Chris Do - Keynote: Difficult Conversations

[Music] Our next guest is an Emmy award-winning designer, director, CEO, and chief strategist of Blind. He's lectured all over the world, from Boston to Milan, Cairo to Manila, Amsterdam, and Brisbane, my new hometown. He's the king of knowing your value and achieving results, teaching sales, negotiations, value-based pricing, mindset, branding, design, marketing, business – the list goes on.

Our guest's other passion, as the founder of The Future, an online education platform, is his mission of teaching 1 billion people how to make a living doing what they love. So, if you're ready to begin shaping your future, please join me in welcoming Chris Do.

Chris Do: Hi Kim, how are you?

Kim: Do I just launch straight into this?

Chris Do: No, it's all like, okay guys, I'm gonna try to keep this as conversational as possible. I, I want to really get into the role-play, but before I do that, I prepared a little keynote presentation to share with you. So, I want to encourage everybody that's watching and participating to engage with us as much as possible, and our moderators will help to bring your questions up to the top. And feel free to interrupt me anytime.

Today's topic is about having difficult conversations. And I want to help you to talk about the things that scare us the most. Things about the budget, or when the clients are pushing us a little bit far, and we don't know when to raise the flag and say, "Ah, we're going out of scope here." And then before you know it, 37 revisions later, you're hating life, you're hating clients. That's not the way to live. And also about deadlines. When somebody gives you a deadline that you know you can't achieve, how do you talk about these things?

And it feels at times we're conflicted between two points. That we're walking this tightrope. So, I'm going to tell you a little personal story here. While growing up in the culture, in the community I was raised in, we don't speak up. And, you know, Asians don't speak up. And that's who I had to model. I modeled my father. Now, that's not to say he never spoke up. He just never spoke up in public. Like, he would grumble in private. And that was basically how I grew up. And it created all kinds of problems for me moving into starting my business. So much so that I didn't want to get into conflict. That some of the producers that worked for me would exploit that. The fact that I, they knew I wouldn't push back. And they, they moved their agenda forward, knowing that I'm just going to relent and let them have their way. It would build up to a certain point in my life that I actually wound up dreading going into the office to, to my own company. If I pulled into the parking lot and I saw that person's car, my heart would sink a little with dread going up the stairway to go and actually go to work, my own company.

So, this is a real problem. And, and the way that I frame it in my mind, and the way I think about it, is that I, I don't want to get into a fight with anybody. Because in a fight, there's going to be a winner and a loser. And I definitely don't want to be the loser. But I also didn't want to make the other person feel like they were a loser. And I was taking more care of their feelings and emotions and well-being than I was taking care of my own.

The other way that we, we handle communication, the reason why it's so difficult for us, is that in the same scenario, what, what Marshall Rosenberg calls the game of "who is right?" There's a winner, there's a loser, there's a right, there's a wrong, and there's a good and bad. And then nobody wins. So, I did everything I could to avoid this. And it led me to develop a conflict-averse type of dealing with people and situations that I would just kind of suppress and stay, keep quiet.

What it is, I was thinking, and it was driven a lot by my, my need to be liked, or to be popular, or in a lot of instances, that I wanted to be polite. Like, is this polite? Am I being too aggressive here? And also, as you may know, whether it's in your personal or professional relationships, when you have something to bring up and you're hesitant to do that, it's oftentimes because we imagine a very bad reaction, response from the other person. And we've all been in a situation like that where we'll avoid that or move away from that path and kick it down the road.

A lot of times, too, we hear people say this when there, there's a situation that involves communication, that they just don't have the right words. And if they only have the right words, they would be able to overcome this. And this leads me to the three R's, which is a feeling of repression, one of your own doing. And then in that repression, you start to become resentful of the person, the client, your partner. And here's a really classic example where you have a friend who's staying over as a house guest, something that I hope you guys can relate with. And they've clearly overstayed their welcome, they're making a mess, and they seem to be a little inconsiderate. But you have a partner, a life partner, somebody you're married to, a spouse, somebody like that, that you, you know, it's creating conflict in your personal relationship, but you can't speak up. So now you're going to put the third R in jeopardy, which is your relationships. Which is strange. It's like, because we haven't learned to speak up and communicate in these difficult scenarios, we're experiencing the three R's. We're feeling repressed, we start to resent the person, and they don't even know this. And it can damage the relationships that we're in.

And now I want to talk a little bit about why this matters. I've started to realize, I'm talking really fast here, guys. So Kim, if somebody needs to slow me down, let me know. I'm a little excited here. So, why does it matter? So, I want to ask you this question: Have you been, have you ever been in a situation where you wanted to say something, but just couldn't find a way to do it? And then the question is, why didn't you say it?

Now, some of you guys may know, I work with a whole team of people. And this problem becomes even more compounded when there are people who are supposed to say something. And there are many examples of this. When my three creative directors would go into a new business meeting, and they would come back and, and, and give me a report on what happened. And the first question out of my mouth is, "So, what's the budget?" And they would kind of like, look in the air and kind of corner their eyes and scratch their head a little bit. Like, "Yeah, we didn't, we didn't get around to that." And then I would kind of lose my cool. It's like, "Why? Why didn't you say that? We need this vital piece of information. What is the budget? How are we supposed to know?"

So, this, I wanted to identify, like, even if you're a pretty good communicator, but when you're doing it in a group setting, you're not quite sure whose job it is to be the person that brings this up. That it's not your responsibility, or you think somebody's more senior, or somebody's title means that they're going to bring that up, so you don't step on toes. Or you're just not quite sure where to insert yourself. So, the window of opportunity seems to never open and present itself. So, you wait till later, you postpone, you, you punt this.

Now, here's the thing. From a business point of view, we know that if you identify a problem early, that it's going to be easier and cheaper to solve. But when you wait till later, the problem becomes much bigger, much more expensive, and sometimes difficult to even impossible to solve.

And here's a little story I want to share with you. In, in the Building a Brand series, we were designing a logo and identity system for a local brewery. And while looking at the tape, when they were presenting the initial rounds of logos, I can tell the client was hesitant. You can see that in their eyes, you can see that in their body language. But we decided as a team, in that moment, to push through. And, you know, where the story ends, because you may have been here too, yourself, which is, you get that phone call, the 11th hour, before you're supposed to like, ship files off and be done with the job. And they call you and say, "Uh, actually, we never fell in love with the logo. We want you to change it."

