Episode 36 · March 20, 2022
The concept that changed my life
With Dr. Deborah Tannen
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In this episode
Deborah Tannen's books are the reason I worked out why selling felt so bad, years before I had any language of my own for it. She studies how the language of ordinary conversation does the work of hierarchy, and hierarchy is exactly what a sales conversation is made of. I nearly talked myself out of inviting her, which is its own version of the episode's subject, and then she said yes the next day. Right at the end I catch myself saying the one phrase I spend my life telling clients never to say.
What you'll take away
- Language is negotiating two things at once, always. Who is above whom, and how close the two of you are. The same sentence can be doing either job, and the two people in it often disagree about which.
- "Thank you for taking the time to meet with me" hands the other person the higher position. You're thanking somebody for a favor, which makes it a favor. Thank them for a good conversation instead.
- A girl who tells other girls what to do is bossy. A boy who does it is the leader. Deborah traces the whole discomfort back there, and points out what the adult word for bossy turns into.
- You don't call back because you don't want to be a pest. She flips it around: how would you feel if somebody called you a second time? Probably fine. Probably pleased you were still on their mind.
- Nothing is true of all women. Her own caution, and she says it twice. These are patterns and expectations rather than rules, and plenty of other things cut across them.
In this conversation
The full transcript, in sections. Open any one to read it.
The email I almost didn't send
0:02
You're listening to the smart gets paid podcast with me. Leah Neaderthal, I help women land higher paying clients in their B2B consulting and coaching businesses. But I've never been a salesperson. My background is in corporate marketing, and when I started my first consulting business, I learned pretty quickly that it's about 1000 times harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell someone else's. So I taught myself how to do it, and I created a sales approach that feels comfortable, makes you feel confident, and that works consistently. And now I teach women how to land higher paying clients in their B2B consulting and coaching businesses. So whether your client contracts are $2,000 or $200,000 if you want to work with more of the clients you love, do more of the work you love, and get paid more than you ever imagined, then you're in the right place. Let's do it together. Welcome to Smart gets paid.
Hey there, Leah here, and thanks for joining me in this episode. Wherever you are, wherever you're tuning in. I hope you're having a good week. I hope you're making some good progress on your business, and, you know, also taking some time for you. So back when I started this podcast, I wanted to show you a glimpse into the actual conversations that I have with my clients so that I can share with you strategies and, you know, ways of thinking that can help you get clients in your B to B, consulting, coaching or service based business. And if you've been listening for a while, you know that a lot of the episodes are about that those strategies, but when it really comes to what I teach about how to get new clients in your business, a lot of it isn't about selling at all. It's about shining a light on all the things that we bring to our businesses as women, and all of the things in our lives that shape our experiences as women and as women business owners, so that we can understand how they play out in our day to day lives. Because, you know, we don't just come to our businesses with, like a clean slate, you know, like we were born yesterday, we come with the memory. And you know, the muscle memory of our experiences as girls, as young women, the experiences early in our careers, the lessons we've picked up and internalized, and, you know, on and on and on, and being a business owner can be so all consuming, and so we can't ignore the things that made us who we are, the things that explain why we do what we do and why we feel the way we feel. You know, this is the real work, beyond the sales strategies. And actually, as I was teaching myself how to sell, I read 65 books, but really only a handful of them were about selling. Most of them were about topics outside of selling, like psychology or relationships or language, linguistics or life. And what I learned in those books was so important, probably more important than the selling strategies, because what I learned in those books that weren't about selling really opened up the space for me to be able to learn how to sell and to finally sell. And I see that playing out with my clients also. It's not just about the strategies, you know, I always say that, just as one example, you know, I can teach you how to price your work to get paid, you know, twice as much as you are now, without adding any scope, and I can teach you how to write a proposal at that new price that clients are dying to sign. But if, on some level, deep down, you don't believe that you deserve it, like maybe your money story is telling you that you don't deserve it, then you'll never be able to do it. So we have to understand the experiences that are at play on us today as women and as women business owners, if we're going to be able to get the clients that we want and run the businesses that we want. So