The Key to Getting What You Want

A Quick Tip on Persuasion

Have you ever barged through the door and immediately asked when dinner is going to be ready?

If your wife is anything like mine, this would not fly.

I might as well get right back in my car and get my own dinner.

But, if you came in and asked how her day was, how she’s doing.

Some small talk you know.

Just chit chatting and having a conversation.

Then after a few minutes of good full-hearted banter you might ask about dinner.

Ask if she needs help with anything.

This is what we call going through the side door.

Not a headlong approach, not direct, but thoughtful and almost nonchalant.

Think back to when you were a teenager asking to borrow the car.

You knew going about it directly was a poor decision because you’d almost never get the outcome.

My parents at least would be asking where I was going, with who, and what time I’d be home.

Looking back on it, I should have been a little smarter.

Starting with whom I was going with – Tommy, Lindsey, Paul, Lisa, and Frank.

Oh, and don’t hide those girl names at the end.

They’re looking for it anyway and if you’re embarrassed or look guilty on this one, you’re done right off the bat.

Next, let them know what you’re planning on doing.

We were all going to check out the new Thai place, you know the one off Euclid Avenue.

I was thinking too, if it’s good that we could go there as a family sometime too. (in all conversations it’s as much about the other person as it is about you. Adding in this small piece about family got them thinking how nice it would be to go out to dinner and have someone give a recommendation on whether it’s good or not to make for a pleasant experience)

After dinner, we were going to the new Avengers movie, it’s a long 3 hours, but should be great!

It starts at 7:30, so we figured dinner at 6 be to the movies in time for credits and home by 11.

Here’s a little tricky part, but could still accomplish the mission, which is go to dinner and the movies with friends.

Would you want to drive us, or could I borrow the car since I know it’ll be a little late once we’re done?

Side door.

Leaving it open for options, but not leaving the third option of not going to the movies.

Simply stating what you want and asking for it.

A smaller kicker too would have been – if I take the car, I can stop by the store on the way home if we need anything? (Bonus points much)

Bottom Line: When asking for tools, help, software within your company go through the side door. Don’t ask for it directly and come prepared with facts and numbers to back up your points. Going in half-cocked and doing it constantly just screams boy who cried wolf and then you’re left empty-handed.

Now, you might be wondering what the hell this looks like in your firm.

How do I go through the side door to ask for something I want.

First things first.

Get your numbers.

There are a few you’re going to need to start making your case.

1.?????How many hours has your team been putting in?

If they’ve been under or at 40 hours a week, this will be harder. If they’ve been crushing it, burning the candle at both ends, some asks are going to be much easier.

2.?????What’s the projected forecast of projects coming in the door and how big are they?

Part of this is going to look at how many proposals are out and the historic win rate. Say there are 8 proposals out right now and a historic win rate of 50%. Now you can do best and worst case on size and scope of projects.

For this example let’s say they all average 100,000 SF. Now your team is going to have 400,000 SF to design and deliver on top of the existing projects.

3.?????Do you need more people to handle these projects? What’s the current workload and what’s the projected timeline for these?

This gives you a great idea of workload and if you’re going to need to hire additional people to help take care of the projects.

If your team is putting in the OT, you’ve a bunch of projects coming in, now you really won’t be able to handle them moving forward, or it will be a big struggle and quality is most likely going to suffer.

4.?????Who do you need to add to the team and what do they cost?

Are you looking to add BIM Techs ($40,000) or Designers ($65,000) or maybe Licensed Engineers ($85,000) could be you need some senior people to interface with clients ($115,000).

5.?????What are the REVENUE and PROFIT targets for the firm?

Are these publicly posted or known to the management team? Knowing these numbers we can do the next exercise. Even if you aren’t sure, putting some number here like 10% or 20% growth rate will give you a place to start.

Example: A firm doing $10,000,000 wants to grow by 20%, adding $2,000,000 in revenue.

Looking now at the electrical department and their fee, we can figure out how many hours this requires. There’s 2 ways to go about this number.