Now, all of this could have happened if we were smart enough to be present in the moment and to see that something was off. And we're pushing our agenda to move forward because we're trying to avoid hearing something we don't want to hear. So, if we create a space, invited them into the conversation, I believe we could have prevented all of that from happening.

Okay, so what are the benefits if you learn how to communicate better? Well, this can have implications in how you negotiate and how you talk about money, so that you're able to command the highest value that your, your due. It will help you resolve conflicts with your team, with your subordinates, with your superiors, with your managers, with your clients, with your personal relationships. And learning how to communicate better can help you with dealing with client feedback. You can direct them as to how to give you feedback so that's most useful for you, so that you can do the best job for them. And this is critical in sales, especially. It allows you to gather essential information. This is one key business skill that my coach taught me many years ago that helped me to double in revenue in just one year, to be able to learn how to say what it is that I was thinking.

So, what's the solution? And, and you, you may see experts on stage, or maybe you've watched one of our videos before, you think, "Okay, these guys have scripts memorized." And yes, you can memorize scripts. But I'm a big proponent of frameworks. The reason why I don't like scripts is because all situations are different and unique. And instead of listening to what's going on, you're trying to recall a script, you're trying to match up what's going on with something that you remember. So, you're not even really present at the moment. So, I want to teach you about frameworks because it doesn't take a lot to remember, and you can apply it in your own specific way that's very nuanced to who you are, that feels genuine and authentic to who you are.

So, what we want to do is, uh, develop a new habit. And the habit, believe it or not, is to be really happy. As human beings, we, we seek pleasure and we want to avoid pain. And in my conversation with Cynthia Kane, who wrote a series of books called "Think Like a Buddhist," and she shared three ideas with me that are central to Buddhism. And I think this is pretty cool because this will lead to a happier, more fulfilled life. One is to tell the truth. And two is to lessen the suffering of others. And three, which is kind of funny, don't gossip. So, if you're not telling the truth to yourself or to others, you're going to be moving away from the path of happiness. And if we try to help people in that spirit of generosity, we're going to lessen their suffering. And if we don't talk badly about others, we won't attract that energy to ourselves.

Now, that's a lot of Eastern kind of philosophy. And let's, let's make it more concrete. And so, here's my friend and author of "The Wind Without Pitching Manifesto." He says, there's a simple rule. If he could be king of the universe, he would say, "Just say what you think."

Okay, so let's tie that all together. So, happiness to me is when what you think, say, and do are in perfect alignment. So, the tension comes in when we think something and we're unable to say it. That creates discord and tension within our lives and within our mind. We're conflicted. There are two versions of us fighting for control, right? So, oddly enough, this seems somewhat counterintuitive. We feel stressed out because we don't want to say something. But the stress comes from us from not saying it. So, when we say, we're relieved of this burden, we're relieved of the stress. So, you need to learn to say what you think.

Now, there are two paths. Typically, when we have an unmet need, when something is going on, like we need more money, we need more time, we need help in, in terms of additional resources. If we say it, and we say, and if it sounds like a demand to a person, then they have a choice to make. And it's very, it's very binary in this way, that they have to choose. They either submit to your demand, or they're going to attack back. And neither option is good. Nobody wins in this scenario. So, we need to find another option.

Okay, the other option is what we need to do is we need to, to be able to express our unmet need via non-judging requests. That we're not blaming, we're not criticizing, we're not adding any kind of value statement, or not being overly analytical or evaluating the other person. And this is how we get what you want.

I mentioned Marshall Rosenberg before. He does a lot on non-violent communication. He says, if you are, if you're communicating requests without, without judgment, and it doesn't sound like a demand, it's people's natural instinct to want to give.

So, here's a couple things I want you to think about as we're going to launch pretty soon into the exercise, the role-play, if you will. Is one, to mind your tone of voice. And if you're listening to me right now, you might be thinking, "Chris is really excited. He's talking really fast. There's a lot of energy." That's because a little bit of nerves, a little bit of tea and caffeine in my body. So, maybe this is not the best tone if you're trying to get somebody to help you, to enroll them in what it is that you want to do.

So, the two most helpful things that I can think of, think of are these two tones of voice. One is what I call, or what is referred to as, a "speaking smile." So, when you're talking, even though people can't see your face, I want you just to smile. I don't know if you could tell it or not right now, but I am smiling myself. And that puts a filter through your voice so that you sound friendlier and more open and more curious. A variant to this is to do what some, some people do, some teenagers, whenever they say something, they say it in a rising intonation. So, if you were to say something negative like, "Your work is terrible." If you say it like that, as an emphatic statement, it's hard for me to process anything but an attack. But if you say it in a rising intonation, if you say it, "Your work is terrible?" You're adding a question mark to that. So, that looms, that leaves room for some negotiation. So, what I want you to do is, whenever possible, try to say something that's negative, that's hard to say, but say it through the filter of the speaking smile. Just smile when you're saying it, or say it in a rising intonation where you kind of end with a question mark.

The other tone of voice that is very helpful to communication is the, the one that Chris Voss labels the "late-night FM DJ voice." "You're listening to K JAZ 101, smooth coasting or smooth riding on the coast." And that's to use a low, deep, slow, and deliberate voice. So, even when people are excited and angry and anxious, if you speak in this tone, it starts to bring them and pull them into your energy, to slow them down, to kind of take away some of the tension.

Okay, so here's the framework that I want to share with you. And it's very simple. There are more complex ways of saying this and doing this, but I only want you to remember three things. Okay? So, here are the three things: Is when you need to say something, start with a feeling. First, and then explain to the other person why you're feeling this way. And this has to be a neutral, objective observation, without blaming or finger-pointing or accusing other people. And then tell them what you need. So, start with a feeling: "I feel something because this is happening, and I need X."