a while back, I started hosting fireside chats to start to touch on the type of topics that we're talking about here, the fireside chats are on topics that aren't like about business right, but they affect every single woman business owner. They're just universal topics that shape how we think and how we feel as women and also as women business owners. I did the first of these when I was going gray, and I hosted a fireside chat about going gray as a business owner, which you can hear in Episode 24 called, not surprisingly, going gray as a business owner. So today's episode is another fireside chat on a topic that is universal to every woman and every woman business owner, because it's about something that's so much a part of our lives that we might not even consider that it's like a topic worth talking about at all, and that is language. It's the language we use. Our relationship to language, how language shapes our relationships, like, for example, the client relationship and. How it shapes our experience as business owners. So today I'm talking to Dr Deborah Tannen, who's an internationally recognized giant in the field of sociolinguistics, which is how the language of everyday conversation affects relationships. Dr Tannen is a professor of linguistics at Georgetown, and she's the author of dozens of books, including you just don't understand. That's not what I meant, and many, many more. And let me just say I am a huge fan of Dr Tannen and her work. When I was teaching myself how to sell, I devoured her books because they started to unlock for me and shine a light on why selling felt so uncomfortable to me. And you know, that might sound surprising, you know, like, why would books about language change the way you feel about selling? But when I read her books, I started to be able to understand and see the social dynamics at play between my clients and me, and to be able to use language to shift that dynamic so that I felt more comfortable with my potential clients. I created better, more peer level relationships with my clients, and I started to be able to change how my clients saw me, and they started seeing me as more of an expert, and I teach my clients how to do that now, specific to selling in the sales process, so that they can do the same things. And the transformation that I see among my clients after they learn how to use language to establish a dynamic are just incredible. The clients I work with are more confident. They have better relationships with their clients. They're seen as experts and treated like experts. They can charge and get paid more, and the working relationship is better just because of how they can use language in the sales process. So it's not a stretch to say that she has changed my life, and she's changed the life of my clients. So, you know, I've been a fan for years, and then one day, a few months ago, out of the blue. It just kind of occurred to me. I was like, Oh, my God, what if I invite her to do a fireside chat so that I can share with you how you can use language to feel more comfortable selling. And then, of course, you know, my first thought after that was like, There's no way, like, There's no way. She's huge. I'm sure she's too busy. And in any case, you know, she's writing a book about something that's entirely different, not even about her sociolinguistic work right now. So you know, she's probably not even interested in talking about this stuff anymore. You know, I basically told myself, like, all the reasons why she wouldn't want to do it. But I caught myself, and I was like, You know what the worst that can happen is that she says no, so I drafted an email, sent it off, and got a response from her assistant the next day, like the next day, saying that she would love to do it. So I'm going to read you that email here, because it really gives you, you know, the context here, and then we're going to dive into the conversation. All right. So here's the email, Hi, Josh. Oh, wait, it's to her assistant, because that's who you know says you're supposed to send these like media inquiries to. So hi, Josh. I wanted to reach out and invite Dr Tannen to be on my podcast, the smart gets paid podcast. I know she's focusing mostly on engagements around her new book, but if she would be open to chatting about her sociolinguistics work, it would mean so much to me and my audience. You see, I teach women business owners how to get clients into their businesses and get paid more learning. Dr tannins concept of one up one down has been life changing for me in the women I teach her work finally gives them an understanding of why selling their services feels so uncomfortable, and how to overcome it. Through Dr tannins writings, they find a power in their business that they never knew they had, and it nearly always extends to their personal lives as well. I recommend all of Dr tannins books to my students and literally anyone I talk to about business. Smiley face. I know that hearing Dr tan and will impact so many more women and help them become more confident business owners more confident in selling their services and help them command a higher fee. I've seen it with my own eyes. I hope you'll pass along this invitation and convey my deepest gratitude to Dr Tannen and her work. Looking forward to hearing from you. And she said, Yes, so I'm thrilled to share with you my conversation with Dr Deborah Tannen how language helps us negotiate relationships and how we can become more comfortable talking to anyone enjoy.
