Today, we’re talking about a really cool topic – using hostage negotiation tactics in fundraising. Our guest today is none other than Troy Smith, a seasoned hostage negotiator who’s going to share his expertise with us.
We’ll dive into what hostage negotiation is, how the principles of it can be applied to fundraising, and the key takeaways that fundraisers need to keep in mind when using these techniques. Troy even gives us some practical tips to get started, so you won’t want to miss this one!
Trust us, this episode 🎙 is packed with actionable advice and insider knowledge from someone who knows how to get what they want in high-pressure situations. So, grab a pen and paper and get ready to take some notes.
To learn more about the Black Swan Group: https://www.blackswanltd.com/
To connect with Troy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/troy-smith-6375298/
QUOTE from Troy “Be curious, not judgemental”
Episode Transcript
RHEA WONG 00:05
Welcome to Nonprofit Lowdown. I’m your host, Rhea Wong. Hey, podcast listeners! It’s Rhea Wong with you once again with Nonprofit Lowdown. I am so excited because today, my guest is Troy Smith. He is the coach and instructor for Black Swan Group.
RHEA WONG 00:21
I met Troy because I actually did training and some of you may be familiar with Chris Voss and his work never split the difference. And Troy is a retired detective and he was my trainer. And we walked through some really interesting scenarios about how to negotiate.
RHEA WONG 00:37
Troy, the people you negotiate with are really different than the folks that we generally negotiate with within the nonprofit sector. But tell your story. Tell the folks a little bit about yourself and your career up to this point, please.
TROY SMITH 00:46
Oh, great! Thank you, Rhea. I love what you guys are doing and my story is about a little knucklehead from New Jersey, I grew up. Everybody told me they were going to be in prison or dead by 18. I ended up becoming a police officer in San Antonio, Texas. I spent 23 years in San Antonio Police Department in almost all of the specialized units.
TROY SMITH 01:10
The first year, I was involved in a shooting guy pulled a gun on me while I was sitting in a patrol car. And I realized at that moment that we didn’t have a good relationship with the community.
TROY SMITH 01:20
So I started going out in the community. We started a program called the Police Athletic League. We had 20,000 community members in the program within the first year. I did that for seven years. We call it a seven-year itch. After seven years, the saying in law enforcement is when the community needs help, they call the police. When the police need help, they call SWAT. SWAT was like the most elite unit.
TROY SMITH 01:43
They were fit. So I was fit. I decided I wanted to be a SWAT team member. And I went through the training. And then they had a negotiation school. Afterward, I ended up going to the two-week hostage negotiation school. We had a call out as 105 degrees outside and we’re all wearing black and I’m looking at the SWAT guys sweating. I said I can listen to people talk. The negotiators were sitting on the side of the pizza in the shade in a van with air conditioning.
TROY SMITH 02:02
And I said I can listen to people talk. So I became a hostage negotiator, a hostage crisis negotiator. And I did that full-time for seven years with the San Antonio Police Department. And one of the things I ended up finding out about it was I actually went to the FBI two weeks in 2000.
TROY SMITH 02:25
That’s where I first met Chris Voss, and the director at the time said, Troy, you’ve been involved in over 300 columns so far. And you’ve actually done the talking on 270 based on the information we have, and you’ve never lost one. I didn’t know that. So I always believe you handled a situation you move on to the next one.
TROY SMITH 07:45
But you always, genuinely, if you genuinely care about people, when you’re in that situation, you’re going to give your best. After that, I went undercover. Then finally I finished with the United States Marshal Service.
TROY SMITH 02:57
And then I went into the private sector as an executive. I got back in law enforcement at some aspect because you guys in your world are more difficult than being a police officer. We know who we’re dealing with. You guys have it a little differently. So I applaud you for what you do because there are always sharks in the water and they’re looking forward to blood.
RHEA WONG 03:19
Oh, my gosh, Troy. Okay, let’s dispel some myths because we see on TV or in the movies the hostage negotiator gets on the phone, and they’re like, all right, this is how it’s gonna be. It’s really tough talking. And what’s really interesting is when I went through the training and read the books, it’s actually the opposite, right? So tell us about how it’s different between what we see in the movies and how it is real life as far as negotiating for hostages.
TROY SMITH 03:45
Well, the police officers, especially the SWAT officers, think that we’re sissies because they always hear us talking calmly, and they always hear us trying to solve, not solve the problem, but calm down the other side. And they’re more tactical-minded. And so when you see it on TV, the negotiator, they want us to be hard or be a certain way, our whole philosophy is if they’re talking, they’re not hurting themselves or hurting anybody else.