A.????2,000,000 / 3 (MEP Firm revenue contribution) = $666,667

B.????2,000,000 * 10% (A/E Firm revenue contribution) = $200,000

Looking at square feet, determining project size we need another equation.

$250 / FT building (overall build cost)

X 5% (overall design fee)

X 10% (electrical design fee)

= $1.25 / FT electrical design fee

MEP Firm => 533,333 additional square feet (3.2 Million total SF on $12,000,000 in firm revenue)

$4,000,000 in electrical fee / $100 per hour billable rate = 40,000 hours

2,000 hours per year per person => 20 people

A/E Firm => 160,000 additional square feet (960,000 total SF on $12 Million in firm revenue)

$1,200,000 in electrical fee / $100 per hour billable rate = 12,000 hours

2,000 hours per year per person => 6 people.

Now – determine where you are and where you want to be.

How many people do you have now and how many people will you need to complete those projects using this simple math.

Because when you’re questioned about how many people you’ll need, walk through this exercise.

Maybe you’ll need to change some numbers around or your historical numbers are different, but you’ll need to input those here to come up with how many people you need and where you’re going.

More than likely in these scenarios you’ll be adding 1-3 people for 20% growth rate.

Maybe they only want 10% because that’s what they can handle in the other departments.

We did this to help ‘show our work’ so you can do the same with your own numbers.

Bottom Line: we want to get to how many people we need based on a projection of projects and revenue numbers. Without using these hard numbers and facts, getting anything approved is going to be hard. Because you’re ultimately just looking to execute on the plan. If they want to hit the plan, reach the objective this is what is required.

Now, if the firm also wants to increase profit % on top of just a revenue increase it’s a different ball game. See, if you increase the revenue with the same profit percent, then yes the total dollar profit is going to increase, but along with that you also added overhead to hit the numbers. Meaning per person profit did not increase, nor did your bonus.

At the end of the day, let’s be real, this is what we care about. How much are we going to get paid? If the profit margin does not increase and we’re looking at increasing revenue and cost (adding people, equipment, office space, etc.) then ultimately we aren’t really making any more money.

We just have a bigger overhead and more to manage for the same amount. Which doesn’t sound pleasant at all. Meaning we want the profit margin to increase as we grow.

Now, you’ve tried all the basic stuff. Training in Revit and other skills training to increase production and productivity. You’ve looked at improving your templates and the repetitive steps required to set a project up, cumulatively saving time on each project. Now you’re stuck.

Maybe, you’ve a few marginal things to improve upon, but they are falling flat. Not really moving the needle.

I know, I know, this is supposed to be about persuasion and how to get what you want. Going in through the side door and all that jazz. I’m with you. But this is important too, because in crafting your pitch. In having this conversation you’ve got to be prepared with your numbers, with everything you’ve tried.

You have to know what your boss wants. Let’s be really clear here. They want to work less and get paid more. It’s a simple greed factor, we have it all in us. You want the same thing too. More money, less hours, happier life. The equation is simple, but how we get there, well I’ll explain that here next.

Okay, so when you’re talking to your boss, when you’re making your pitch start in with the goals of the firm.

“I was looking at the strategic plan (or thinking about the speech _Bob_ (CEO) gave last week on revenue and increasing profit numbers) and thought that revenue is pretty straight forward, we just do more projects. Which also means more people and hiring. How were you thinking we’d be able to increase our profitability?”

In sales, he who speaks first, loses (you are selling here). Meaning this is the point where you’ll want to shut your yap and LISTEN.

Note that you hear them.

“Yeah I hear you there, what makes you think that?”

“That’s interesting, tell me more…”

<LET THEM TALK>

This is a rapport-building phase. Knowing that you’re interested in them, what they have to say, all the while you’re gaining information to use later. This is something I honestly have trouble doing, but find a way to hold your mouth shut.

