Well,I think one thing that I see all the time is a group or a person will come in and pitch a project, and they'll be in the zone and they'llbe excited about it and passionate about it and they'll just hit allthe right marks, and the audience or the buyers or the stakeholdersare just in the right mood and it's just that perfect day, and theproject gets approved and it's on the way. Then, it's time to comeback in for report status update, wherever, and we forget how new theproject is and how shifting these environments in and how shiftingbudgets are, and we don't repitch it. So, then we give someone anupdate and then the tough questions come in, where are we? You knowit's all the analytical stuff. So, I view it, like when you go in topitch a project, and get it signed off on, and you're sort of alowering a dome, there was a show under the dome, you're lowering thedome over you and the stakeholders and the buyers and everybody, andthen you're building a world under that dome which has rules that youcreate, it's your project, and so then, when the project getsapproved and everybody's bought in and people love it, the dome risesand you go back into the greater world. When you come back in toreport on that project, to talk about what's been doing, what's goneright, what hasn't gone right, where the budget is, where we are onthe Gantt chart, you drop a line, what milestones we hit what wedidn't, it's best to drop that dome back over, to create thisenvironment, and that requires a lot of the same processes that youused to win the project in the same place. I'm not saying you have tocome in and win it all over again but I'm saying it is worthwhile tocome back in and create the excitement, the passion, the interest,the intrigue, the novelty, the colour that initially got this thingkicked off.
Projectsare about the future, especially in my business when you go out andyou're trying to raise money, you're telling people give us $10million and we'll make this version of the future happen, andsomebody's only going to give you $10 million, $20 million, $50million, whatever it is, if what you're saying feels very likely tohappen. So, how do you make the future feel likely to happen? Yougive very strong supports to the things that have to happen, so, forexample, if we're going to do a start up we have to get the websiteup, the traffic funnel has to start coming in, we have to get thecost of acquiring a customer down below a dollar, the customers haveto use the software or the service for more than a year in order tomake it, so, these are the assumptions about what we're creating. So,in order to tell somebody something's going to happen in the future,you have to boil it down to assumptions, and then you have to makethose assumptions feel very, very likely to happen. And so, whenyou're coming back in and reporting on a project that's been started,or trying to win a new project, it's all about boiling down to a fewmeasurable things that everybody can focus on, because nobody knowsthe future, it's a complete crystal ball, making those things feelvery likely to happen, and that's the job of selling the future.
Forsure. What happens is, people come in to sell, pitch, repitch,report, and it is too grandiosea scheme, it's too many details, and the focus is what are theassumptions that really will make the project work. Where are we onthose assumptions. Because people can argue with you on all kinds ofthings that don't matter, people are argumentative. So, the big thingis, when new stakeholders come in they want to show their socialworth to the project leader, which is all the time in finance, a newanalyst shows up and you're reporting on a project, and they go, whatabout this thing that they've caught in their mind, right, andthey're trying to show their project leader how smart they are bynoticing some trend line or some minor issue about your project,you could spend an entire meeting chasing these conversation threads,and I think that's a big take away for me, notevery questions deserves an answer, a full investigation, anexplanation or to take up part of a meeting,this is the number one place where people get tripped up, a questioncomes up that's a semi-legitimate question that's technical oranalytical in nature, but this meeting is an hour long, there's 35minutes left, to go down this wormhole will just chew up time and notactually accomplish anything.