TROY SMITH 04:13
And that world and then we also want to find out what made up get to that point in that situation that it was that drastic they had to do what they did. Just like even in the business world, when you talk to people, and they get to realize some of the things you hear them say some of the things they’re saying they may not like themselves as much.
TROY SMITH 04:35
And that gives you an opportunity to say, what? Look! Things are not that bad. And they were like, well, why would you get behind in your field? Why would you get behind this organization as a nonprofit? We don’t support that. It’s usually because of their fear. They don’t know enough about it. And it’s the same way in our world.
TROY SMITH 04:55
So we have to look past the people’s emotions and the anger and the things that they’re saying to you at the moment because they don’t really know you and they don’t need it. You have to genuinely care about the other side. If you do genuinely care about wanting to hear what they have to say, you’re going to get a lot further.
RHEA WONG 05:16
So one thing I just want to point out because I went through like the Harvard course, and it was about getting to yes, and it’s kind of about like, I mean, I’ll use the word manipulation. Maybe that’s a strong word. But what’s really striking to me in the methods that you teach is it’s really about letting a conversation unfold, letting people kind of unfurl and not putting your own agenda per se. I mean, obviously, the agenda is like getting the hostages out safely. But you’re not trying to force something to happen in some kind of way. Would you agree with that? Can you tell me a little bit about the theory behind it?
TROY SMITH 06:00
We don’t have a spouse saying yes. That’s kind of the course’s salesman mentality. The way we look at it. If you go to a car dealership, first, and they say, oh, you liked this car? You, oh, yeah! It’s nice. They said, oh, get in and turn it on and test drive it. Man, you smell that nice new level. This smells good, doesn’t it? Yes! It rides well, doesn’t it?
TROY SMITH 06:23
And then you get out of the car. And before they even know if you can really afford it, hey, are you ready to sign? You’re ready to sign, aren’t you? And you’re like, wait a minute. That’s why it’s called a test drive. I may want to test drive 20 to 30 cars. So we give the people with yes, it’s commitment. We believe in saying no, getting a no, no is protection.
TROY SMITH 06:43
So instead of saying, hey, you’re willing to do this, aren’t you? And they don’t know if they’re really willing to do it. We say, would you be against? Would you be against doing that? And they’re like, well, no. Now they had a choice. They felt like they had a choice. If they wanted to do it or not, they weren’t forced into a position where they had to commit to something that they may not want it to commit to. That’s how we operate.
TROY SMITH 07:09
We feel like 75% to 80% of the conversation should be about the other person. How do you get to know people if you don’t be quiet and listen and find out what’s going on in your world? You’re making decisions based on faulty information. You don’t have all the data and you’re making the decision. That’s not a good way to do business.
TROY SMITH 07:31
So find out about the individual, find out what makes them tick, why they’re in a situation they are in, and why they feel the way they feel. And people just want to be heard and understood. If you can demonstrate that you’re a good listener and that you realize and understand the lay of the land from their perspective. They’re gonna want to reciprocate that opportunity to get to know you better.
RHEA WONG 07:52
I love that so much. And could you walk us through the five levels of listening? Because I find that to be really interesting and helpful.
TROY SMITH 08:00
You ask a good question. We talked about the five levels of listening. You got to intermittent listening. You’re just listening and half paying attention is kind of like when somebody’s filling their cell phone, and they’re texting, and they’re just listening just intermittently. Then you have the listening for rebuttal, which is the second level. And that’s what most people are having when they’re talking to people or listening.
TROY SMITH 08:27
They’re listening just to hear something that they can go and say, well, I can rebuttal. I can dispute that or I can have opposition, then it’s listening for logic. What is that person’s logic? What makes them feel the way they feel or say what they say? And then as for logic and emotion. And when you listen for what the emotion is behind the logic, then you start to realize, okay, it’s a little deeper than what you may have thought.
TROY SMITH 08:57
And then it’s the highest level of listening. And the highest level is when you’re listening at the highest level, you’re so tuned in and you’re focused on everything they’re saying. And that’s a hard way to be. The fifth level is the toughest level to be at. I’ve yet to see anybody be able to do it for even 24 hours, or for 12 hours.
TROY SMITH 09:16
It is so intense. You don’t realize how much energy you’re spending. And so when you’re at that level, you’re dialed in. You’re dialed into everything they’re saying. You’re not saying you agree with them, but you’re letting them know that you’re focused on what’s important to them.
