Heather Hansen's Blog, page 11

4 Magic Words-I’m On Your Side

Today I want to talk to you about four words that could change your relationships with the people you serve. Whether you are a real estate agent, a teacher, a doctor or you work in a call center, these words work. What are the four words? “I’m on your side.” 

As an attorney, I represent doctors when they get sued. They’re vulnerable, scared, frustrated and confused. One of the first things I tell them is  “I’m on your side.”  That doesn’t necessarily mean I think they’re right. What it does mean is that I will do my best to listen, to understand, and to help. It means I will be their advocate, and I will fight for them when necessary. 

The people you serve need to hear these words too. They need to know you will advocate for them.  But it isn’t enough to say it. You have to prove it. I help businesses and individuals be better advocates for their ideas, and advocacy starts and ends with credibility. When you make a promise, you have to keep it. If you’ve set an expectation, you have to meet it. And when you say “I’m on your side”, your actions have to prove it.  

But the words themselves matter. That’s where trust begins. Give it a try. Tell those that you serve “I’m on your side” and watch their shoulders drop and their eyes light up. Now you’re on the same team, and winning becomes easier.

And one more thing. Before you can advocate for others, you have to be able to advocate for yourself.  You have to be on your own side. These four magic words work on yourself too. Tell yourself “I’m on your side” and then get to work proving it.

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Hear Them, and Try to Get It Right

A few weeks ago I told you that I was a salad girl when I was young, but I didn’t tell you why. The reason I was a salad girl was that I desperately wanted to be a waitress at the Chart Room on Cape Cod. But it was a hard job to get. I knew if I started as a salad girl I could work my way up to a bus girl, and then a waitress! And I did.

Why am I telling you this? Because I ready a study about waitressing this weekend, and it explained why I get some really good tips back in my day. You see, when a customer would give me their order, I’d repeat it back word for word. He’d say “swordfish with anchovy butter on the side, baked potato, salad no dressing.”  Then I’d say “Got it. Swordfish, anchovy butter on the side, baked potato, and salad, no dressing”  And it turns out that mimicking a customer’s order word for word leads to larger tips. 

Customers want to know that you hear them, and that you’re trying hard to get it right. When I repeated the customers’ dinner orders back for them, they felt heard. And they felt confident that I was doing what I could to get it right. No matter what you do, your customers want to feel heard and confident too.

So whether you’re in sales, education, real estate or medicine, make your customer feel heard. But here’s the best tip of all–this doesn’t just work in business. Your family and your friends want to feel like you’re listening too. So give mimicking a shot, and maybe take them out to dinner too.

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“Is Someone Shooting at You?” The 3Ps of NOT Being Shot

“Is someone shooting at you?” Last week I mentioned, in passing, that my mentor often asked me that question. John was my friend, my guide, and he taught me how to try cases. He was also an ex-DEA agent. That meant he approached our trials like sting operations. And it also meant that when he asked “is someone shooting at you?” he actually knew what it felt like to answer “Yes.”

Questions are the best way to learn, and I learned more from that question than almost anything John shared. Here are the three lessons I learned. We can call them the 3Ps of NOT Being Shot. 

1-Perspective. When John asked that question, it was often because I was in a tizzy about something at work. Opposing counsel hadn’t answered my discovery, my expert had gone missing and her report was due, or I’d had a bad day at trial. Often, I thought it was the end of the world. John’s question reminded me of what the real “end” could look like. If someone was shooting at you, your life was in danger. Anything less was probably not worth all the drama. 

2-Personal. We take things personally, and we create stories about those things. Opposing counsel didn’t respond, and that felt like disrespect. An expert went missing, and that meant she didn’t care about me or my client. And the bad day at trial meant the jury hated me. I created stories, and then lived in them. When someone is shooting at you, there’s no time for stories. It may be personal, it may not, but you it doesn’t matter.  Shoot back or run. But don’t waste present moments creating a personal saga about it. 

3-Preparation. When you are being shot at, you’d better be ready. You need to have trained your reflexes to react, your body to run, and your mind to respond. These things can’t be done well if you haven’t spent endless hours readying yourself for this moment. With respect to our trials, John often told me to “over prepare and under try”. Preparation wins combat and trials. 