And sometimes people will use emotions or feelings and like these, like, "I feel intimidated, I feel disrespected, or criticized, or ignored." The minute that you start using this kind of language, this would be considered the, the violent form of communication. It puts the other person on the defense because you're saying that you made me feel this. The feeling should be internal versus external. Okay? So, you don't want to make the other person feel attacked. Because when they do, they, they're either going to defend themselves or hit back. And you don't want to do that.

So, here's some safer, non-violent feelings that you can express. You can say, "I feel sad, I feel angry, afraid, or scared, or happy, or disgusted, surprised, or hurt." And there's many other nuanced versions of this. But notice how the other person doesn't feel attacked. So, the framework is this: Okay, "I feel because I need." Can you guys remember that? "I feel because I need." And I only have a couple more slides here.

So, the other way of doing non-violent communication, or, or being able to express things, is to avoid saying "no." Now, this seems counter to like, a lot of what people say in terms of establishing boundaries. But for a person who isn't that comfortable communicating and doesn't want to hurt other people's feelings, saying "no" could be one of the hardest things to say. No. So, again, back to Marshall Rosenberg. He says, instead of saying "no," say the need that keeps you from saying "yes." So, he's like, "Don't ever say no. Don't say I can't. Don't say it's impossible, or I don't have time." What, what you want to do is make sure that this becomes something that, "I need more information or clarification."

So, for example, instead of saying no to a budget, saying, "I'd like to say yes, but I'm not sure how. Your request seems to be the scope is more than what you can pay, or perhaps I've misunderstood it. That the scope can be reduced so I can do for the budget that you're asking for. Help me understand this." So, that's a different way of saying no, which gives the other person the power to make a decision with you, instead of at you, or that you've made it for them. Okay, that's enough of that.

What I want to do is, I want to jump into the role-play. I hope I didn't go too fast. And if we need to, we'll go back to the slides at any point in time. Okay, so let's get into it. Kim, what do we have?

Kim: All right, mate. Well, I'll fill you in first because the comments are, they're star-struck to be able to do that virtually. They're all giddy and they've got lots of OMGs. But in terms of what you've been sharing so far, they're saying, "Very, very relatable." Um, so thank you for setting the scene because I think you've set us up really well. Now, what we're going to start off with, people at home, is we are going to do some frameworks and habits. I did have scripts down, but Chris has said that's naughty, so I've scratched that off. But people at home, you're pen and paper, okay? You're allowed to do what you want, okay?

Chris Do: Yeah, scripts? No. I think people, get your pen and paper because what I'm going to do is, I'm going to give some common things that are hard for us to say as practitioners to Chris. And then I want him to come back with frameworks, habits, whatever you want to call them, Chris. Okay? So, first one, I'm thinking in my head as a practitioner, we're over budget on this project. Help me deal with that. Okay, so you're the vendor here, and there's a client, and you're over budget. Like, how do we get here?

Kim: I don't know. You tell me. You're the one doing the work.

Chris Do: Okay, so this is very common. And something that I've caught myself in before. And in that, we have a clearly defined scope, theoretically, in a calendar that we're sticking to. And that those are immutable. And through our own good grace, it's like, with good intentions is the, the path to hell. All right, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Is that, at the first sign of trouble, I didn't bring it up because I thought it was petty. That I should just give one to the client. And I don't want to seem so magnanimous that I'm just going to like, bring, bring it up to him. Like, "Yeah, you know, we're doing this for free." And, you know, that you should be so grateful. Nobody wants to talk like that. That's not how great relationships are built.

Now, here's the thing. Now, a lot of creative people will have, say, three rounds of revisions. This is how we control the scope creep. But they don't wait to say anything until after the third round. Now, it's like, it's horrible. And so, by that point, it's kind of late. So, here's something that I would advise you to do. When you get into the second round of revision, it's good business protocols, best practices, to let the clients know, "Just by the way, I want to let you know that we're in revision two of three. We have one more to go. I want to make sure, I don't want to charge you any more money." Notice how I phrased that. "I don't want to do this." So, now it's your choice to force me to charge you more money, right? So, I don't want to do this. But come round three, if we're not where we need to be, we're gonna have to have a conversation about the extended scope. And I don't want to charge you more money. I can re-emphasize that a couple of times.

Now, the clients then have a couple of choices to make for you. They could say, "Hey, hey, Chris, thanks a lot. Don't worry about it. I think we're way, we love working with you. And there's been a couple of additional stakeholders that we account for. So, we're willing to slip on time and for budget. Just let us know what it is when it comes to it, and we'll be totally fine." That would be fantastic news for you. That's going to relieve a lot of the stress. So, what you want to do is you want to bring up the point of pain earlier to let them know so that they can make an informed decision.

Now, if you say, "Well, that was the last round of revision, and we're nowhere close to where we need to be. I'm gonna have to charge you more money." What are they gonna do? They're gonna react like any normal person's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What kind of project management are you doing here? Because I didn't even know where we were. I trusted you so that we could deliver this on time and on budget." Now, you're telling me you're gonna, it's gonna cost me more money. Nobody's gonna be happy about that. I like it. I think they're flipping pages now onto the second A4 just from that one scenario alone.

Okay, next one. Let's talk about missed deadlines. Okay, so now they've missed, the client has missed their deadline, and we need to like, reschedule or renegotiate the project.

Chris Do: This is very similar to the budget question. You just substitute budget for deadlines, right? Because they didn't know either. Now, sometimes, uh, and I'm gonna say, I, I'm a big believer in taking 100% responsibility for everything. It's the only way you can can maneuver through life so that you have a choice. Otherwise, you're going to feel like I have to, and you have no choice, and you're, you're going to become a victim. I don't like that because it's not helpful to anybody. So, if the clients have missed the deadline, it's your responsibility as the designers, the vendor, whoever is doing the work, to be able to communicate that to somebody, to let them know, "These decisions, these changes are going to make you miss the deadline and possibly incur additional charges." We just need to be able to say that. This is what business people do, right?

So, let's take this into a context we all can understand. Let's say you're having your home renovated, like your kitchen. That's just isolated to the kitchen. And everything is good to go. You have an open house that's coming up. And at the last minute, you decide, "You know what? This type of range is not going to work. I want to install like a top-of-the-line." But the thing is, it was built for that size, and the unit that you want is much bigger. Now, very few people would expect that last-minute change to happen, and for the deadline to be held to, and the budget to happen without additional work and resources. And we don't even know if you have the team to do this. That's an assumption. So, in the real world, we're able to understand that. So, we just need to understand that people expect that, that that's normal and that's professional, as long as you communicate it without judgment.

