Even the long nights and diapers and all just seem to be part of the job, and no really feathers ruffled.
What has been painful is that for the last year our car has become the only transportation choice, except for very limited walks around the neighborhood. Shopping? Errand? Take the car.
Before the boys came days would go by without me getting in the car. It’s one of the joys of living in a friendly, human-sized city like Portland. I would walk or bicycle to many places, even in the rain.
Now, we’re back in the bicycle business, and my needs around exercise, sustainability and nature are being met once more. I just couldn’t resist sharing that with you. It’s been an ecstatic experience.
Speaking of ecstatic experiences.
Is This Your Brain on God?
NPR has done a great interactive site for the book Fingerprints of God, which I subsequently ordered and started reading with great interest. I’m only partway through the book, but the website and the book cover that intersection between spirituality and science, which is so fascinating to me.
There’s been a line drawn for some decades, some would say centuries, between those who believe in a spiritual existence, and those who say “prove it.” While this book hasn’t proven anything in the scientific sense, it has raised questions and opened doors that weren’t open in the world of science.
There’s a lot to say and explore here about the spiritual experience. For today, what I’m interested in is the concept of “proof.”
People who are interested in your business are so because they need help with something. And, before they buy from you, they need trust. One of the ways trust is built is through proof. Proof is built in many ways. Some take testimonials, anecdotes and case studies are proof. Others take a history of past purchasers as proof. Others need numbers, statistics, and other hard “scientific” proof.
The tricky thing with proof is that it’s easy to slip over the fence into trying to “prove” yourself, rather than just caring for the heart of the client and helping them gain the trust they need to come in out of the rain.
For the heart of your business and the heart of your customer: what are all the ways you are providing “proof” of what you do?
The Dirty Little Secret About Patients as Partners in Health Care
This blog is all about healthcare, someone who calls herself “#1 Dinosaur” and whose bio reads “A Family Doctor in solo private practice; I may be going the way of the dinosaur, but I’m not dead yet.” She wrote a really insightful post about the Patients as Partners thing.
I’ll bottom-line it for you: patients can’t be partners, except in special circumstances, because they just don’t know enough. Patients can participate in decision-making. They can be educated and involved. But they can’t be full and equal partners because they just don’t have the background and experience to make an educated decision.
I know there will be people who will argue with this… I have my own arguments, although I can see both sides.
But, the reason I bring it up today is because of this issue of “partnering” and how it impacts you and your business, and your clients. You see, a lot of practitioners of all types don’t make strong recommendations to their clients because they don’t want to be pushy, and they don’t want to “take away” the power from their clients.
However, a client has come to you because they want support and guidance. They want your opinion. Of course it’s their decision, and most reasonable adults know that, especially if you haven’t used strange hype to manipulate them. Which I know you haven’t if we’re in the same heart-centered business tribe together.
However, I’m worried. I’m worried that you may be withholding the strength of your opinions from your clients. That you aren’t giving them strong and clear recommendations: “You know, if you want to really handle this, I want you to come in for ten sessions over the next four months.”
Yes, you do benefit. Yes, it could look manipulative and pushy and salesy. But if you are in your heart, and that’s your honest considered expert opinion of what your clients need, they give it to your them. Don’t give away your power because you don’t want to “steal” yours. They are leaning into you, and depending on you. Don’t let them down.
For your heart: Can you give a strong recommendation to your clients, even if it earns you more money, if it’s what they really need?
Sufi Council to Combat Extremism
Sufis are what I call “disciplined mystics.” Meaning they stick with things. And what you may not know is that they are organized, too.
Bikya Masr, a site devoted to watching news in the middle east and the Muslim world, especially Egypt it appears, reported that a Sufi council has been organized to combat extremist ideologies. In Islam there are two polar opposites: the Wahhabis and Salafist ideologies, which might be roughly analogous to certain sects of Christian literalistic fundamentalism in the West.
