An ancient Greek word that can change everything
(if you master it)

Commuting? Listen instead of reading

The last Wednesday of the month is payday.

A week before, Dana (a young entrepreneur with a small team) makes sure all the invoices are issued on time. She checks every day, if the money came in… but it seems things are not in her favor, one more time.

A large client still hasn’t paid their overdue bill! On Monday, she checked her account three times. On Tuesday, she was glued to the computer and she checked the bank account every half an hour. She wasn’t going to embarrass herself! She had to pay her people on time! She would rather borrow money from someone than not keep her word.

It’s Wednesday morning and she gets in 30 minutes earlier than her team. She starts her computer with her coat still on.

It feels like everything is moving slower today, the computer, the bank app… it’s all taking forever. She’s getting hot, her face is burning, and her chest feels tight. The app has finally loaded, she checks the credit. Unbelievable! The money is still not there.

She feels like the rug was pulled out from under her feet, her hopes vanished like they were sucked up by a tsunami. Should she call the client again? She’s going to sound too desperate…

She stayed glued to the computer all day…

In the afternoon, the money came in. But by that time, she was exhausted and wishing she could be someone else. She wanted to go back to her old safe job, where she didn’t have that monthly pressure or the same responsibilities.

Thinking about how badly she was feeling, Dana came to the conclusion that she had to change something. She was tired of having to count her money every month and pinch pennies. She was tired of having to check the balance in her account every time she wanted to have lunch with her friends. She wanted to get out of this hamster wheel she entered when she started her own company.

The best option always seemed to be “increase our prices”.

“This can’t continue like this! But how can we raise them? What will our clients say? What if they don’t want to pay us more? What if we lose the clients that we worked so hard to get?”

While thinking about the solution, she got herself to relax a bit. But thinking about having to convince her clients to pay more seemed like the stupidest idea! They will probably point out all the mistakes she had made in the pas, and ask for a discount. Then she’ll have to chase after new clients again.

On the other hand, how could she approach new clients with these high prices? Who would take an unknown company with high prices seriously? Does she even stand a chance?

However, increasing prices seems like the only solution now.

She fights hard with herself about increasing prices. In the end, when she was finally convinced, she decides to talk with her employees about it. Another fight!

– Increasing our prices, Dana?! We’ll lose the clients we have! And it’ll be much harder finding new ones. Plus, we’re already asking more than our competitors, we’ll be right out of the competition if we raise them even more. We’d better not make a mistake with this. How would we handle it, if this turns out to be a total disaster?”

This was serious pushback that Dana hadn’t foreseen. Her employees were resisting her idea of increasing the price even harder than she thought her clients would have. Wow!

In the end, she did manage to convince them that they should at least try the price hike, but they were still skeptical that she could pull it off.

The next day, Dana was in front of a potential new client. She was dressed impeccably, and gave him an excellent presentation about the services her company provided. She was determined to ask $2000 for the recommended campaign. A week before, she would have asked $1500 for the same type of campaign. But before the meeting, she reminded herself how tough it was to make payroll and she decided to sell higher.

Dana was standing in front of the client, sweating slightly, her face a bit red. Her breath was fast and shallow. She was thinking 2000, 2000, 2000. She had to say what she thought she deserved.

– Well, how much is the campaign you’re proposing? asked the potential client.

Thinking about the $2000, but with her soul full of hesitation, Dana finally opened her mouth and said $1500.

In the Quiz I sent you a few days ago, I asked people their profession.

So, 17% are in Coaching, 15.4% are in Training & Speaking, 12.3% are Entrepreneurs, 10.7% are in Consultancy, 9.5% are Managers, 8.3% in Sales, 4.8% HR Specialists, 3.6% in Marketing, 2.4% in Customer Care, 2.4% in Copywriting and 13.6% have other types of expertise, such as Lawyers, Engineers, Researchers or Medical Doctors.

So, what do all these professions have in common?

What do management, marketing, sales, training & speaking, coaching and consulting have in common?

They all solve problems (and get paid for doing that).

More importantly, they all solve problems with other people (i.e. not by themselves).

That requires… DIALOGUE.

If you google it, “dialogue”, as a verb, means to take part in a conversation to resolve a problem.

Another interesting fact is that the use of the word “dialogue” has tripled over the last decades. Here’s what Google shows about the growing popularity of the word “dialogue”. This means more and more professionals are interested in having effective dialogues.

But what does “dialogue” really mean?

“Dialogos” is an ancient Greek word, from dia = through + logos = word.

Through word.

This means a linguistic approach.

It’s not massage, it’s not a magic pill, it’s not math.

We all use a linguistic approach for management, marketing, sales, training & speaking, coaching and consulting.

This linguistic approach, this dialogue, is very powerful.

And it has immediate effects.

It can cause you not to sleep at night, it can make people hate you for ages or you can win clients and make friends for a lifetime.

Dana from my story first had an inner dialogue with herself.

Then she had a dialogue with her employees.

And finally, she had a dialogue with her client.

All of her dialogues were heavy and ineffective.

She couldn’t say what she really wanted to say, to influence other people to willingly go her way. She didn’t manage to really influence herself, her employees or her clients.

And this is the problem many professionals have today. They have excellent technical skills as Dana does, but they don’t have the right words at the right time.

I’m here to tell you that you can change this

You owe it to yourself to change this.

And that’s why I want you to join me for 6 months.

(it’s 6 months because that is enough time for you to really make a change in the dialogue you have been repeating for years.)

In 6 months with me, you can Master the Language of Influence.

In 6 months with me, you’ll have the right words at the right time (a superhuman skill).

This is my promise if you choose to enroll in The Advanced Business Influence (certification program).

The program is not yet officially launched, but I wanted to tell you about it before anybody else.

Here is a short video about what’s in the program.

(remember, registrations are NOT open yet – they will open in a few days – but you can have a sneak peek in advance)

Cheers,

Shelle

P.S.

For those who think TL;DR (too long; didn’t read), here’s a summary:

The Advanced Business Influence (certification program) will soon have its first public launch.

The promise is that you will Master the Language of Influence.

Right above is a short video to have a sneak peek before the public launch.