Now, if you said, "Hey, that's crazy! You're, you're indecisive, and, uh, I'm gonna miss the deadline, and you don't know what this is gonna do to my, my team and my relationships, and this is terrible." Well, that's gonna put you in a really bad situation. So, we'd like to use non-judgmental, non-critical, uh, requests or statements, uh, language that, that doesn't put the, the client at odds and want to fight back, right? Because nobody wants to be wrong. So, don't create a game where somebody has to be right and somebody has to be wrong.

Kim: I like that. Um, okay, so this one. Let's pretend we work in an organization, and your boss comes to you, and they say, "I need this project done, and need it done now." And this is all the things you need to make happen. And basically, the scope's unrealistic. And you want to say, "I can't do that with all the other priorities that I have on." What are your tips?

Chris Do: Okay, let's, let's use this framework. Let's go back to the framework. This framework can help you, right? So, when I have an overbearing and unrealistic boss that's just not respectful of my time and my energy, and actually being able to do good work, I have to communicate a feeling here. So, Kim, you're together, okay? I'm ready. Now, I want you to see if you can use the framework a little bit, okay? And I'll coach you through it. So, let's put you in the position of a designer, a creative person, where a boss is coming up to you and saying, "I need this done now," and you know you can't do it. So, let's start, start, we'll put it together in a second, but we'll do this workshop down, piecemeal. What's the feeling that you have?

Kim: I feel overwhelmed.

Chris Do: You feel overwhelmed. Is there another emotion that you have, or a feeling?

Kim: Um, I feel frustrated. I think I'm a good worker, and my boss keeps putting more and more work on me. Um, but the people around me that don't do as, don't work as hard, they don't get as much work. I think it's because I deliver. And I feel like I'm struggling to prioritize my tasks because I already have a lot on my plate.

Chris Do: Okay. And why do you still work there? Why did you still work with this boss?

Kim: Yeah, I think I'm becoming disengaged now, and I am looking at different options. But at the moment, I need to, you know, pay my rent, and times are tough. It's a bit risky out there in the job market.

Chris Do: Okay. Was there any part to this boss at the beginning of a relationship that made you compelled to work here and give it your best?

Kim: I think we're all under pressure. They're a good person. I know they mean well. Um, yeah, and they're, they're under pressure as well. It's just a flow-on effect, I think.

Chris Do: Okay. Now, see, I think for the first time, you're starting to change your energy around this, right? I needed to remind you why you worked for this person in the first place. Because the first few words that you expressed to me were pretty strong, pretty negative: overwhelmed, frustrated, struggling, disengaged. Well, that sucks. I mean, that's not a great place. But in my experience, and I have limited experience working for other people, but I've had clients that, the clients that I really care about are the ones who can hurt me the most. And so, a lot of times, it's people we really look up to and we admire. But somewhere along the way, they mistake our passion, our enthusiasm, and desire to please them as some way of like, just pouring on the punishment for us.

So, if we can try to use a feeling that's still true to you, but isn't, um, judging or critical. What are some other words that you can use to say, like, "I, what do you feel in this moment?" Do you know?

Kim: I, I can help you. You give me some hints, Chris, please.

Chris Do: Yeah, I'm gonna bring up this screen here, and then you can look at that and find a word here. Okay? What do you think? Is there a word in there that kind of captures anything, or some version of one of those words?

Kim: Yeah, I feel, I feel sad at the moment, but I feel optimistic that this is temporary.

Chris Do: Oh, I like that. Okay. Okay. Why do you feel sad?

Kim: I think there's just a lot going on, so it's like emotion kind of coming up all at once. But it's probably just like an immediate reaction to it.

Chris Do: Yeah, but can you, can you tell me why? Tell me why you feel sad, though.

Kim: No, like, what's causing you to feel sad?

Chris Do: Well, I think if I look around at my colleagues, and like, I just don't think they're working. They're picking up their weight. And then I'm like, "Ah, I'm struggling." They see you feel sad that you're not being recognized for work that you do. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Chris Do: And is this in a direct response to this request, or is this some underlying other issue that you should have brought up earlier? Because in this moment right now, they're asking you to complete something. So, the, the, the best thing to do is to, to react or respond to this specific moment right now, because you're being asked to do something that you know you can't do.

Kim: Yeah, I think if I had to said something earlier, I wouldn't be in this position, but I let it go. I let it slip, right?

Chris Do: So, we'll park that for a second, okay? Because there's a deeper issue here where the work relations, that's not healthy, for sure, that we need to get to. But the first thing is, we need to respond because there's an immediate need and a deadline that if you don't say something, it means staying there all night and doing work that's not up to your standards, right?

Kim: Correct.

Chris Do: See, so that would probably be it. There, you would probably say something like that. You would say, "Boss, I feel really anxious right now because I, I, in order to do this, I'm going to have to work all night, and I don't feel that I'm going to be able to do my best work for you. So, I, I need something now. You can say, 'I need help. Is there flexibility on the deadline? I, I need help. Are there additional team members who can come in to help me here? I, I need some reassurance from you, and that this is like a one-off, because I, I can do this from time to time, but I'm concerned, I'm afraid that this is going to become the way we work, and it's not healthy for me.'" Is that something you could say?

Kim: It is. It's really interesting to observe as well, how my body is going, how the, so for you, like what you're doing with me now is like, I'm feeling the emotion. It's not my situation at all. I'm my own boss, but, um, it's interesting where you've taken me. And now I'm thinking, you know, I actually feel empowered by these words that you've just said there. I feel like I could actually say that back. You know, I was feeling a little bit down, but now I'm like, "That's not that hard to say. It's not that hard to say."