Trust is something that, truthfully, when you're pitching a projectand you're in the early stages of it, you're trying toshortcut trust,and there's some ways to do that, because trust takes time to build,and what you're trying to do is bridgethe gap of we don't have enough time to build a human scalerelationship with trust in it,that requires cycles, and so what are the things that can replacetrust? Credibility is one for sure, social proof is another, but, forme, what I think is one of the strongesttools youcould have here is autonomy,right? When you're giving someone information, when you're askingthem to decide in your favour or believe your projection or believeyour results, or believe your version of the future, there's aprocess you want to go through, we can talk a little bit about it,that you want their buy in, you want to influence them to make adecision, you want them in go forward mode. The reason sales peoplecan feel cheesy, slimy, greasy, is because they never give youautonomy to decide on your own, they're leading you the whole way,and so we want to make strong arguments that are well supported withgood information in the right order, but we can't forget to giveautonomy, because if we had a year, you know, if you and I had ayear, two year, a five year relationship, if we went to collegetogether, and you had jumped in and helped me with my mid-term when Icouldn't make it happen, and then you were breaking up with yourgirlfriend and I stepped in and I talked to her and you guys got backtogether, and then we were drinking buddies, and then we got ourfirst jobs together and then, you know, we vacationed in theCaribbean and something happened, you know, we just build thisrelationship over years, then I could just say, Stephen, just trustme on this one, right, and we have that huge, huge rapport and trust,and you go, I don't like it, but I've known you for 15 years, you'rethe real deal, if you say it's good it's good, I'll go with it. Wedon't have that. So we have to replace it with something, and that isto make a good argument, well supported, and then get to the pointand say, look, I can't tell you what to do, I've laid out the case, Ibelieve in it, we think this is the best solution, but in terms ofwhat we what we just laid out how do you want to approach it.
So,trust is something that, truthfully, when you're pitching a projectand you're in the early stages of it, you're trying toshortcut trust,and there's some ways to do that, because trust takes time to build,and what you're trying to do is bridgethe gap of we don't have enough time to build a human scalerelationship with trust in it,that requires cycles, and so what are the things that can replacetrust? Credibility is one for sure, social proof is another, but, forme, what I think is one of the strongesttools youcould have here is autonomy,right? When you're giving someone information, when you're askingthem to decide in your favour or believe your projection or believeyour results, or believe your version of the future, there's aprocess you want to go through, we can talk a little bit about it,that you want their buy in, you want to influence them to make adecision, you want them in go forward mode. The reason sales peoplecan feel cheesy, slimy, greasy, is because they never give youautonomy to decide on your own, they're leading you the whole way,and so we want to make strong arguments that are well supported withgood information in the right order, but we can't forget to giveautonomy, because if we had a year, you know, if you and I had ayear, two year, a five year relationship, if we went to collegetogether, and you had jumped in and helped me with my mid-term when Icouldn't make it happen, and then you were breaking up with yourgirlfriend and I stepped in and I talked to her and you guys got backtogether, and then we were drinking buddies, and then we got ourfirst jobs together and then, you know, we vacationed in theCaribbean and something happened, you know, we just build thisrelationship over years, then I could just say, Stephen, just trustme on this one, right, and we have that huge, huge rapport and trust,and you go, I don't like it, but I've known you for 15 years, you'rethe real deal, if you say it's good it's good, I'll go with it. Wedon't have that. So we have to replace it with something, and that isto make a good argument, well supported, and then get to the pointand say, look, I can't tell you what to do, I've laid out the case, Ibelieve in it, we think this is the best solution, but in terms ofwhat we what we just laid out how do you want to approach it.
3.今天阅读的自我思考点评感想
(1)On updates of projects, or middle report of projects, remember: itis worth while to come back in and create the excitement, the passion,the interest, the intrigue, the novelty, the colour that initially got this thing kicked off.
(2)Pitch your project is all about selling the future.
(3)When new stakeholders come in they want to show their social worth tothe project leader. But notice that not every questions deserves ananswer, a full investigation, an explanation or to take up part of ameeting.
(4) The objective of pitch –- shortcut trust. Trust takes time tobuild, and what you're trying to do is bridge the gap of we don'thave enough time to build a human scale relationship with trust init. Strongest tools for it: autonomy.
(5) information has no convincing power, real presentations areorganized on a narrative arc. Three classified presentations to bein-compelling : One is the information dump. The second is thenothing burger, the all bun no meat. The third is, you've got theright information but it's in the wrong order.
(6)Successful narrative arc follows one basic formula, what is changingin the world dramatically. 90% of the human mind is dedicated to detecting change, and we're very responsive to fear, because this ishow we evolved today. One of the rules the neo-cortex has is, don't send me problems that I have solved before.