Ep# 098: [Pep Talk] Having Tough Conversations
I want to talk to you today about something that doesn’t come easy for most of us: the idea of having hard conversations.
This is such a critical skill as both a business owner and when you don’t have your business hat on. The ability to have conversations that lead to discomfort is a necessity, but this is what enables us to grow through challenges, step up as a leader, and do what’s right.
As entrepreneurs, we have chosen the unconventional path. This means we often get pushback from others who don’t understand what we’re doing, and that can be really uncomfortable. But what if we decided to have these tough conversations out in the open, rather than shying away from them?
Have you ever noticed that whenever you call out an objection before it’s said, it kind of squashes it?
This is actually a common and effective sales strategy: addressing the objections. This eases your customers concerns because they recognize that you have already thought of and prepared for them.
When we wait to respond to pushback, rather than addressing it head-on, our tendency is to become defensive. Anytime we get defensive in a conversation, everyone else involved does too. And then it feels like we’re pitted against each other.
When we instead choose to address the elephant in the room and be open about our thoughts and feelings toward it, we are often met with more understanding and open-mindedness. We can come at it from the angle of, “I don’t want to try and change your mind, but I would love to share a little bit more about my perspective on this just so you understand where I’m coming from. I value our relationship and I understand that we might not see eye-to-eye on this, and that’s okay.”
The conversations have to happen, but how you approach the conversation is so critical as to what the outcome of that conversation will be.
In order for us to make our impact on the world, we have to be brave enough to shine our light instead of coming at people from a place of darkness. When we attack, our message can’t be heard because people are too busy defending to even be heard.