You can use the 3Ps of NOT Being Shot in your business and life as well. Put things in perspective–how much and what kind of energy does the situation call for? Don’t make it personal. Get your ego out of the equation and your answers are clearer. And prepare. Be ready, so that your body can react and your mind can respond.

“Is someone shooting at you?” Likely the answer is no. Now you get to have some fun. 

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Motion Sparks Motivation

When I was a young associate, I’d often get frustrated with opposing counsel. They wouldn’t return my calls about a late expert report, or answer my discovery, or set the case for trial. When I had finally had enough of the roadblocks, I’d go into my mentor’s office.

Not only was my mentor, John, the lead on most of my cases and therefore the final arbiter of all decisions, he was also a retired DEA agent. That meant that he didn’t get in a lather about much.

“They won’t answer my discovery, they won’t answer my phone calls and it’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s disrespectful.” I’d sputter indignantly.

“Heather–is anyone shooting at you?”

This was always John’s response when I was upset about something going on in one of our cases. Once you’ve had a job where your day includes dodging bullets, you aren’t likely to get ruffled over a motion. I’d confirm that no, no one was shooting at me–and then we’d get to work on a solution to the problem at hand. Most of the time, motion was the solution.

In legal cases, we file motions when we we need to make progress. If a lawyer wasn’t answering my phone calls, I’d file a motion and he would call. If she wasn’t answering my discovery, I’d file a motion and she’d have the discovery in my hands in short order.  Motions created progress, got people talking, and changed perspectives. When you want to motivate lawyers to act, motion sparks that motivation. 

You can do the same in life and in business. Whether it’s getting up to do your workout, leaving a relationship that’s unhealthy, or going for the promotion you’ve always wanted, I bet you often think you’ll move when you’re motivated. I have news for you. The best way to get motivated is to move.

Call that prospective customer, and you’ll find the pitch. Apply for that job, and you’ll see the next step.  Get your butt out of bed and you’re one step closer to the treadmill. In my book, The Elegant Warrior-How to Win Life’s Trials Without Losing Yourself, I share that lawyers file motions when things get stuck. If you’re stuck–at work or at home, personally or professionally, move.  Motivation just might follow wherever you go. 

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Take Aim Before You Act

Last week we said complaints are a call to action. This week, I want to urge you to be sure you’re taking aim before you act.

Cross your arms in front of your chest as if you’re  impatiently waiting for something. Ok, now cross them the other way. Put the other arm on top…..How did that feel? If you’re like most people, you felt out of sorts when you crossed your arm the other way. It was uncomfortable because the way you cross your arms has become a habit. A habit is an action that you do without thinking. Action without thinking is NOT the type of action that should follow a complaint.

A true action is a ‘movement to achieve an aim’. And that is how you want to respond to a complaint! Complaints are a call to action, and the action needs to be intentional. When you face a complaint, whether your own, your customer’s, your client’s or your friend’s, aim before you act. If your aim is  peace, you take one action. When your aim is to dismiss the complaint, you take another. And when you aim is to make the sale, keep the client and turn him into an advocate for you and your business, your actions need to move you towards that target.  

In time you may want your actions to become habits. We build good habits all the time.  Getting out of bed to go the gym and brushing your teeth are good examples. But whether you knew it or not, you took aim before you took those actions, and then they became habits. You were aiming for  health and clean teeth. When you want a successful business, a happy household, or to become your best self, you have to take aim before you act. Only then can you know that the actions that become habits will get you where you want to go.

Next time you’re about to respond to a complaint, consider whether you’ve taken aim or whether you’ve fallen into habit. Habits only work if they’re pointed towards your goal. Uncross those arms and take aim. 

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Complaints Are A Call to Action

I used to hate complaints. When I was young, my first job was as a salad girl, and if someone said I cut the onions too slow, or didn’t clean the lobster out of the shell enough, I took it to heart. I’d go home and cry in the shower as I used lemons to try to scrub off the scent of onions and lobsters (It didn’t work). Whether in my work or in my personal life, I tried to avoid complaints at all costs. I didn’t realize complaints were a call to action.