RHEA WONG 09:34
Yeah, that’s so critical. So I’m wondering, Troy, I love what you said that 75% to 80% should be them talking but how do you keep it from becoming an interrogation? Because if we’re like serving question after question after question, then it becomes a little bit like, whoa! Okay, is this a third-degree or what? So what are some tactics that we can use to make it so it feels like a conversation not like, I’m launching questions at you?
TROY SMITH 10:03
I love that question. We don’t want it to feel like a conversation. We want it to be a conversation. Just to have a conversation with the other side. If you try hard to make it feel that the conversation is going to come across as almost robotic, let’s sit there like you and I were talking before we came up on the screen.
TROY SMITH 10:21
And we were just having a conversation about getting to know each other, how you got to where you’re at, how I got to where I’m at, and just a mutual trust and agreement with each other that we respected each other. But when you’re in that conversation with somebody, it’s all it is difficult. When we talk about negotiation, it’s a different conversation. Take that opportunity to not be so focused on what you want to say next, that you’re listening to the other side. And you do that, we have what we call the negotiation nine skills, labeling, mirroring, and we talk about dynamic silence.
TROY SMITH 10:56
Those are the quick two plus one. They work together. They’re three of the quick best skills that you can use to get started. And you’ll start to see an improvement in the way you’re talking to people and the way people are talking to you. Because they’re starting to feel like, man, this person is genuinely trying to figure out what’s important to me and what matters to me.
TROY SMITH 11:19
And you make it about them. I’ll give an example. When I say 75% to 80% of the conversation, we talk about labeling. We label their emotions. We label the dynamics. What are we seeing? What are ethics? If they’re telling us no, but they’re shaking their head yes. You hit him, instead of saying you’re lying. They may not be lying. It seems like there’s something else going on. You weren’t direct. You’d said it seems like. So they go, well, no, no, no, no! It’s nothing else going on.
TROY SMITH 11:52
Or, normally, they’ll tell you, yeah! I’m having a lot of problems with this or that. And they’ll give you more information. But when you hit them with direct questions, like you said, almost like an interrogation, it doesn’t feel like a conversation. It feels like you just beating a mob for information. You’re not trying to get to know them. And if they feel that way, you’re not going to build that trust. And if you don’t build that trust=based influence with them, they’re not going to listen to you. They’re not going to be willing to help.
RHEA WONG 12:26
So if I could summarize, labeling is just putting a label on the dynamic. Like, hey, this seems like you’re nervous about something. Or, it seems like there’s more here to say, Can you walk us through dynamic silence and mirroring? Like, what are those techniques?
RHEA WONG 12:49
What are those techniques?
RHEA WONG 12:51
Yeah! Could you just explain a little bit about what is mirroring and what is dynamic silence and how to use it?
Dynamic Silence
RHEA WONG 12:59
I see what you did there. You just gave me one.
TROY SMITH 13:03
You got it. See? That’s how I like to teach. You asked me about mirroring. I hit you with the mirror, and you respond it without even realizing that you will be hit with the mirror. You said yeah, yeah! I want to know a little bit more about the mirroring and the dynamic silence, so I stayed silent. I allowed you to carry on the conversation, and then you realize what I did. So mirroring all it is taking normally, the last one to three words of something somebody says.
TROY SMITH 13:35
It’s just with the inflection. If I say with an upward inflection, mirroring? It sounds like I’m curious and I need more information. Or, if I say mirroring, I’m letting that out. I understand. I get it. In dynamic silence, we tell people in our heads. Don’t treat a negotiation or conversation like a tennis match. They hit something that you hit it right back. Take a second to think about what they actually said. Count in your head: 1001, 1002… And then respond. That lets people know you’re listening more and that you’ve actually given us some thought. You didn’t just respond off the cuff. And they respect that.
RHEA WONG 14:20
Very good. I’d love to talk to you about the ways of communication. So the thing that really blew my mind is the percentages of when we communicate only a small percentage is actually the words that we say. The larger percentage is our tone of voice. And an even larger percentage is our body language. Can you talk a little bit about the ways that are relevant to the work that you do or the work that we might do out in the field? We’re asking for gifts.
TROY SMITH 14:50
We talk about content, delivery, and syntax The content is normally 7% of what you say. The delivery is how you say. The syntax is body language. What are you saying? We tell people to listen with their eyes. Don’t just hear somebody say something and your subconscious mind is screaming at you. They’re not telling you everything. They’re telling you something different than what you’re hearing. And you just go with that versus paying attention and listening with your eyes and seeing that.