Chris Do: And here's the thing. Is, I, I tried my best to use non-judging language, non-critical language. And it's, it's a, I'm asking for help. And if you ask it without judgment, or making it sound like a demand, like I said, um, people's nature is to want to actually help. Yeah. They shut down when you start accusing them of things. Yeah. Like, if you say, "I'm overwhelmed, I'm frustrated," then the conversation goes into, "Well, what's making you feel overwhelmed? Why are you frustrated? Here, I thought you loved it here." And it just takes you into a whole another place. Yeah. Right?

So, in this moment right now, it's like, "I need to, to get help on this because I just don't think I can deliver anything that's going to be good." And if you can address that, and then they're going to say, "Oh my god, Kim, let me, let me call the account execs and get you a couple more days." "How many more days do you need?" You're like, "Thank God. Thank you, boss. Uh, you know, as much time as you can get, because, you know, I want to make this great for you." Yeah. My motivation is to make you look good. That's, that's it. I mean, do you think as a boss, you would be like, "Yeah, well, I think we can help." Yeah. Yeah. I think the majority, definitely the one I was thinking of. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Do: So, here's the other thing you need to know. Clients, managers, they always pad. They know that people are late with deadlines. So, they always say, "Give it to me a week early," because that's how they manage projects. So, they squeeze you and your creativity and your timeline. They just squeeze you down. And if you know this already, you're like, "You know what's the real deadline?" I've been working for a long time, for over two decades here. There's, there's the fake deadline, and there's the real deadline, and there's the real, real drop-dead deadline. Like, hell or high water, it has to be delivered at this point. And there are three different deadlines. So, push it until they give you a hard day. That's just one option.

Now, see what I'm doing. Is, and say, instead of saying, "No, boss, can't do this. I'm out. It's impossible. I hate you." We're telling them why we'd like to say yes. We just need help. "I can't say yes because of these reasons. I don't want to say yes. I need more time. I need more help. I need something here. Or I need assurance. Or I need just to be recognized for a minute, if that's what your need is. Because some people are willing to work throughout the night and give their boss the best if they get some recognition." To say like, "You know what? Employee of the month. You're up for the bonus pool." Or whatever it is. I don't know what it is.

Kim: Cool. Can I pause for one sec? I want to encourage the people that are watching to jump into the comments and reflect on the strategies and the things that Chris has said or done in his role, because I think that's going to be really important for you to action back in your workplace. Let's see what they come through with, Chris.

Chris Do: Okay. And I'm gonna drink some water. I promise. You just go for it.

Kim: So, what did Chris demonstrate in that role-play? You need to stop being a perfectionist. Good use of emotion. It didn't feel like you were in a therapy session for professionals. You're showing empathy. Empathy is coming through a lot. Self-awareness. Yeah, you did demonstrate that really well. It wasn't manipulative. That's good to hear. I've been accused of course. It's real. It's the truth. You have very calm composure. Very authentic. Humanized. This is really good, indeed. Very calm.

Chris Do: All right. Help people with that. I want to help people with that. Because people have accused me before of being a robot, or being some kind of meditation wizard. And I'm not none of those two. It does appear like that at some points that I'm a robot. But here's what I look at. I've demonstrated this on stage before. I'll have two people standing, and their, their natural position to stand, face to face, squared shoulder, and look at, look at each other right in the eye. And say, "I want you to negotiate past this thing, whatever it is." And you can see they're both dug in, and they're playing the game of "who is right?" And they're trying to exert power over one another.

And then when I go and do it, what I'm trying to do in my mind is not to be looking at them straight on, because we're not in a battle. It's like, how dogs challenge each other? That's how animals show their alpha supremacy, right? If you look at a dog in the eye, it's like, "You've challenged me, and I'm alpha dog. I'm going to bite your face off." So, I definitely don't want to do that. So, in my mind, what I'm trying to do is like, I try and ask myself, "What problem are we looking at?" And so, in my mind, our bodies are moving side by side. So, we're standing shoulder to shoulder, looking in the same direction. And we're looking past me standing there physically, and looking at a problem much bigger than that.

So, when the boss is coming to me and saying, "I need this thing done," they're under duress. Something has happened. So, I try to understand that. And I also know that I'm here as long as I'm gainfully employed by them. And I feel like I'm being paid fairly, it's because I want to contribute to this company. I want to have an impact. I want to make sure what I do matters. And so, that's the root of it. It's all the other stuff, the lack of communication, and the repression of what it is. And you remember I said, you start to grow resentful? Yeah. We got to get back to the good place.

Kim: One thing you're really good at is, um, not pushing your agenda and trying to serve the other person. Can you expand on how you got there and what you actually do? What goes on in your mind to be able to do that?

Chris Do: Yeah, I, I, I look at it like this. It's like, I think if we don't serve our own ego, and our ego tells us that we need to be right, we need to be popular, we need to be in control and command. If we just let that go, if we surrender that attachment to that ego, then we can serve a higher purpose. We can take care of better care of our own emotional needs, as well as the, the needs of others.

I posted this question yesterday on Twitter, pretty late. I asked them, like, "What do you, how do you describe your ideal client?" And the responses that I got back, and I'm not, I'm trying not to be super judgmental here about the responses, but in general, they come from a very, in my opinion, um, like, young perspective. Like, they haven't been doing business for very long. And, and people associate a good client is one who gives you lots of money, listens to everything that you say, is as hard-working on the project as you, and gets out of your way so that you can do art. I don't know of many relationships like that.

Now, if we were just to abstract that and say, "Would you describe your ideal mate that way?" So, uh, okay. Would I want to describe my wife that listens to everything I say, works on everything as hard as I do, but I get complete control to do whatever I want, whenever I want? How long will that relationship last? So, I think this is a very young mindset. And I want to say that the community at large, in our education system, has some responsibility here. Some, a small little bit. And that we seem to tell young people, "The way that you make it in the world as a designer is to exert yourself, is to school or to teach your client." To educate them. What? These are the people who are so successful in their business life that they can afford to hire a hundred versions of you. And you're now going to tell that person how to run their business? I think that's a really arrogant point of view. I'm not telling you that I'm humble because I don't think I am. I'm just confident, right? But to assume that I know more than this person who runs a multi-million, multi-billion dollar business, who's been doing this for longer than I've been alive, what to do with their business, that seems a little arrogant to me.