Do you have an actual sales process? I'm talking about not a general sense of what you should be doing, but a real process where you know exactly what step comes next, who to follow up with, and when, and you can see at a glance where every potential client stands. If the answer is no, or if yours feels clunky, or you're reinventing the wheel every single time I made something for you, it's called roadmap to clients. It's a free 20 minute video course, and in it you'll map out your customized sales process step by step, from the very first contact with a potential client all the way to. Signed proposal. It's the same foundational process we use with every Academy member, and it's completely free. Go to smart gets paid.com/roadmap to get started. Dr tan and thank you so much for taking this time to talk to me about your work. I was saying earlier that, and I shared with your assistant that the work that you have done in linguistics, sociolinguistics, social dynamics, has been so life changing for me and the women I work with. So thank you for being here. The work that you've done has been prolific in a really interesting area. Can you just give a landscape on the focus of your work, and how did you get into this,
Californians, New Yorkers, and who gets the floor
10:39
all of the books I've written, all of the research I've done is about how people use language in their everyday lives. I started out with a study, really of cross cultural communication, comparing the ways of speaking of people from California with people from New York City, and in particular, of East European Jewish background, which is my background, and that happened because I was just going to tape a conversation for my dissertation. I was going to look at each individual's way of speaking. And in the end, I couldn't, because the three of us who had grown up in New York, we you could see our styles, but it was very hard for the people from California to exercise their styles because it was hard for them to get the floor. And then I ended up writing about the different styles. And it really isn't just New York California, but each study led to the next. And then for a while, I was best known for comparing spoken and written language, and that made sense, because my BA and MA were in English literature, and I was kind of a literary type, so and I noticed that everyday conversation was made of all these same ways of speaking, little linguistic features that we think of as literary dialog, repetition, figures of speech. So that was going to be my big focus, but I started writing for general audiences, and I just would find that when I was at a cocktail party or, you know, talking to people, and I would tell them about the kind of thing I was doing, they would be so interested. And I realized that much of what people were attributing to personality was conversational style. Perfect example is why the Californians had trouble getting the floor in that first conversation that I taped. One aspect of what I call high involvement style is you talk along to show enthusiasm, but if you do it with those who don't share that style, they think you're stealing the floor, and they back off. And it's really can even be tragic, because we're not making decisions about conversational style. We're making decisions about people, their intentions, their abilities. And so one walks away thinking, you only want to hear yourself talk. You don't want to hear anything I have to say. And the other one is thinking, why are you making me do all the work here? Don't you have anything to say? So in addition to the academic books I was writing, I decided I would write a book for general audiences and raise awareness that some of what they think is psychology is really just ways of speaking. And I wrote a book called that's not what I meant, which is
such an incredible book. That was the first book that I came across of
your work. Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to hear that. Really thrilled to hear that, because that was the book for which I had, I would have to say ambitions. I thought this is going to change the world. People are going to realize that they've been thinking it's psychology and it's linguistics, and you know, kind of do for linguistics what psychologists had been so good at communicating to the world at large. That book did okay and well enough they let me write another book, but the chapter that got the most attention was the one on gender differences. And so I decided to write the next book about women's and men's ways of speaking, and that was the book called, you just don't understand that book got such disproportionate attention, and who could have thought, yeah, nearly four years on the bestseller list and changed my life. So that's incredible, too.
I just want to know, I just want to know. I just want my favorite all the listeners. There's no book that she's written that's not incredible. And in fact, I think my favorite title of your books is the one for mothers and daughters, which is like a whole rabbit hole of conversation and styles and personalities and all that. But the title you're wearing that is just like, so perfect.