TROY SMITH 15:23
They’re telling you things. However, the way they’re saying it doesn’t match what they’re saying. A prime example, Rhea, you go up to someone say, are you okay? And they go, yeah! I’m okay. And their arms are folded and closed off. And their tone didn’t sound. Are you going to walk away from saying, oh, yeah! They were okay. No, no! Man, they’re okay. Don’t worry about them. They just said they were okay. When you heard the way they said, I’m okay.
TROY SMITH 15:56
There’s something deeper behind it. You want to get to that deeper level, figure out what it is, and get down to tell you what’s really going on in our world. And sometimes, you’re going to have to use a few labels and mirrors to pull that out. And when you do that, you’re going to feel better, and they’re going to feel better. You’re going to figure out what’s going on in their world. And they’re going to say, man, what? Rhea is a very interesting person. I like her. And you haven’t said anything about yourself.
TROY SMITH 16:30
All you did was explore what was important to her and what was going on in their world. And we tell people that you’re interested, you’re interesting. When you let people know that you’re interested in what’s important to them, you become more interested. And they’ll say, man, I really like her. There was something about her. And somebody said, well, tell me a little bit about her. I don’t know anything about her. I just know she made me feel like a friend.
RHEA WONG 17:00
I love that. So when you’re on a phone call, and I imagine these are very high stakes, high-pressure situations, what are you doing to prepare or to interact? And I’m thinking specifically about, what are you doing with your voice. And what are you doing with your body language so that you’re slowing down the conversation?
TROY SMITH 17:27
There are several things. First, before I get on a phone call, I make sure that I write down and be curious, not judgmental. Don’t judge with their say. Be curious about what they’re saying. What made them say that? How did they come up with that? Things like that. And that’s going to keep you from getting triggered. If they say something that pisses you off or makes you feel bad or angers you, it’s going to keep them from coming up because it’s hard for the person.
TROY SMITH 18:01
There’s not common for people to be angry and curious at the same time. If you’re curious, you genuinely want to know. And so I’m mentally prepared. I tried to clear my head of all the things that’s been going on. Like, earlier this morning, I was at a hostage negotiator competition. When I sat down here, I cleared my mind to abominate stuff. I’d said, okay, now, I really want to get involved in this conversation in this podcast. And so I started looking over the questions and cleared my head from things that were going on in my world.
TROY SMITH 18:30
That way, when I do sit in a chair, my tone is right. I’m not bringing baggage from a situation beforehand. What if somebody angered me before I came upstairs? And I get on the podcast, and I’m like, yeah! You got to be calm. And you don’t see that from me. You don’t hear that from me. So your tone is going to be important. When you’re sitting in the chair talking to somebody, even if it’s on a phone and you don’t get to see now. If I smile when I’m talking to you, you’ll hear that come across over the phone.
TROY SMITH 19:07
If my tone is poor, if you could tell I’m stressed or there’s something else going on in my world, that’s going to come across over the phone. I thought you were annoying. You’re wasting my time. Hurry up with this, get it over with that, and that’s going to come across to you and it’s going to start to make you feel a certain kind of way. So we talked about three negotiator personality types. We talk about the assertive personality type. We talk about the analyst-personality type.
TROY SMITH 19:39
And we talk about the accommodator personality type. Now, we have nothing against an assertive personality type, which is feeling like don’t have an assertive tone when you’re talking. That’s very counterproductive. You’re trying to build rapport with the other side, build that relationship, and assertive tone unless you’re talking to another, it’s going to come off as bullying, to an accommodator, and to an analyst, that’s going to come off as bullying, as threatening, as a mister-know-it-all or miss-know-it-all, and so we’re going to get turned off by that.
TROY SMITH 20:22
And when you think about it, statistically, the world has broken down into those three categories. And they’re actually in thirds. So you just turned off 66% of the people that you might talk to if you’re now talking to another pump assertive. The analyst tone is going to come out when you have something that is important to say. We call that the late-night FM DJ. You want to slow down. You want to lower your voice an octave. You don’t want to talk loud. You want to enunciate every word to let the other side know I need you to focus on what I’m saying right now.
TROY SMITH 21:18
And then there’s the accommodative tone. That’s the tone that we’ve been talking right? All through this is the more friendly tone, or a casual conversational tone. It was not about being a clown or joking. Everything is not a joke. You’re just being more friendly, like you would if you’re talking to a friend that you, hey, how’s everything going? So your tone is more conversational. Those are the three tones that we talked about in the three personality types that helped us in a phone conversation, a zoom conversation, and face-to-face. I don’t want to say disarm the individual, but make them feel more comfortable.