So, there are ideas that are in conflict here, right? So, I think we need to understand, "I'm here to help. This person has asked me to help." How do I know that? Because they're paying me a lot of money to help them. And I want to make sure what I'm doing is being helpful and being perceived as helpful. So, with that abundance, generous mindset, I think all the other stuff goes away. I've had some of the most difficult clients that you can imagine, and I've never felt like it was difficult. It was just like, "Let's work through this." Cool.

Chris Do: Okay, we're gonna get into some role plays. All right, audience, do you want a role play on someone fishing for a price, a low-budget client, or scope creep? So, put it in the comments. I'm going to throw to Hannah and ask if there's any questions from the audience while we're waiting for the comments to come in or the voting for the next scenario.

Kim: I'm just curious, Hannah, while we're killing dead air here, am I able to read the comments too?

Hannah: You have to go into, um, another Zoom environment.

Kim: No, okay. Would you like me to?

Chris Do: No, no, because it'll, it'll probably mess me up. I just thought that maybe I'm not hitting the right button here.

Kim: No, we're keeping it secret. We don't want to prep you too much for the role plays.

Chris Do: I got it. All right. So, I think what's coming in is, oh, it's close. Scope creep and low budget. We'll do low budget.

Kim: Hannah, is there any questions from the audience, or keep going with the role play?

Hannah: Yeah, we do have some questions. So, we have a question from Emma, and she would like to know, "How do you convince internal clients that you're an expert and deserve a seat at the table?" Great question.

Chris Do: Okay, I'm just writing some notes here. Internal client that you're an expert. Okay. This is a big challenge for our industry. It's a big challenge. Okay. Now, as per my usual modus operandi, I have to dissect the words and the questions a little bit, right? I want everybody here, if possible, to be a little bit more intentional in choosing the words that you use, because they frame your thinking, and then your thinking frames what you say. What you say frames how you're going to do things. Okay?

So, the word "convince" means that they have an opposite opinion, and you're going to move them through your mental jujitsu to, to somehow manipulate them or to educate them to do what it is that you want them to do. And that's a strange way to begin a conversation because you're already saying there will be a winner and a loser, and somebody will be right and somebody will be wrong. And I think that's where it gets a little dangerous. Okay?

So, let's just take the word "convince" out. How do I be seen? How can I be seen as an, as an expert in the eyes of the internal team or the client? Okay? So, I want to be seen that way. Okay? That that's like non-violent language right there, like, right? Okay. How do I be seen? So, let's ask ourselves, what things do experts do? How do we see other people that are experts? And ask ourselves, are we doing the same thing? Because if we walk and talk like a duck, people will see us like a duck. So, there's two parts to this: is to make sure we have some objective criteria as to what experts do, and then to see how we map to that. So, I'm gonna have to play with you. It's not quite a role play.

Kim: Okay. Thanks, Emma. What, what traits or things do experts do? Things that you can see, not like their intention or their motivation, because I can't really see that. What actions do they take, or how do we know we're working with an expert?