Then I became a trial attorney and in civil law most of our cases start with complaints. That’s what we call the list of reasons the plaintiff is suing the defendant. And suddenly if I cried every time I saw a complaint, I’d be drowning in tears. Instead, I started to see complaints differently. I saw that they were just the beginning of the case.

Complaints were a reason to act. First we’d get the the complaint, then we would ask questions. Complaints guided discovery. And they were the beginning of a process where we’d explore the complaint and the context, the emotion and the facts around it. The actions we took after the complaints determined the resolution. Because we would win or lose not based on the complaint, but rather based on what we did next. 

You can see complaints differently too. Now I work with leaders, customer experience officers and salespeople to become better advocates for themselves and their businesses. And we often start by looking at complaints differently. In order to win, you can’t avoid complaints. You have to explore them. See them as  a call to action. 

If you’ve got a complaint, whether at home or at work, celebrate it. Ask questions about it. Engage in discovery. Look at it from all angles, and bring curiosity and empathy to the task. When you do, you’ll find that the complaint is an opportunity to make a change. A complaint is the first step to a resolution, and that resolution could be your greatest win yet. 

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Bull Gets It Done

Do you watch the TV show Bull? I don’t because….well let’s just say that for someone who has spent 20 years picking real juries in real courtroom, there’s a LOT of TV magic involved in that show. The show is well named. But it has some great lessons on how to tell your story and help them believe.

In the show, Bull is a jury consultant who helps lawyers choose jurors for their cases and then helps them try to win. You could say Bull it a salesman–he has to sell his client’s story to the jury. You could say he’s a leader–leading the jury to the conclusion he wants them to reach. And you could say he’s a customer experience expert–providing the best possible experience to the jurors in his cases. Ultimately he’s an advocate, telling a story and helping the jury to believe. 

And the skills Bull uses to sell, lead, and advocate are the skills you can use as well. He asks questions of the potential jurors. This is to help the team decide who to choose for the jury, but also how to help them believe. For example, in one case there was a basketball coach on the jury. During the trial, Bull and his team made sure that some of the questions involved basketball analogies that would speak directly to her. He knew that juror, and he used that knowledge to help her believe. He won that case. Of course.

But Bull doesn’t stop with questions. He uses body language and tone of voice to help him choose who will be on the jury and how he will tell the story as well. 

Real life jury selection has even more to teach us than Bull does. I recently did a live webinar with my friend Alan Turkenheimer, the CEO of Trial Methods. We talked about how the skills we use to pick people in the courtroom can be used to pick people in business and life. Everyday we choose clients, customers, partners, babysitters, dates…the list goes on. You can use the skills of a jury consultant to pick who you will tell your story, and how you will make them believe.

We are all telling stories every day. The advocate helps the listener to believe the story, and the result is better than TV magic. It’s real magic. 

If you want to see that webinar, sign up for my weekly videos. You’ll get a private link to that hour long webinar and you’ll also be the first to hear about the next webinar we have headed your way….

 

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Before You Tell, You Have to Ask

Before you tell your story, and help them to believe, you have to ask some questions. During jury selection in medical malpractice trials, we ask.

“Is anyone in your family a medical professional?”

“Have you ever had a bad experience with a hospital or doctor?”

“Can you think of any reason why you would find it hard to be fair in this case?”

We ask these questions so that we know WHO to choose to be on our jury. But we also ask them to know HOW to tell our story once we’ve chosen a jury.

Because these people will be the ones to listen to our stories. Last week I told you that we need to tell our stories, but we also need to help them believe. Asking questions is the first step.

Once you know the listener, you can step into her shoes. But you don’t know by imagining what it is like to be them. In fact, studies show that believing we know how a person is feeling without asking them does nothing more than make them mad.  (Especially in romantic relationships….)You have to ask.

The more questions you ask, the better you know your listener, whether that be your client, your customer, your friend or your family member. And then you can tell your story for them. You can tell the story in the way they need to hear it.

Ask your customers and clients questions. Listen to the answers. Then use those answers to inform your story. Tell them your story, and help them believe. That starts with asking questions.