RHEA WONG 21:55
Yeah! What I learned in the training was really about safety, like people need to feel safe in order to negotiate. I’m wondering if we could just recap. So if you have a sort of the analysts and the accommodator types, how do we match our tones to those different types? So we said a sort of type should not be met within a sort of tone. But what do we do with an analyst tone? Do we do an accommodator tone?
TROY SMITH 22:24
It depends. So we say you can be an assertive type, just you don’t have an assertive tone when you’re in the middle of a negotiation. You don’t even really want that with another assertive. We say we go over better with an assertive because an assertive personality is a type that they’re all about respect. The analyst personality type is about data. And the accommodator personality type is the relationship at the moment.
TROY SMITH 22:47
So, you want to have basically 70% to 80% of the conversation in the end the accommodators tone, relaxed, conversational, and putting each other at ease. And then when you look into and get a point across a really have something that really matters that you want them to pay a particular attention to, that’s when you want to go to the analyst tone, or FM late-night DJ tone.
RHEA WONG 23:15
So is it ever appropriate to use an assertive tone in a negotiation?
TROY SMITH 23:22
If you want to piss somebody off, and if you’ve been working hard to try to build that relationship, is that what you really want to do?
RHEA WONG 23:34
I mean, I don’t want to do that. But some people don’t really like to be right.
TROY SMITH 23:39
You can be right and not have to be assertive. When you use the skills, part of the skills is designed what we talk about is the Socratic method. We get people to feel like they’ve solved their own problems. They’ve solved their own issues. So now, that’s a win for them. If they’re saying things that you just can’t do, there are things that just won’t work.
TROY SMITH 24:07
If you sit there and tell them, they’re gonna say, oh! They just don’t like me. She’s not interested in hearing what I have to say. But if you use the skills and say, it seems like you’ve tried to help her, and they go, well, it didn’t go so well the first time. And then they start figuring out other ways. And that’s where we use what we call guided discovery.
TROY SMITH 24:28
We start guiding them down a path and we do that with calibrated questions. We guide them down the path to start figuring out how we see the lay of the land and get them on the right path. And they feel like they did that. And all the time, they feel like they were doing chores,. They feel like, man! I did this. And they’re not going to talk this hard to you because it’s their solution.
RHEA WONG 24:54
Yeah, what’s coming up for me, Troy, is this idea of the negotiator as a guide. Like you’re just trying to help them through a situation, as opposed to being like, I am here, and this is the way it’s going to be. Right?
TROY SMITH 25:09
We talk about that that’s one of the new in a lot of the advanced training that we do. We talk about discovery, guiding, and leading. Most of your conversations should be about discovery, trying to discover what’s going on in their world, and what’s going on in their head. Guiding is like we said the calibrated questions. Guide them to get to a solution. And leading is sometimes you have to mean to give them a push. Tell them was gone. And so that’s the lowest one. We don’t do that as much. We do it only when needed. However, there are times when you have to do it.
RHEA WONG 25:55
Got it! Could you walk us through one of the other tactics that you talked about in the training the accusation audit? And when I heard about that, it totally freaked me out. But I think it’s a really valuable tool. So could you walk us through it and tell us how we might be able to use that?
TROY SMITH 26:14
Yeah, ut’s so funny. When we talk about the accusations audits, it scares people. They’re like, man, I’m not going to tell everybody all the bad things about me. I’m not going to say things that I’m trying to get this business and you’re telling me to tell them how bad of a person I am or how bad of a company we are. And I just can’t do that. And we can laugh about it. And they’re going to start thinking a certain way.
TROY SMITH 26:38
And if you’ve ever gone to one of our training, or heard us teach and train, we always use accusations audits in the beginning. You probably want to think this is a big waste of your day. You may think all we’re going to do is sit here and talk about calf stories. I know you’re going to wish you never signed up for this class. And then we go on and we teach and at the end of the day, they go, oh my gosh! This was the greatest. I’ve never trained like this. I’ve never known like this.
TROY SMITH 27:10
And I still don’t know if I could do the accusations against us. Because I don’t want people to think these things about us. We used accusations audit in the very beginning. And if they affected you, or we made you think a certain way, why don’t you get up and leave? And, oh! You did you. You did. Just like what we did a little exercise that I use with you with the mirror. All you’re doing is the same as what they may be thinking about you. And you’re getting out in front of it. It’s called pre-emptive labor.
TROY SMITH 27:40
You’re getting out in front of it before they say it. And when you do that, people are going to look at you and they’re gonna say, man, this person is a very honest person. I can probably believe almost everything that they say or everything that they say because they’re not afraid to tell me what I’m maybe thinking. So he didn’t want to do it before it comes out of their mouth, and they were thinking to themselves, is this guy using the Jedi mind trick on me?
