The phone rings and Jill is on the other end. “We need a speaker for our program at Rotary.”

 

“Sure I can help you out. Any ideas on what the topic should be?”

 

“Well we’re on our membership drive and I think you know how tough it can be to get members to get out of their comfort zone and ask someone! Can you do something that will help our members to be better recruiters?”

 

 “Jill, most of your members are business people with lots of connections, why such a challenge with new members?”

 

“I find that just because their in business does not mean they understand how to persuade or influence others positively or even just ask others to join!”

 

“Ok, I think the picture is a bit clearer. Here is what we could do to give them a couple of quick tools they could apply……..

 

 

First we start out understanding what causes members to resist asking others to join. Some of these items might be…

 

Ok, most likely we have all experienced the person that is simply overbearing and constantly pushing you to do something. Perhaps a friend or a salesperson that literally nags you into submission. Fun isn’t it!

 

That is not persuasion, that is blunt trauma pushing! If this is how you see persuasion or recruitment, of course you would not want to do the same!

 

Here is the key the “pusher” does not understand:

 

It is not about you, it’s about them!

 

That means pushing a product or an idea onto someone else is very ineffective and usually is not a “win-win” outcome.

 

Ok, pushing my idea or my club on you is not effective; I know that, so what can I do instead?

 

Second key is how to LEAD others to a positive conclusion. Now to do this you have to have some idea of what that conclusion could be. What is it that they would like out of this and is it the same as what I might want?

 

It is not about you, it’s about them! That means if 10 people belong to an organization, most likely they will have 10 different reasons for being a member! Yet many times the persuasion is focused on what is important to the persuader not the potential new member!

 

I wonder why this feels like pushing?

 

So to start this process let’s look at what we do know. What is it that causes us to be members! What is it that motivates us to be here!

 

Listing these out might look like this:

 

Now this is good marketing information and might be good for the brochure, but how does this help me recruit my friends without pushing?

 

Third key is the use of effective open type questions. If we have an idea of what might motivate someone to join, such as the list above, we can create questions that get the other party talking about how they feel and what is important to them.

 

Now an interesting thing about questioning. A business owner that recently completed our Leadership Strategies program discovered they had an old belief that asking questions was impolite and should not be done at any time. Upon examining the belief they found it came from their mother’s view of the world. Yet the training showed how valuable questioning skills were. Once they applied the new knowledge about questioning there was instant results for them!

 

So if we take the motivators from the above list, format open questions using how, what, why and tell me, we can get others engaged and lead them to their own conclusion that the Rotary could fill a need for them!

 

Some examples:

 

Ok, I see how these would definitely engage the other person and get them talking about their values and beliefs. But this is really different for me!

 

That’s ok, our society just does not provide for open communications like it could. We are constantly told in one way or another, as small children even as adults, not to probe, not to question and not interfere.

 

When or where in your education did you study questioning skills? Unless you’re an attorney or a salesperson, probably no where!

 

Fourth key, is to not worry about you, rather focus on understanding them, let them tell you!

 

I caught a recent interview with Alan Alda (Hawkeye from MASH) who is an avid science buff. He talked about an interview he had with Carl Sagen (premier space scientist) and how he focused on how much Alan Alda needed to know about the subject to conduct this interview. His questions boxed Carl Sagen into places that Carl did not want to go, so Alda got evasive answers. “It was the worst interview I ever conducted, I got in the way. I should have gone in dumb and let Carl tell it in his own eloquent way!”

 

How often might we have done the same, focusing on what we want to happen and not really allowing the other party to tell us what we need to know to persuade them!

 

So to help us work at becoming masters of questioning, we need to focus, listen and observe first. This will give us the information we need to formulate the questions to ask!

 

Will we stumble and be awkward at first? Most likely, yet how were you when that bicycle first arrived?

 

So to summarize:

 

Give it a try and see your membership grow!

 

Till next week, keep an open eye, ear and closed mouth!

 

Harlan Goerger

National Director of Training

 

© Harlan Goerger, 9-2007