Two Surefire Things You Can Do to Fix Your Messaging on the Fly

When you're in a conversation with a decisionmaker and it's not going the way you want, they're not engaging, they're not leaning in, or they're not getting what you need them to get. You can tell there's some kind of disconnect happening, and that this is not going to get you what you wanted. Whether that was to just move the conversation forward and deepen the relationship, or whether there was something specific you came to ask for that day.

This happens a lot. And right now, as we're all in this time of even more overwhelm than usual, it can be extra hard to try to figure out: What am I going to do to fix this problem on the fly when I'm right there in the room with the decisionmaker and it's not going well?

I want to share a couple of core strategies that will help rescue you if you find yourself in that situation, without you having to go into deep analysis about what's going wrong in the moment. There's just not that much extra brain space to do any kind of deep analysis while you're in the room. 

What you need are some handy tricks up your sleeve that will reset the conversation and get things moving that you want them to go.

In this episode, we share:

• The most common mistake nonprofit leaders make in the first 10 minutes of a conversation with a decisionmaker
• The simplest, easiest shift you can make in a conversation to create immediate engagement
• Why questions engage when facts don’t
• Three types of questions you can use with decisionmakers to create engagement
• Three simple yet powerful techniques for using your voice to create engagement
• Engaging ways to correct a decisionmaker’s misconceptions about your work

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