There is an interpretation of sacred texts that allow for no mystical elements, and there is a tyrannical application of very limited interpretations, not allowing for any latitude. This is the kind of extremism that has been behind the Taliban in Islam, and behind the folks in Christianity who bomb womens health centers and make death threats to doctors for providing abortion services.
This is a hot topic, and just talking about it hopefully won’t get this blog targeted by extremists, although as a Sufi I’m already in that territory. 🙂
But I’m not deliberately getting you involved in cultural and religious wars. The point I want to make is this: in every culture, every religion, every organization, every industry, there are people with strong opinions. Those strong opinions attract followers.
For many going into business the strong-opinion thing goes away, replaced by a fear of offending people, turning people off, or otherwise scaring off potential customers. The thing is, it doesn’t work.
Instead you become bland, no one shows up, and you don’t have any followers.
Of course, attracting followers is more than just holding strong opinions. But it’s part of it.
For your heart: What are your strong considered opinions in your industry? Do you disagree with any of the common thinking by acknowledged leaders? I think you know what I’m going to suggest you do… But I’ll spell it out anyway. Can you find it in your heart to speak your opinions, strongly, powerfully?
Another Week, Another Monday.
I’m curious how all of this lands for you-proof, partnering, or opinions…
7 Responses
I struggle with this, I have to admit.
I tend to be direct. (It’s just a thing with me. In DiSC profiling, I’m a ‘results-oriented high-D’. I’m not big on wasting time. And having to read between the lines and all, well…..)
Some people like that. But a whole lot of people don’t. It’s not that I’m not compassionate or heart-centered or any of those things. I just have a tendency to be direct.
But because I’m aware that people sometimes take it as ‘manipulative or salesy or pushy’, I find myself often holding back. (Until I don’t. ha)
So I actually appreciate today that you’re saying, “Go ahead. Make the recommendation.” It’s something I needed to hear today.
Thanks!
All the best!
deb
.-= Deb Owen´s last blog ..to find opportunity, you have to know where to look =-.
The “patients as partners” thing makes such a good point.
The way I look at it is, If I’m going to help people, it’s probably not a good idea to add to their overwhelm by giving them a lot of complex decisions to make. Particularly when they don’t have the tools yet to make those decisions. I’ve gradually become more comfortable with saying, “This is the way I think works best. Other people have different ideas, but these are the ones I find most effective.”
.-= Sonia Simone´s last blog ..What Makes Marketing Hard? =-.
Now proof is an interesting subject.
Maybe most people are looking for proof. Personally, I don’t look for so-called ‘proof’ much when it comes to making choices and decisions. I prefer to go by my instincts and inner gut feelings. And I always prefer to learn from my own mistakes, instead of what someone else has recommended or advised me to do, so that’s a win-win formula for me, right?
I get irritated when people start quoting write-ups and recommendations on this piece of technology, or this gadget, or this service or that. Because I’m pretty sure that the criteria for the review aren’t going to match my own interests and requirements. I’ll put it down to experience, but I’m not judging things based on Mr Average-Joe Blogg’s requirements, so why would I assume that his idea of proof is gonna match mine?
So I tend to lack a lot of patience when other people are scooting round for proof and reviews before they make a choice about buying a product or a service. If I get a good feel about a service provider, I’m going to trust them. It doesn’t often happen that I bowl in with complete 100% trust straight away, but I’m usually more than half-way willing to give it, and at the same time weighing up the costs of the loss if I’m just a little bit wrong. I’m not normally wrong. Sometimes there’s a small cost, or disappointment. But the fact that I had allowed for that initially usually satisfies any regrets I might have otherwise felt.
You see, the idea of proof seems strongly connected, to me, to the implausible notion of guarantees. And most people are way too invested in the need for a guarantee before they’re willing to leap, or buy or explore something new. We know there are no absolute guarantees in life. You can’t buy a lifetime warranty on experience. There’s no value to be placed on that. And all this time that people spend hedging around for proof that they’re going to get exactly what they think they’re signing up for, is just time spent waiting in line, instead of time really lived and savoured.
