Hitting the reset button
Do you clear your mind before you have a call, meeting or send an email or text? Or, do you bring the baggage of your prior conversations with you to the next one? Learning to be more present and staying open to the unexpected can lead to unexpectedly wonderful outcomes.
Listen to this new 7-minute episode for some ideas on how to hit your own reset button.
Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:
- Apple Podcast:
- YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv
- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8
- Stitcher:
- Google Podcast:
- iHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/31C9Mic
- Pandora:
Below is a full transcript. If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at [email protected] or contact me via text, use the short form on this page, or call 732.422.6362
Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com
– Hitting the reset button. Why is that important? Listen to this episode and find out. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions Podcast. I’m Alan Berg. And what I want to talk to you about today is hitting the reset button. Now, what do I mean by that? Every time you have a call, in-person meeting, phone meeting, Zoom meeting, email, text, any kind of conversation you’re having with a customer or a prospect, you need to hit the reset button, clear your mind, and listen to the conversation that you’re having right now. What the tendency to do as humans, because we have the curse of knowledge, the knowledge of all the other customers we’ve dealt with, the knowledge of all the questions we’ve been asked, the knowledge of all the weddings and events or whatever type of business that you do, and you bring that knowledge with you. You could say you bring the baggage with you, but you’re bringing the knowledge with you. And what happens is you start to not listen actively. You are thinking about what you want to say because you’ve heard it before. Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t.
Much of the time, you’ll be right. It’s similar. No matter how different people want their weddings and events to be from one another. Everybody wants theirs to be unique and they’re not going to be at those other weddings. They’re not going to be at those other events, so it will look unique and feel unique to them. Every year the Pantone color of the year changes, and how many hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of weddings are going to use that color? Lots. Will it be, “Oh here’s another one the same color.” Or will it be, “It’s going to be beautiful, and that’s a beautiful color that you chose.” So you need to hit the reset button, so you don’t make assumptions. You need to hit the reset button, so it forces you to listen and pay attention better. To be actively listening and to be present, whether it’s digitally present or whether it’s physically present, with the people that you’re communicating with.
I’ve seen too many times myself and with my clients where you’re just, like in the Charlie Brown cartoons, you’re waiting for them to stop. So all you’re hearing is wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah. And then you’re going to say what you’re going to say. Or as I like to say, “You’re just waiting for them to get to the period at the end of their sentence and then you’re going to tell them what you wanted to tell them anyway.” Much of the time, you might end up saying what you were going to say. But every once in a while you get surprised. Have you ever asked someone a question and you kind of thought you knew what the answer was going to be and they say something completely different? And your inside voice is, “Really, that’s what you want?” Or your outside voice of course says, “Wow, that’s wonderful.” But your inside voice can be like, “Huh, wasn’t expecting that.” And that’s the key. Don’t expect anything. And then when you get what you might have expected before, it’ll be familiar, that’s great. You can knock it out of the park. And when you hear something different, totally out of left field, you can react appropriately because you are open to the possibilities that something is going to be different.
Hitting the reset button is hard. It’s hard because we do bring that human element to it, which is, you know what, this couple is looking to get married in this season or this company is looking for a holiday party or whatever type of event, whatever customer it is. And you go into that meeting already armed with all of these tools and things that you can do for them, but you really need to be listening. There’s a book called The Challenger Sale. And what you’re doing is challenging the results, challenging the assumptions of the customer that what you could do for them could actually be different and better than what they’re asking for because they don’t know what was possible. You’re challenging them with things that they didn’t know was possible.
So listen better. Hit that reset button. Imagine like the Staples, if you know the Staples office supply store, they have a big red button that says easy. And you hit it and it goes, “Wow, that was easy.” You want to have your own button that says: Reset. I actually had those made years ago and they had my voice inside them. You hit them and they had my voice telling you to hit the reset button before every call or meeting to give the customer the best experience. And that was actually the message that I had on there. “To give each customer the best experience, hit the reset button before every call, every meeting, every text, every Zoom, everything that you do, hit the reset button”, so you can be surprised in a good way and then surprise them with outcomes that they didn’t even imagine was possible. So I hope this gives you something to think about and I hope you have your own imaginary or real reset button where you can hit it and then just listen and hear the possibilities because they’re endless. Thanks for listening.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:
- Apple Podcast:
- YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv
- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8
- Stitcher:
- Google Podcast:
- iHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/31C9Mic
- Pandora:
©2022 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com