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Storytelling and Story Believing

Stories are having a moment, especially in business. Go to any business conference, and you’ll likely hear someone talk about ways to tell a brand’s story. Companies and businesses are actively deciding what stories they want to tell. And so are you. Every day, every one of us tells stories to our bosses, our friends, our families and ourselves. Whether you’re telling the story of your business or your life, the story you tell matters. But what matters even more than storytelling,  is story believing. 

I know this better than anyone. Because as a trial lawyer, it’s my job to tell the jury my client’s story. I do it with questions, exhibits and witnesses. I do it with emotion and I do it with evidence. However, I have to do more than tell the story. I need to make them believe it. Because every time I tell my client’s story, there is someone on the other side telling a competing story. So I have to go beyond storytelling, and step into advocating. I need to do all I can to be sure that the story I tell is the story that the jury believes.  

You need people to believe your stories as well. If you want to succeed, your clients need to believe your story. Your employees, your family, your friends–they all need to believe the stories you tell. In order for that to happen, you need to believe the stories you tell. Because the only way you can advocate for your story is if you believe it first. Otherwise, it’s nothing more than a fairy tale.

Once you believe your story, you can tell the listener “this is the story you should choose to believe, and here’s why”.  You can share the evidence, the emotion, the exhibits and the proof. And you must. Because story believing is much more important than story telling. If the person hearing your story doesn’t believe it, you lose. You lose credibility, you lose trust, and you lose the listener.  You have to give the listener reasons to believe. This is easier if you have the right tools  And you can use the same tools a lawyer uses to advocate for her client in the courtroom to advocate for your story in the boardroom, the sales floor, the living room, and beyond. 

Next week I’m going to share some of the tools you can use to advocate for your story. But first, I’d urge you to consider the story you’re telling and whether you believe it.  If you don’t believe it, no one will.  It’s not enough to tell me your stories. You have to make me believe. 

 

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How to Win Your Trials–in Business and in Life

Medical malpractice cases are fascinating and tragic. Two people who have known each other, trusted each other, and touched each other, are now at war in the courtroom. These cases are personal, even to the observer. We all have bodies, and these cases involve how those bodies work. The stories told in these cases are stories everyone can understand.

For 20 years I’ve been a med mal defense attorney. My clients have stories. The doctor who has delivered babies for so long that he’s forgotten what it is to sleep through the night. A young emergency room doctor who will be paying off school debt until 2030, because her childhood dream was to save lives. A surgeon who spends what little vacation time he has in Africa, operating on children who would otherwise never see a doctor.  When I stand to open before a jury, I tell them that it is my privilege and honor to represent these doctors. I am telling the truth. 

The other side has stories too. A young mother whose child will never ride a bike, pack a lunchbox, or eat through anything other than a feeding tube. A father whose son died before he could say good bye. A woman who looks like me, except her hair is less than an inch long, starting to grow back after the latest round of chemo. These are the people I have to cross examine. When I toss and turn at night during my trials, I tell myself I don’t know if I can do it, I am telling the truth. 

My job is to advocate for my clients. I have to ask questions and master objections (both making them and overcoming them). I have to build credibility, and persuade with skill so that the jury ultimately chooses my story. And the skills I use to advocate in the courtroom are skills you can use in business and in life. 

Because you are an advocate too. An advocate is a supporter, a champion. Every day you advocate for your family, your business, your ideas. Hopefully you also advocate for yourself. It’s not always neat, or clean, or easy. It can be hard. But in 20 years as an advocate for my clients in the courtroom, I’ve learned a few things. First, even in a courtroom battle, there are ways to fulfill your role as advocate and still respect your opponent, their client, and yourself. Everyone is entitled to dignity. Second, and more importantly for your purposes, life outside of the courtroom is not a zero sum game. In life’s trials, with enough patience, imagination, intention and empathy, everyone can win.

You can use a lawyer’s tools to win more deals, better teams, and more satisfied clients. In my book, The Elegant Warrior-How to Win Life’s Trials Without Losing Yourself, I tell you how. But here is the first step. Want to know how to win? Start by recognizing that in most situations, everyone can. 

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