Kim: I think they are

helpful. They help you. They get results. Um, they achieve what they say they're going to do. Okay? They listen. Help me. Audience? Yeah. Help. Come on, this is a group effort here. Uh, well, you know, the best way to do this, Kim, is to think, when is it you really need an expert? Okay? Like, in your life, it could be a small thing or a big thing. But when is it really critical for you to work with an expert? And then map that in your mind. So, do you have something in your mind yet, Kim? Like, when you've needed an expert? You're an expert. Yeah. Who? Who's this person? What do they do? Not their name, but like, dentists. Okay, that's great. Anybody else? Give me a couple so we can work with it. Okay. Um, a pilot. Yes. I should think of something in our industry. Something small. Something small in the service industry, huh? Like, uh, petrol station service attendant. Okay, we don't do that here anymore. But, okay, okay. I have one. I don't have this problem, obviously. But like, a hair stylist. Yeah. Okay. Because for people who have hair, it's kind of a big deal because your hair can change your whole mood. Your hair can make you feel like a million bucks, or can make you feel like you're going to hide in your, in your place, like a non-COVID situation until your hair grows back, right? So that's something that's super small and very relatable. Another thing that I can think of is if, like, if your, your plumbing is overflowing, so you need a service person to come in, you need an expert, or you need to install an outlet for something. There's a couple of scenarios here that are very small and very relatable. So of these three, between the pilot, the dentist, and say, the hair stylist, which one should we look at and examine to see if we can tell what makes them an expert or a professional? Which one would you like to work with? Hair stylist. Okay. So, you, you may have had some bad haircuts in your life, and you've had some good haircuts. You've had cheap haircuts, you've had expensive haircuts. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. Yeah. I have. Chris, definitely. Okay. So when you pay top dollar for, for a haircut or whatever that's called, yeah, what did they do that made you feel like they're experts? Take me from everything that you can see in your mind. Um, they knew the problem that I had, the goal that I was trying to achieve. Okay. They could help get me from my current state to my desired state. Okay. And I couldn't use, using very strong design marketing language right now. I have to say it's like, I walked into Supercuts and like, well, I'd like to go from this state to this desired state and help me to achieve that and scaffold me towards the solution. They'll be like, what? Maybe I'm a robot as well. [Laughter] You know, just in plain language here. Okay. I need a shorter haircut, and I can't do it myself. Okay. I'd like it to look like Jennifer Aniston. That would be lovely. Okay. Okay. Is there anything else they did? Because, you know, believe it or not, I actually have some observations about this. Um, you tell me your observations. Okay. Here's one thing that experts do, and they're slow to diagnose, and they're very patient. Would you say that's true? Yes. So when you walk into the store, did they say, "I'm going to give you one of four haircuts"? No, they asked me what I'd like, right? And then you might look through a book together, and they might run their fingers through your hair to see the texture and thickness and the, your, the way that your skull is shaped, because that's what an expert does. And so we know that they can't uncut your hair, so they're going to spend a lot of time looking at you, talking, and, and converting abstract language because you're like, "Give me that Jennifer Aniston haircut," and you're like, "Okay," and they start cutting. But wait, wait, Jennifer Aniston from the '90s from Friends, or more recently in this show, or that show? And whatever the vibe is, right? And there was the early Anderson cut, and then the late, whatever. I'm not an Aniston aficionado here, so I don't know. But we might want to know that, right? And then they, they probably would earn points in your mind if they're really honest with you to say, "Look, look, Kim, here's the deal, man. This is how her head is shaped, and this is how her hair is, and she spends three and a half hours every day with a stylist to get that look. It's not the commitment you want to make." And then you get to make decisions, right? So what we're doing here is, in order to be seen as an expert, it's really weird. We have to give the other person all the power and control. It's totally counter-intuitive. If you want to be seen as the expert, you have to give the other person the power, the control. Okay. So when I ask you all kinds of questions, you make decisions, and when you make decisions, who's in control? Me. Yeah. But when I make decisions, I say to you, "I'm in control." But here's the thing, as I'm trying to be really smart, I would ask you really clarifying questions, using all the design training and the experience that I have to guide you through a process that you walked into that salon, the boutique, not quite sure what you wanted, walking away with something better than you had hoped for. So what are you going to do? Uh, big tip? Probably you guys tip in Australia? No. But, okay, forget it. That's fine. But you understand the idea. Yeah. You, you'll refer your friends. You'll tell everybody like what a dream it is to work with Chris. He gave me exactly this. Do and, and I, I want to, everybody, I want to sing from the rooftops, and you're making me feel like a million bucks. Anytime I have a question about styling, I'm going to call you. I'm going to, you're going to be the first one that I dial. Now, how does that feel? So, a lot of times, what we can do is we can study the behavior and actions of other people and just really be a super observant and say, like, "Am I doing those things?" And if you are, then you're doing a great job. Now, I have a slide here because I knew we're going to talk a little bit about strategy, moving from order taker to strategist. Right? Oh, gosh, where's my slide? Here it is. Um, so I'm going to cut back to this, right? So there's an excellent book. I'm going to recommend everybody that's watching this. I make zero percent on this unless you're clicking on my Amazon link or something. But it's a book called "The Coaching Habit," and it's written by Michael Bungay Stanier. You could read this book, I think, in five hours or less because it's like 64-point type on a lot of pages. Okay, designers know what I'm talking about. And he has a list of a few questions that you can ask. And this is really meant for executives and CEOs and coaches, but I found that the framework to be super simple and applicable to anybody that wants to be seen as an expert or strategist. There are seven questions in the book. I want to pull three out. I'm not trying to give you the whole book here, okay? So his first question is to ask this thing. It's the open-ended kickoff question. "What's on your mind?" So, can you walk into the salon? I'm just going to ask you, "What's on your mind?" And you're going to say, "Chris, well, I'm really thinking about looking like Jennifer Aniston." Okay, well, tell me more. "What else?" So, the next question is the "all" question, like, all-inspiring. It opens everything up. And you're like, "Well, you know, I have a party I'm going to, and I have an ex-boyfriend that I just want to make him regret the, regret the day that he didn't give me the attention, the time that he..." So you're going to tell all these things. Now, sometimes in asking some of these questions, "and what else," and "what else," you might veer off the path. You might go into outer space, and you're getting far away from the core issue. Right? That's when you follow up with, "Well, what's the real challenge for you?" "Well, I have thinning hair, or my hair is brown, I need a bleach." And you're going to get into it, right? Or if you tend to talk about other people, like gossiping, like, "Well, you know, my sister has this thing," and like, "No, what's the real challenge for you?" You just bring them back. So the combination of those three questions: "What's on your mind?" and "What else?" and "What's the real challenge for you?" are really great frameworks or questions that you can ask just about any situation to get clarity on things. What's really cool is when you start to speak like this, and you're slow to prescribe or give advice, you rise in esteem in the other person's mind. You make them feel like they're in control, but we know who's in control here. And they're going to start to call you an expert. Mic drop. [Laughter] Okay, that was awesome. I feel like a lot of people getting everything, like, so much from the comments. So thank you. Really good feedback. It's right. I'm glad to hear that. So we need to get one more thing in here because I'm almost out of time, right? Yeah. Where do you want to take it? Take it anywhere you want to take it. All right, let's do the scenario. Low budget client. I'm going to be the client, and I've just rung you, Chris. We're on the phone. Hey, Chris. So, um, we need some posters and messaging to help with an initiative we're running internally at our organization. Um, I'm the CEO, and this is really important to us because it's focused on improving the well-being of our staff. We've got about a thousand dollars to spend, and we're a not-for-profit. Well, first of all, Kim, thank you for calling me. I appreciate it. I know you have a lot of options. Just out of curiosity, have you called a couple of designers today? No, not yet. You're the first one. You come recommended. Oh, that's awesome. Who