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My business results drastically improved the day I decided to shut up and limit my speech to no more than two sentences in any given interaction with another human being.
Consultants make a lot of money off of your urge to ramble on
The people who complain about having no time are the ones who can’t control their urge to ramble. The advisory industry is full of those who assert that they’re excellent listeners. But when it’s their turn to speak, it quickly becomes an uncontrolled ramble.
I remember an advisor who thought up a fancy title for his listening abilities. He may have been a great listener, but I found that whenever he opened his mouth, it was a random collection of unrelated thoughts. It was so extreme that I incessantly found myself wishing I would encounter one of those cell phone dead zones. You know the kind where the call suddenly drops off?
You can add a ton of stress to your business by simply talking too much.
Do you know how much money the consulting industry makes off of people who don’t know how to stop rambling? Management consultants, marketing consultants, practice management consultants—Tim Ferris made a whole career out of it with his four-hour work week or whatever that is.
I’ll save you the $10,000 a month retainer fee and tell you right now what the problem is if you’re having trouble getting results: you’re making things too complicated by communicating in a disorganized way.
My anti-rambling experiment
I have four kids under six years old and so I have to move at the speed of light. It’s the only way I can manage to survive. I find myself communicating in two sentence phrases like this:
- Stop jumping on the bed before it breaks down. Do you want me to call Santa?
- That’s your sister’s sippy cup. Use your own – do you want Thomas the Train or Paw Patrol?
- There’s not enough room for the three of you to sit in one chair. Do you want to break it?
One day I decided to apply this same methodology to my business. I ran an experiment to see what would happen if I refused to speak in more than two sentences segments for one day.
- The first sentence is a statement about something the person is doing.
- The second sentence is a question about the options they have as a result.
- Then shut up and see how the person reacts
The results were unbelievable.
The result of shutting up
It was an incredible day. I recently discussed these results on a podcast called Stop Barfing. Here’s a summary.
- I had a prospecting meeting where at the end the prospect said he was checking out the competition. Instead of rambling about some marketing nonsense, I simply said this, “People hire me when they want to shake things up a bit. Are you looking to make an impression that sets you apart or do you want something more traditional?” He chose my option.
- I had another prospecting meeting. By the end of the meeting the prospect felt that I thoroughly understood him and I closed the deal.
- Unexpectedly, a client called to yell at me. He had gone off the deep end. Instead of trying to defend myself I just shut up and let the flame burn. This was a brilliant strategy. By the end of the rant he had tuckered himself out and he returned to liking me again. And the whole time I was sitting there looking at pictures of the Lion King pajamas.
How advisors can use this technique
Here are some examples of how you can put this into action.
LinkedIn messenger
We’ve all been assaulted by people barfing information on us through LinkedIn messenger.
How to shut up on LinkedIn:
For one day, try limiting your prospecting messages to two sentences as I describe above. Now, this may require you to hold back from impressing clients with your solutions to their problems. I have witnessed spectacular results from my clients using certain two sentence long LinkedIn messages.
Websites/Blogs
Advisor websites are perfect examples of cyber-rambling. Realize that anytime a paragraph is longer than three sentences, nobody is going to read it.
How to shut up on your website:
Remove the block paragraphs. Take a few hours and just snip every paragraph to two sentences, maybe three sentences maximum. Use bullet points if you have to.
Emails
I’m sure there’s some contrived statistic about this, but do you realize how much stress it causes people when they are forced to confront an overwhelming inbox? People love to say things like, “I was out last week and I have 300 emails I haven’t even read. I’ll get to paying this bill when I dig myself out of my inbox.”
How to shut up when you email:
Does anyone even read long emails anymore? No use sending them. Before you write the email, ask yourself this question: “How do I communicate what I want to say in three words?”
Chances are that you probably won’t succeed at this most of the time, but having this mindset will cause you to significantly reduce the amount of stress you feel about answering emails.
Sara’s upshot
My business has never been the same since the day I tried my shutting up experiment. Do this. Try it for one day and then email me and let me know how it went. I guarantee you will not regret it.
Sara Grillo, CFA, is a marketing consultant who helps investment management, financial planning, and RIA firms fight the tendency to barf meaningless cliché on their prospects and bore them as a result. Prior to launching her own firm, she was a financial advisor and worked at Lehman Brothers.
Read more articles by Sara Grillo
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