What are some of the ways you think we’ll have to operate differently to really increase profit? I was looking for a bigger bonus this year and know that I’ll only get one if we can increase the profit percentage of the firm and like Einstein said, Insanity is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again Expecting a Different Result and we don’t look insane, do we?”

Now we’re looking to increase by 20%, meaning we’ll need to add ______ Square Feet of Building equating to ______ projects requiring and additional ______ people.

We’ll increase revenue by 20%, but we’ll also increase our cost by ______.

(This is where all those numbers from above come in handy – Note: take the salary of a person times 1.3 and you’ll get the actual cost to have them on staff; taxes, fees, equipment, space)

I was thinking about this profitability thing, like we’ve been talking about and I just can’t wrap my head around what more we can do. We’ve been training our people well and bringing them up to speed really well. Everyone is proficient in Revit, which helps a ton and reduces all those redlines.

We’ve been improving our templates and reducing the setup time for each project, helping a bunch and reducing all the repetitive tasks being done.

It’s not bringing on a rock-star since we already have a bunch of those on the team.

We need to do something different, don’t you agree?

<WAIT – you need agreement here>

You need them to see the logic. To hear the emotion that you’ve tried everything and you’re at your wits end. There’s no magic wand that you have internally to fix these problems. You’ve already tried.

Persuasion is about the combination effect of emotion and logic. Getting them to see your point which you aren’t exaggerating and backing up by numbers you had to work hard to get. Putting in effort is always seen by those above you.

Plus, if you can tie it to something personal. Like knowing the bonus is for their kids college or a new car or something that is near and dear to them, you’re going to pull on those heart strings and provide that extra little bit of motivation.

Here’s where you combine everything.

“I was thinking as we’ve been talking here. We want more revenue, more profit. We need to do something different since we’ve exhausted all other options. Plus I’m looking for a nice bonus this year. I happened to see something that could give us all this, would you want to hear it?”

Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself. It drives home the point and even if you think you’re being too repetitive, in conversation, it doesn’t feel that way. Try it.

Okay, now bear with me real fast as I go through some other numbers. Looking at the projections and project increases I figure we need another 2 Designers with a weighted cost of $170,000 total. Salary + benefits and equipment. Plus the increase scheduling, overhead, training etc.

But again, this won’t help us increase profit, just meet our revenue target. No big bonus.

So, I saw this piece of software to help us increase productivity and profitability. It’s purely for the electrical department for now, but I know they’re working on something for the other departments too.

Our workflow would slightly change. We’d still produce schematic design exactly the same. Setup our sheets, layout electrical rooms, do the narrative and some basic sizing calculations. Here’s where it gets exciting.

For Design Documents, when those start, we can hit a few buttons and have the entire building laid out. All the lights, controls, receptacles, fire alarm devices done for us in just a few minutes. Adding in a few hours to review and coordinate, we wouldn’t need to bring on those two people.

I know, I know, you want to know how much. Well compared to the cost of those two people (that we would have a hard time finding), it’s rather cheap and does a whole bunch for us. For an annual license, that we can share amongst the team and handle multiple versions of Revit, it’s a $10,000 investment. Again, compared to $170,000 it’s a downright steal.

Not to mention when you remove 90% of the time it takes to put design documents together, this is going to jack up profit margin and our BONUS!

This is the only way I see us hitting all the numbers and targets we’ve set out to hit.

Do you see a better way?

<ZIP IT – WAIT>

Open ended question to again let them have a choice.

No demands.

No ultimatum.

Just facts.

Peppered in with a little emotion.

All towards the goals and targets leadership has set and you’re just trying to execute on.

Framing it in the way of you wanting to help.

You wanting to do what’s right for the firm, means a whole lot. While yes, you’re going to get paid, so are they. Everyone wins.?

In the end, this is what we all want, a win-win scenario.

It's all about going through the side door. Not letting people put up their guard and reject what we are proposing because we came at it head-on.

We want to help and sometimes we just need a little different frame.

A little different position to ultimately help everyone involved.