The times when I haven’t quite got what I thought I was getting from a purchase or service-provider? Well, I often learned something else altogether entirely. I just keep chalking it up to experience. And my writer’s brain collects all these things as stories anyway ~ my point being, there’s always, always value to it. There’s never a loss. You can’t play at life and come out a loser. So why the need for proof of that?
In my own line of business (as a spiritual teacher and healer), it’s something that I made a definite decision on some time ago. I can’t offer much proof of the service I provide. Not the sort that most people are looking for. If I sense that a potential client doesn’t feel completely comfortable and trusting about engaging with me, I turn them away. If they’re focused on seeing some kind of quick and visible outward proof of what they have recieved, they’re probably going to be disappointed anyway.
Sorry for rambling. It’s been a delight and you’ve really helped me clarify my thoughts on this, so thank you hugely.
Bright Blessings ~
Hey Original Mark,
I think you may have hit upon something that makes my business significantly different from that of many other HoBbits. I help people with things that they are the experts in. It is a “patients as partners” kind of business.
I’m marketing surgery to surgeons. Huh. More to think about.
.-= Mark W. “Extra Crispy” Schumann´s last blog ..Programming with Access? Know this about JOIN. =-.
@Deb- Right on! Make the recommendation.
@Sonia- I know, there are so many ways we can get caught thinking we’re being “nice” to clients that actually puts more of a burden on them. Argle argle.
@Samantha- It’s such a conundrum, because your clients aren’t you. Proof can mean many different things, mainly it’s about showing up with what their heart is needing. If you’re unwilling to show up with what their heart is needing, they may not show up at all.
My teacher says that while miracles and other signs of outward results are distractions from the goal, they are good things to help bring people onto the path in the first place. They can get more hard core later.
Except my teacher doesn’t say “hard core.”
@Mark- Hmmm… you’ve got me thinking… It’s a good thing to think through. How can you frame what you’re offering so that it doesn’t look like what they already do- it’s the ‘extra’ thing that they need? Related, but more/different? Because you’re right, “Your software project sucks? Here’s more of what’s already not working” is not a very compelling offer, is it…
Hmmm…
Original Mark, I wasn’t thinking in terms of “more of what’s not working.” I think of it as “something superficially like what you’re doing, but with more consciousness.”
As a couple of people suggested on the Tent, the “partner” model may be what I’m talking about. I’m gonna have to turn that over for a while.
.-= Mark W. “Extra Crispy” Schumann´s last blog ..Why pair programming is kind of cool =-.
As a start-up, I have to prove myself to EVERY potential client. My company is a small one, so I offer proof in one very simple way: I simply give them a sample of what I can do.
Example: Someone comes to me with a broken bracelet, because they know I make jewelry. I fix it at no charge, maybe even re-string it or re-size it. Someone else needs a few, simple photos of an event or needs head shots. I give them one short, free session. I’m new to my industry and only starting out, so I give a little bit away, but ONLY a little bit. If I can’t afford to lose the value of the item or service in question, I don’t offer it.
Making the recommendation: I have no problem with this, because as you said, people are coming to me–someone who knows something they do not or knows how to do something they do not–because they need help. They are putting their trust in me, giving me permission to take control of the situation (I’m not someone who manipulates people.) I figure they will listen to what I have to say, and then they will make the best decision for themselves. I’m not interested in parting people from their money. Money is nice, but I’m mostly interested in doing my art and helping or enriching the lives of others through it.
On speaking my Truth: That’s a really hard one. I really try to keep my personal life out of my business, but I think that my values DO come through in how I present myself, how I conduct myself, and the subject matter with which I choose to work.
Blessings.
Jennifer Moore
JenniferLynn Productions, LLC
.-= Jennifer Moore´s last blog ..Writing: Book Recommendation. =-.