TROY SMITH 28:11
And all you’re doing is getting out in front of the things that they may be thinking because they’re not going to have negative emotions and dynamics that don’t ever go away until you address them. That’s the elephant in the room. You can sit there and talk to somebody until you’re blue in the face about everything under the sun. And in their mind, they’re thinking about what I think this person is creating.
TROY SMITH 28:33
They’re thinking that they’re not half listening to what you’re really trying to pitch or what you’re trying to get out. We all do it. If you’re talking to somebody, Rhea, and you think that they are lying to you, or in the past, they’ve done something, and they never apologize or never got addressed, it’s going to come up when you talk to him the next time. And part of your brain is offline now because you’re thinking about this. So you’re not listening at the highest level that we talked about.
RHEA WONG 29:05
So if we could take this as an example, like if I’m talking to a donor, an accusation audit that I might do decently like, so I know that you think that I’m just trying to extract money from you. I know you’re wondering, what am I going to be doing with your money? And is it a good use of time? I know you might be thinking that I’m just talking to you because I want something from you. That kind of thing.
TROY SMITH 29:30
We use probably, may, and might. We use “you” if they told you that in the past. If they’ve said, hey, you’re not good stewards of the money. If you have to talk to him at a later date, you say I know you believe we’re not good stewards of the money. You may think that we don’t really care about the people we serve. You probably feel like we’re just wasting your time. You may even think that we’re just gonna get the money and run. You’ll never see any results.
TROY SMITH 30:22
And normally, by the time you get to the third or fourth accusation, they’re like, no, no, no! We weren’t thinking that. What happens if they say, yeah, that’s exactly what we think. Then you have to address it because is it better to guess or is it better to know? And if you can address it and lay out your strategy and give them information that’s going to show that is not the way they’re thinking, they’re gonna respect you more. And they want to obviously, what this is an organization that I might be able to start off by getting given a little bit too and see how they handle it.
RHEA WONG 31:02
Troy, in the context of fundraising, it’s usually never one conversation, right? It’s a series of conversations. I imagine, sometimes you’ve had more tired day hostage negotiations. How do you close out a conversation to lead to the next conversation?
TROY SMITH 31:24
We like to say the last impression is the lasting impression. If the conversation didn’t go well, if it was hated, or if the person just wasn’t feeling you, you thank them. As they seem like now really isn’t a good time. Hit him with a no, he had a question. Would you be against me? Can you back on your calendar, and give a date in time for seven minutes and 18 seconds? And they’re gonna look at you. Seven minutes and 18 seconds, why did he say that?
TROY SMITH 32:04
And then you hit him with that? Are you in question? Would you be against it? Would you be opposed? No! The human nature response of people is they become curious, why did they say seven minutes and 18 seconds? Why didn’t they say 30 minutes? Why did they say 15 minutes? Because that’s what they’re used to hearing. So you’re going to become different than everybody else. And it’s a great opportunity for you to have that next conversation.
TROY SMITH 32:27
And also show them that you’re responsible. You’re trustworthy, and you’re honest. Because if you get that next conversation, you can best believe when you start the conversation, they’re going to have a little timer on the side saying, let me know when it gets to seven minutes and 18 seconds because they want to see if you’re going to respect them enough to honor that. And most people want to give their pitch. And they want to get everything out that they need to say.
TROY SMITH 32:57
But it’s all about respect first. So you get in that conversation with them. And at the six minute mark, you make sure that you start winding it down. I like to stand up if I’m in person. From face to face with somebody, I say, hey, listen, I appreciate you give me this time for seven minutes and 18 seconds. I said, I know your time is valuable. We didn’t get to as much as I hoped that we could have gotten through, but I just wanted to say thank you for giving me that opportunity.
TROY SMITH 33:25
And I want to give you back at least 45 seconds of your day. And they were so amazed that you honored what you said that I have never had anybody say, okay, bye. They’re like, no, no, no, no! Now go ahead. Matter of fact, I had my secretary carve out an hour on my calendar. And I always give no, I really wanted to be respectful of your time. And they’re like no, and now they’re almost ordering you to sit down and keep the conversation going.
TROY SMITH 33:55
So now it’s their idea. And if they’re doing that, several things happened. One, that means they’re interested in what you have to say, You didn’t waste their time. You build a rapport with them because you show that you respect them. And now they’re starting to trust you. Because they see the honesty in you and that you actually what we love that time because they’re curious to see if you’re gonna do it.
