Hosting One Conversation Away is something I still think about more than I expected to. I ran it over two weeks in the summer of 2019 and interviewed 28 people about conversations that changed their lives. Going back through the notes now, one idea kept turning up in the business stories, even when nobody had set out to talk about it. Give people more than they were expecting and the money tends to look after itself.
The simplest version came from a guest who'd been selling online since his teens. When he was a young lad running a little lawn-mowing round, his dad turned up one day and edged and trimmed a neighbour's lawn alongside him. Afterwards he took him aside and explained why. Do more than you promised and surprise the customer, because most people just do the job and leave. The neighbour paid him double. He said that conversation changed his life forever.
What struck me was how small it was. A bit of edging. Nobody had asked for it and nobody would have complained if it wasn't done. But it was the bit the neighbour noticed. I think the same thing works with friends and family, too. People remember the extra thing you didn't have to do.
An agency owner I spoke to took the idea somewhere I wouldn't have thought of. A mentor of his challenged a group of business owners to give clients gifts they'd use every single day. So he gave his top clients proper office chairs, delivered and put together for them. Years later, clients still tell him they think of him every time they sit down. He'd also looked at which clients brought in most of his revenue and put the bigger gifts towards those few. His view was blunt. If someone pays you thousands a month and you won't spend a bit on them once a year, have a look at your priorities.
Extras are one way to give people more than they expected. Another is seeing their problem more clearly than anyone else has. A marketer who'd been selling online for decades told me how he pitched a partnership to another business owner. He opened by describing exactly where that owner's customers were getting stuck, the point where they froze and gave up, and only then showed how what he'd built fixed it. They agreed to work together in under ten minutes. Years earlier, the same guest had been given a one-line tip by another marketer: take whatever your competitors claim makes them special and throw it in as a free bonus. He did, and his sales went up. The bloke who gave him the tip doesn't even remember saying it.
A filmmaker I interviewed put it in a way that's stuck with me. Write the email you'd want to receive. When he approaches sponsors or partners, he opens with real, specific appreciation and an offer to help before there's any ask. He only promotes products he actually uses. And he found that when you give more, the other side wants to give more back. It sounds obvious written down. Have a look at the last few pitches in your inbox, though, and count how many did it.
Then there's the part people get wrong after they've done all the giving. One guest who runs an online community for parents told me that early on she played down her offers because she didn't want to seem salesy. So people didn't buy, and the people who'd have been helped weren't. Over about a year she decided to be straight about the value of what she offered, knowing some people would drift off. A different filmmaker said something similar. Someone had pointed out to him that he'd put all his effort into polishing his craft and building contacts, and he realised he'd been waiting for those contacts to hire him. He needed to start using what he already had to serve people and get paid, and he saw that he shouldn't feel guilty about asking for what he was worth.
I think those two halves belong together. If you've properly solved someone's problem and gone past what they expected, you've earned the right to ask for proper money. Being shy about it at that point doesn't do anyone any favours. It just leaves the people you could help where they were.
So what could you do for a customer this week that they'd never think to ask for? It doesn't need to be big. In the lawn story it was some edging on a lawn a young lad had only been paid to mow.
What I took from this one
- Do one small unrequested extra for an existing customer and watch what they mention afterwards.
- Put more money into fewer gifts for the clients who bring in most of your income, and pick things they'll use every day.
- When you pitch, name the other person's actual problem before you mention what you've got.
- If you're dodging talking about price, ask yourself who loses out when people don't buy.