recommended me? Um, Michael over at Unity Bank, and I've also seen so many of your YouTube videos. Oh, that's excellent. Even better. Wow. Okay. So I'm happy that you're talking to me, and I would love to work with you. I really would. And it sounds like you have some really cool projects that are kind of, uh, that you're considering here. But I have to let you know, my minimum level of engagement is ten thousand dollars. I know that may be way more than what you want to pay, like, just astronomically more. But I don't know how else to help. I mean, really, I'd love to help you here, but I, I just can't take on that many clients and do a good job for them. So, does that, does that number even make this an impossible thing for you? It is. Like, we're a not-for-profit. Hey, like, and it's just such an important cause. Yeah. So I, like, what do we do here? It's like, I, I, I can't turn hay into or spin hay into gold here. I don't know what to do. And, you know, to be honest, you probably can get somebody to do this. It's just, it won't be me. I just, I can't do it for that kind of money. So, is there some other way we can look at this problem? Because I want to get creative with you here. What do you mean by that? Well, I don't know. I don't know your business well enough. I mean, are there other ways I can contribute in a meaningful way that you could feel that ten thousand dollars is going to be a good investment, where you can get a good ROI? Well, could you tell me what you can do for a thousand dollars? I can't do anything for a thousand dollars, unfortunately, because my minimum level of engagement is ten thousand dollars. But let me reframe this question. Let me ask you a different way. For example, most clients come to us and they ask us for posters and messaging, and they're talking about the deliverable. But we don't often get a chance to talk about, "Why do you need a poster? What are you trying to do? Like, what impact is this going to have on your business, if any?" So, for us, we want to build awareness in our organization, and that, you know, we're there to support our employees and their mental health, and we just want to give them kind of tips and tricks that are, I don't know, like posters around their canteen and stuff, just to remind them to do some cool practices that will help them. It's all about their well-being. About their well-being. Does this have any kind of value to you as an organization? Uh, yeah, well, obviously, you know, employees are important to us. They help us, you know, the rest of the business. Oh, I get it. So, what happens when employees don't take good care of their mental health? Do they miss work? Do they take extended vacations? Do they take sabbaticals? Like, how do we know it's not working? Yeah, well, they get, you know, I guess they go off sick. That's a challenge for us. Okay. So you can help to keep teams and individuals happier and more productive so they don't miss work. So there's, there's a value to that, isn't there? Yeah. And how many people do you think you can help? Everyone. And then our customers as well. Like, could you put a number on that? Well, we're about 40 staff, so we're not too big. Okay. So 40 staff. What does one sick day cost on average for you when somebody decides that they can't work or they're being really unproductive, low productivity? I'd say it's probably like, fifteen hundred. Fifteen hundred. How many of those days do you experience in a year? Sixty-four. That's a lot. When I do the math, I'm not that good at math, but that's over sixty thousand. Wow. It's like a person's wage. Yeah. So here's the thing, and this is what I was talking to you about. It's like, a lot of time when we don't understand the value of doing something, all we can talk about is is the expense, the price. So I don't know if I can help you, but let's look at this. Are you saying that spending a thousand dollars to save sixty thousand is a fair investment? Well, now it's, yeah, I'm looking at it completely differently. Maybe the ten thousand is actually good value. I think it might be. And if this, this campaign works well, is this something that you might want to share with other organizations? Maybe what if we did this as like a pilot, and then, you know, you could sell what you do to other organizations because lots of people need this at the moment. Yeah, that would be lovely. On top of this, but I'm not kind of in that line of work, so I wouldn't know really how to sell to them, right? But maybe a way that you can do this is to amortize it across a couple of different organizations that want to enroll in your program, so it'd be cheaper for you. Hmm. Does that sound like something else? Yeah. That I could maybe explore. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's what I'm talking about when it comes to like being creative, right? Yeah. There's, there's other ways. There's like a, what is it, 100 ways to skin a cat, as they say, or something, right? Yeah. Yeah. So here's my advice for you. It's like, you probably need to talk to a couple of different creatives because I think it's important for you to do your due diligence. And if you can find somebody that you feel relatively comfortable with, that you like their work, you like their vibe and their energy, and you think they're going to do a good job for you, and you can spend a thousand bucks and get this thing done, hallelujah, do it. And then let me know who that person is because I'll hire them for, for some of my work. But if it turns out after having a couple of these conversations that you're not 100% confident, and you're starting to feel like, you know what, this is more important than you initially budgeted for, give me a call. I'd be happy to work with you. But the number is still ten thousand dollars. Okay. Thanks, Chris. You're very welcome. In the comments, people, you must reflect on what happened there. I think there's many, many strategies that Chris has demonstrated. So I do want you guys to practice and reflect on it and think about what you're going to put into practice back in your own kind of consulting or your job or the organization that you're working for. As we come to the end, Chris, can we do like a quick fire round to get some rapid tips from you in one minute? Sure. Yeah. You don't have time for another role play. So I've got some common challenges. If you can give me like one tip or a switch of mindset, maybe, or a habit that someone should start putting into practice. Okay, I'll try my best. All right. You want to fire a client? You want to fire a client? Yeah. I just let them know that it's not working out for you, that, uh, and, and don't get into the motion, don't get into the reasons. Just like this: "I think you're going to be better served by somebody else other than me." Cool. Price anchoring. Price anchoring. We tend to obsess and get stuck over the first piece of information. So whatever information you give first, people tend to obsess over. So float a high number. Doesn't hurt. Nice. Your bid matrix. My bid matrix. Okay. If you're doing bidding, make sure you know what your costs are, that you want to account for things like overhead, software, computer rentals, anything that you use in, in relation to this, and, and the different roles that you may play, even though you're a one-person company, the role of a coordinator, an art director, producer, whatever it is, to charge for all those things. And then on top of that, you're supposed to add profit. I recommend 30%. Nice. What are the characteristics of a well-defined scope, deadline, and deliverables? Cool. What's a project you should say no to? What are like red flags? Red flags are indecisive clients. If you can spot them early, people who are sketchy about payment terms. Real business people pay, and they pay on time. And anybody that you ethically, morally, just don't align with, I would steer clear because no amount of money is worth it. Okay. And last one on this one. What are the characteristics of a qualified lead? Um, mutual respect, willingness to pay, has a big problem to solve, and sees the value in what you do. Wow. Okay. Today, hands off the buzzer on that one. No, you did well. You did well. Obviously, you're naturally going to do well anyway. Um, well, it's been an absolute privilege, Chris, to have you here. Um, your big idol of Kath and I who started the learning conference last year. When we started talking about it, we were like, wouldn't it be epic if we could get our role model, Chris, to as a keynote? You've helped our businesses personally so much for years because we've both been fans. And in your mission to hit that one billion, now you've got more fans coming through, especially from our industry. So we thank you so much. Um, in the comments, I want you guys to check out your key takeaways. What's one thing that you're going to action as a result of this that's going to help you in your own practice? Um, and just some homework as well. So Chris has the Cynthia Kane videos that you put out recently. You need to check them out. She is exceptional the way she deals with things like budget and stuff. Another one is "Pricing Creativity" with Blair Enns, E-N-N-S. And also, we had Emily Cohen here this morning. That's where I first actually found from her was on Chris's podcast, "The Future" at F-U-T-U-R. Um, but her video with Chris is brutally honest. They're the homework that I recommend in tying everything that we're doing to get today together. Chris, you're an absolute legend, and we all thank you. Uh, you're doing some great things for the world. So thank you so much. Thank you very much. This was super fun, and I enjoyed it. I hope everybody learned something, and I just want to say graphically, thank you. Thank you to you and everybody that tuned in. Brilliant.