Welcome to Part 2 of this six–part series on how to take better control of your life and career through the art of making powerful offers.

Last week I introduced the essential elements of a powerful offer, including that there needs to be someone to listen to the offer. Surprise, surprise. Maybe you’re even thinking, “How lame is that.” But, again, don’t make the mistake of taking the listener for granted—it’s an essential element that is so often forgotten or overlooked. So bearing this in mind, let’s start to refine how you think about and prepare your powerful offers for listeners.

This invaluable business/career know-how will help you approach listeners in a way that perhaps you haven’t done before. Business is where the offers you make (and to whom you make them) can mean the difference between a career that just sort of putters along, and one that moves with energy and consistency. In such a setting, a critical factor is the listener’s POWER.

What is “power” and who has it?

In business and other domains of your life, if people with power accept your offers, they create opportunity for you through their power and authority. Sounds simple and logical. But let’s explore this a bit.

If you think of power as “the incremental capacity to take and/or authorize the taking of action,” you’ll realize that everyone has power. However, it’s important to note that power is relative—different people have different levels and scope of power. For example, your company’s leaders have broad levels of power—they can (legitimately) take actions that you can’t or are not authorized to take. But if you’re a salesperson, your prospective customer has power too: the power to accept or decline the delivery of your service or product. And if you’re a software programmer, your supervisor has the power to authorize you to work on that challenging and resume-enhancing project.

So who are you going to make powerful offers to? Easy . . . people with incrementally more (or different) power than you. People who have the power to authorize you to take new actions.

They’re everywhere, and opportunity is limitless. But before you continue, I suggest that you take some time to reflect on this: “What power do I have?” And don’t use this to beat yourself up for not having the right amount or type of power. Rather, use it as an opportunity to get clear about the concept of power being the capacity to take and/or authorize the taking of action.

Tip: If you conclude you have no power then reflect some more. I assure you, you do have power.

One hat does not fit all

When crafting your offers, it’s in your interest to anticipate how they will be listened to by people in power. In a business setting, much of this depends on the “organizational hat” the listener is wearing (that is, the role they play in the organization). Further, you need to remember that some people wear more than one hat.  
 
Obviously, there are numerous hats that can be worn in typical business or organization. For the purpose of designing powerful offers though, let’s focus on four hats that influence the listener’s viewpoints and decisions in most situations . . .

The classic hats

The classic hats that listeners wear are four in number:

• Economic—these listeners focus on bottom-line financial performance and financial impacts on the organization. So when receiving an offer, its economic impact is what they are geared to listen for.

• Consumer—these listeners are typically the users of what you are offering. When receiving an offer, they are typically asking themselves, “What’s the impact on me or my job or situation.”

• Craftsman—these listeners are technical experts. They listen for technical implications and tend to make judgments based on their assessment of your technical knowledge and competence. Thus, they may want to know more about your practices, or particular tools you recommend, and why you recommend them.

• Ally—these listeners may wear any or all of the above hats. But in relation to you and your offer, they are also willing and able to mentor and/or advise you about who is in what role, and what would be a “win” for each person. It may not be possible to identify an ally in every situation. However, it’s definitely worth the effort to explore, uncover, and build relationships and trust with people who can be an ally.

Again, I want to emphasize that these hats may not be attributable as one-person-one-hat. And if you’re coming into a new situation (such as job interview) where you may not know who’s wearing what hat, you can make educated guesses from such things as titles, the books in their office, charts on the wall, etc. Or, you can simply ask the person what they do. From there you can start to align your speaking with their listening.

Tip: Be authentic at all times. If you don’t know something, don’t fake it. You are also laying a foundation for trust—which I’ll talk more about later in this series.

Also be clear about something I said in Part 1: I’m not talking here about manipulation. Rather, I’m talking about speaking in such a way that you are most likely to be heard.

How listeners see the situation

Besides wearing certain hats, listeners tend to have consistent ways of observing their world. It’s worth your while to “tune in” to the observer they are, and craft your offers accordingly. There four classic observer orientations:

• The glass is half full—this observer tends to see the current situation in a positive light. Their mood tends to be positive, but they want to see the glass completely full. To them there is a gap between how the situation is now and how they would like it to be. To this observer, powerful offers are usually directed at improving an already good situation.

• The glass is half empty—this observer tends to see the current situation in a negative light because the glass is not “as it should be.” Their mood tends to be negative. To this observer, powerful offers can be directed at fixing a problem.

• The glass is fine the way it is—this observer sees a glass that is half full or half empty as a fine state to be in. Whatever the reason, they are not disposed to do anything about changing the situation. “Leave it the way its is!” Generally, a person with this orientation is not a good candidate for a powerful offer unless their viewpoint can be shifted.

  With such a person it can be helpful to listen even more carefully. You may discover that they see a problem downstream even though everything’s OK right now. Or you may be able to trigger a valid concern in their outlook by talking about what happened in a similar situation elsewhere. However, this can require some careful listening and conversation and the building of trust in the relationship. If you don’t take the time or inclination to build that trust and, instead, go in with “guns blazing,” you may wind up shooting yourself in the foot. Either commit to what it’s going to take, or make your offers elsewhere.

• Calling the glass full when it’s really not—this observer really doesn’t get that there is considerable evidence that indicates the situation is much worse than they are assessing it. You could spend a lot of time and effort trying to “figure this person out” and trying to “reason with them.” But in the end, it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to change their mind. I recommend that you “take your dog and hunt elsewhere.” 

  There is an exception. If you assess that this person’s observation reference frame is causing or about to cause catastrophic damage, perhaps even in the lives of others, you may have to take action. But as far as powerful offers to this person is concerned, your actions will probably be more effective elsewhere.

In Part 3 of this series I’ll show you how to practice making powerful offers so that when you “play with live bullets” you are effective.

I’ll post Part 3 next week.

© 2006 Gold Nugget Coaching