How to Turn Difficult Conversations into Opportunities for Growth
Want to kill your business in its tracks?
Want to upset clients so they stop reaching out to us or using your services in the future?
What about helping your clients realize they don’t want to tell anybody else about the goodness of your business?
I’m going to assume you want none of these things.
Which you’d be smart to want to avoid. But many Solopreneurs are headed down this path regardless of whether they know it.
How do I know?
Let me ‘splain.
Last year in the lawn business, my partner and I had taken on a few car washes.
The money was good, but the relationship was horrible.
It got so bad that my partner decided to try and see if we could address one of their concerns with tire marks on the sidewalk by bringing a broom to try and wipe them off. (No, it doesn’t work)
We dealt with people talking out the side of their mouths–others not talking to us directly–but talking to others about us while letting it get back to us.
It really felt like high school.
In many ways, it was because everybody wanted to point the finger at someone else as the problem instead of being honest about their issues.
So, what was the mystery here?
Why did we have so many issues, and how could these same issues show up in your business without your wherewithal?
It’s all-around uncommunicated expectations.
If you’ve been a solopreneur for any length of time, you’ve learned that people don’t communicate clearly–or at all–when they think they do.
Uncommunicated expectations are the beginning stages of any relationship breakdown–marriage, dating, friends, family–it doesn’t matter. When people don’t share what they expect, they go on thinking the other person just “gets it.”
In reality, they don’t or won’t. People are too lost in their worlds to realize what they may have “missed” in the communication.
I can point to any disagreements between my business partner and me and see a breakdown in clear expectations.
We’ve had enough emails that I’m too embarrassed to admit go unanswered in our business email because nobody communicated who’d handle it.
Now that we know the issue leading to the separation and demise of solopreneur success…it begs the question of why this happens.
It’s simple.
Fear.
Fear of how the other person may react causes us not to communicate our true intentions or thought processes.
I lived a marriage out of fear of sharing my mind, so I know plenty about not sharing what’s deep inside.
The main lesson I want you to take from all of this is that you may not have all the answers when someone–clients, family, friends, co-workers–communicates with you, knowing that is OK. Create the space to have open and direct communication. You’ll see–as I have learned the hard way–that people are more willing than they think and will respect you more.