TROY SMITH 34:17
So you build a greater relationship and rapport with them when you start to get that trust-based influence because when they trust you. They’re more willing to do stuff with you. They’re gonna start to like you because they said, man, that person said seven minutes and 18 seconds. And sure enough after six minutes, they started backing up even though they knew they weren’t finished. And they’re going to admire that a little bit.
TROY SMITH 34:39
They’re going to see you in a different light because other people don’t do that. If they get in the room, they want to keep going no matter what. They don’t care that they gave themselves a self-imposed what we call it a self-imposed deadline. They don’t care about that. And so when somebody sees that, because what did I tell you? They’re thinking about that seven minutes and 18 seconds.
TROY SMITH 35:00
So are they really paying attention to you anyhow? Half of their brain is online/offline because they’re counting the seconds. So half a half of the brain is not even listening to you. So you’re wasting your time trying to pitch them. Build a relationship first. We always say people are more willing to do business with somebody who six times more likely to do business with somebody they like. So become likable.
RHEA WONG 35:26
I love that. Alright, last question from me. I see Jordan has a question in the chat. Let’s talk about urgency. Because there’s nothing more urgent, I would imagine trying to negotiate hostages coming out of a situation. Likewise, I know a lot of people raising money feel a real sense of urgency, like we need to get this money in the door. But tell us how can we manage the sense of urgency of like, this is a really important thing that I need to get done with, as you say, slowing down the moment and letting it sort of breathe and unfold.
TROY SMITH 36:03
Making it about them. Everybody comes in with a pitch. But they probably don’t know anything about the person who’s sitting across. Part of the thing that people that I know in the industry, they’ve always said, this is the time when we start planning who we want to give money to. Usually by March to August, they’re planning on who to give money to.
TROY SMITH 36:30
They’re looking at the organizations that they give it to already and how is that working out? Have they met their objectives? Have they met their goals? Have they relayed to us what they have done so that we can say, hey, this was a good use of the money, and as somebody that we want to continue to support? So don’t be a last-minute person. That shows to a prospective client or somebody that’s willing want to donate, that shows that you’re not organized.
TROY SMITH 37:00
So it shows that you’re just out there at the last minute trying to get money. That gives the indication in their mind that this is not somebody I want to give to because they’re not organized. So you want to be organized, send out an email this early on and say, hey, this is who we are. Would you be against considering us? Hit him with a couple of accusation audits. You probably think this is just another one of those fly-by-night organizations that’s begging for money.
TROY SMITH 37:35
You may even have everybody that you want to give donations already. So if you’re going to consider me a waste of time. You probably don’t even want to go any further down the email. You say those things people are going to want to go further now because they want to see what it says next. People don’t do that. So slow down the conversation. Don’t be in a hurry. Rhea, if I’m talking to you and I start getting excited and sound hurried, how do you feel?
RHEA WONG 38:13
When you feel like I’m bothered by your day, right? Like, I’m not important.
TROY SMITH 38:19
It is urgent to you, but it’s not to me.
RHEA WONG 38:21
Right!
TROY SMITH 38:23
you weren’t prepared, or you don’t sound as truthful, you sound desperate. You start to sound desperate. You almost sound like a fraud or con.
RHEA WONG 38:43
So I’m going to invite Jordan to come in here, she has a really good question, then we will wrap up. Troy, I can talk to you forever. But I know we have to respect your time.
TROY SMITH 38:53
I appreciate it.
JORDAN 37:58
I’m often kind of negotiating like fee-for-service with partnerships in the nonprofit space. And a lot of times I find that when I come into a meeting, the person I’m talking to actually has a really rigorous intense set of questions. Like they’re really betting on me. I need to know this value for me to say like apparently list about your model. And I find it really hard to like slow down and sort of listen and practice some of the strategies you’re talking about at that moment. Because then I’m like, okay, I gotta answer all their questions. I gotta get sorted this all this information to make sure they understand what a great program is or why this is whatever. So I’m just curious how you might kind of respond to that from your perspective.
TROY SMITH 39:34
Jordan, that’s a really good question. A lot of people probably wondering how you react to that. First of all, you want to slow the situation down. If they’re coming at you almost like an interrogation. And they say, what is your company’s? Give me an example of something that I will clarify.
JORDAN 39:53
Yeah, so sometimes they’ll ask me they’ll say like, I need to know a lot more details like about how you train your coach is.
TROY SMITH 40:01
Great and you hit him with the label. It seems like you’re very thorough. Yeah, we want to know what the coach’s backgrounds are. Sounds like you have some history of having dealt with that in the past. What are you doing when you say that?
