Prove You Belong in the League | #5Things
Happy Saturday! Hope you had a great week. Welcome to #5Things I Learned This Week, a weekly collection of... you know. Let's jump into it.
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1. De-hype Your Prospects
We recently lost a big prospect for DxM Creative simply because we were offering more than they needed at the time. This loss wasn't entirely our fault. When we met the prospect and explored their problems they said they needed the moon. So we promised the moon.
But that was the issue. We got them excited about all the possibilities. By doing so, we both lost sight of what their business really needed.
Rookie mistake. Don't tease your prospects with ideas about the future and success so much that you both confuse what's nice to have for what's necessary.
2. There's Gold in the Follow-up
It's not always a straight "no". People get busy. Inboxes get assaulted by the dozen on a daily basis and there's a hundred things vying for people's attention. This is why you need to follow up. It's likely that they haven't rejected you, they just got occupied. A meaningful follow-up could separate you from the rest of the pack.
3. Prove You Belong in the League
When Chris Boucher first started playing for the Raptors 905 in the G League he knew he was destined for greatness. He knew he belonged in the NBA. It wasn't enough for just him to hold this belief, though. He had to demonstrate it to everyone else around him that he was big time.
So that's what he did. Game after game, Chris was balling like the G League was a neighbourhood courtyard. Soon enough, everyone else started to say, "This guy should be in the NBA." Keeping him in the G League just wasn't fair to everyone else.
If you think you deserve that promotion or whatever you're chasing, prove it. Put in the work that makes bystanders think it's unfair to your competition to keep you here.
4. Learn How to Ask Questions
Do you look at asking effective questions as a skill? In the age of knowledge work, most of our day is consumed by asking and answering questions. That's why it's so important that we start refining this undervalued skill.
People often leave meetings feeling like they had questions that went unanswered. This is sometimes due to other party speaking more than they were listening. People love talking about themselves. But doing so runs the risk of leaving opportunity on the table.
Asking (more) questions improves your emotional intelligence, causing you to lean in to the respondent's answers. This, in turn, improves the quality of your follow-up questions. This feedback loop ensures the other party feels heard as well as the questioning party feeling informed.
If we all learned how to ask great questions our teams would be much more productive. Here's a great place to start: https://hbr.org/2018/05/the-surprising-power-of-questions
5. Change Is The Only Constant
There's an old adage that says, "In life, only two things are certain– death and taxes." Well, I'd like to add a third: change.
Change is the only constant we have in life. Fashions, technologies, and trends all come and go like the seasons. Businesses rise and fall. New memes flood our feeds every week.
So how do we prepare ourselves to manage and respond to change? The answer is soft skills. Soft skills are the lowest common denominator that allows you to be nimble and adjust to an ever-changing economy.
You can look at soft skills as evergreen competencies. These will allow you to ride the wave of whatever's now and hop to what's next.
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Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you learned this week! Drop it down below or tell me what you took away from my learnings ??
#5Things is also available as a podcast. Listen here!
See you next week,
Astawa