JORDAN 40:23
You’re inviting them to give you more information like maybe their motives?
TROY SMITH 40:27
Yeah! You’re making it about them. Okay, now I’m saying the person I’m sitting across from, man, you’re very smart. You’re very intelligent. You’re thorough. And you find out about them. Because now you want to know what it is that they’re really asking. Because some people don’t ask really good questions. They’ll ask one thing, but they want to know something else. And we all laugh. And then one of our coaches, I love them to death, he always uses this as an example.
TROY SMITH 41:03
He said that somebody will ask him to come up to you and say, what are you doing at five o’clock? And five o’clock, you leave and now you’re thinking, what is this guy want? He’s getting a add more work to my plate. And I definitely don’t want that. And I don’t know what he’s asking. So I don’t know how to answer. So he hasn’t asked you a good question. So he uses one of our responses, it seems like you have a reason for asking that.
TROY SMITHv 41:35
Now they’re going to give you more information. So he said, yeah, at five o’clock. I know you go home a certain way. And my car’s in the shop. And I don’t want to catch an Uber or Lyft. And I was hoping that it wouldn’t be too much of a hard ask if you would give me a ride. And you’re like, oh, that’s enough to have to go that way anyhow. And right away, you’ve calmed down.
TROY SMITH 41:56
You’re like, okay, he didn’t ask me for anything that I couldn’t do. And you’re saying in your mind, why don’t you just say that in the beginning? Instead of having me think all these other things beforehand. And I love when he gets that example because it’s a simple example. And it is so true. People will get nervous when you ask them. And then you just didn’t ask them. You just didn’t ask it the right way. You made them nervous because it felt like it was more work. And so when people ask you stuff like that when you’re on this call, it seems like you have a reason for asking. Great, go too late. You should all write that down.
TROY SMITH 42:33
It seems like you have a reason for, say thinking, doing, or asking. And it’ll normally get you a more robust response. Well, yeah, because we have other organizations that said, they were doing certain things, and we went back and back-checked, and they hadn’t done any of it. Their coaches weren’t properly vetted. Their coaches weren’t properly trained, and now start telling you. And so they’re telling you their fear, is that we’ve done this with people in the past, and they actually didn’t do what they said.
RHEA WONG 43:07
Thanks, Troy. I just want to note, where can folks get in touch with you or get in touch with the Black Swan Group, if they are interested in learning more about these skills and honing them? And I really think everyone needs to be out here practicing. So where can people get in touch with you?
TROY SMITH 43:21
Go to the Black Swan Group. You can go on the internet, and just look us up as the Black Swan Group. And once you do, you can click on that site, and it’ll tell you some of the training courses that we have coming up and live events that we have coming up. There’s a section about the team, and you’ll get to me. You can go online and read our bios and see a picture of who we are.
TROY SMITH 43:42
And we’d love to have you sit in on some of our training. If you want private coaching, we do that. We’d like to see you at live events like we met Rhea, and man, it was just a great experience for me. And now I’m sitting here with her and we’d have what we just call it chopping it up. We’re having a conversation. Thank you, Rhea.
RHEA WONG 44:00
I love that. Thank you, Troy. I’m going to make sure all of the info in the show notes. Actually, last question for me. This is sort of a fun one. If you had a metaphorical billboard to communicate anything to the world, what would be on your billboard?
TROY SMITH 44:12
My billboard was say several things. I always put this down and I tell people at the end of every session, good, better best. Never let it rest to your good is better, and your better is best. And you can do one of three things. You can get better, you can stay the same way, or you can get worse. Two of those three things are going to require some effort on your part. And if you decide that you want to get better, don’t be in such a hurry.
TROY SMITH 44:47
Work on getting one degree better every time. And when I tell people that they look at me and they’re like one degree that’s not a lot. And we always talk about perspective at 211 degrees, water is just hot, and at 212 is boiling. One degree can make all the difference in the world. Ladies and gentlemen, if you get a chance to become boiling.
RHEA WONG 45:12
Troy, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with all of us. And I’ll make sure to put info in the show notes, so folks can get in touch with you. Thank you so much.
TROY SMITH 45:21
I appreciate it. Thank you. Reach out to me anytime. I really enjoyed this and I appreciate what you’re doing to help other people get better at learning the skills and be more successful in our profession.
RHEA WONG 45:12
Thank you so much. And again, same to you, if you ever want to talk about your nonprofit which we didn’t get to talk about, please feel free to reach out. I’m always happy to help.
TROY SMITH 45:40
Great, thank you.
RHEA WONG 45:41
Take care. Thanks, everyone. Have a good week.
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