Yeah, I wanted it to be something like you're not going to wear that are you
almost too long? Yeah, it's like you're wearing the extra words.
So, yeah, so I'll just say quickly. So one led to another, and you know, after you just didn't understand, I wanted to do the workplace, and that's probably what we'll be talking about today. A book called talking from nine to five. And then I wrote a book about public discourse called the Argument Culture, which is more relevant today than it ever was. And then half a dozen more books about how people the various relationships, as you say, mothers and daughters, adult family members, sisters, sisters, women, friends
The freshman dining hall, and me pushing back from the table
15:23
and so on. Yeah, and what was so what's been so fascinating for me is I'm I'm also a personal development junkie, and I am so curious why we do the things we do, why we say the things we say, why we feel the way we feel. And your work has been so eye opening to me on how the power of language, why people say and interpret things the way they do, and your comment about the California dichotomy has literally played out in my life. So I had mentioned to you that I'm from Nashville, Tennessee, and I went to school at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and all of my roommates were from, like, the tri state area and our, like, our first weekend, there we were. This was in that, like, the dining hall, or whatever I miss. I miss remembering the time, but I think it was like freshman year. But anyway, we're I remember, and they will remind me of this, that we were all having lunch, and they were all talking over each other, over over, over, one after another, and I could not get a word in edgewise, and I was sitting there, getting so anxious and so angry, and eventually I pushed back from the table and I said, f this. I'm out of here. Like I can you I can't get a word in. You know, you're not even letting me talk. And it was a perfect example of how the way that language is comfortable to us may be so different than the people around us,
you know, the I think what's really telling is you're saying you're not giving me a chance to talk. When you say, I can't get a word in edgewise, that's just a description. But then you blame the others, and that is so typical. It's an economy. So if you have the kind of style where you just talk, the idea is this way I explain it, you show you a good person by showing your involvement. You don't want there to be silence, because that would be bad. That would running down conversation, running down but then you trust other people to talk over you, to get the floor if they want to. The other style is you leave enough of a pause to make sure other people can talk if they want to. And if someone hasn't talked, you might turn to them and say, You know what about you there? How come you haven't said anything? And so if you expect one style, you don't realize what the other people need to get the floor, or you don't realize what the other people would do to get the floor in a conversation like that?
Hierarchy, and how it gets negotiated in a sentence
17:47
Well, it's so funny that you point that out, because absolutely at that time, it was very much why aren't you letting me talk having, you know, immerse myself in your work? I have now understood that it's nobody's job right to sort of create the floor, and it's really just a difference in styles. But the part of your work that has been so eye opening for me, in which when I share it with my students, is so eye opening for them and and the part that I believe is most relevant to our conversation for women who are who are feeling uncomfortable in the sales process is this, when you you identified that language is about hierarchy, language is always about hierarchy, and hierarchy is constantly being negotiated. I honestly, and I'm having like goosebumps now, even saying it like I think that when I came across that, I don't know if it was in the HBR article or, you know, in any number of your books, but when I came across that, it was so eye opening, because it illuminated for me why it was so uncomfortable to sell, because there is a hierarchy. And we are not at the top right. We're in what you call the one down position. Can you say a little bit about language and its role in hierarchy? And then I want to talk a little bit more about the one down or one up, one down concept.
"Thanks, Mom", and two ways to hear one sentence
19:09
Yes, actually, what I say is that we're always balancing two dynamics. One is who's up, who's down. That's what you're talking about, that hierarchy. The other is, how close or distant are we, and I trace this to the way kids use language growing up. They tend to play in same sex groups, and this is not my own research, but those who have studied kids at length observed that the boys seem always to be focused on who's up who's down, so you want to be the one who gives, tells others what to do. If somebody tells you what to do, then they're one up. You want to have center stage. You want to be the one telling stories. You want to be the one who knows the answer. You want to top each other. And when we think of that, especially to us women, it can sound kind. Mean spirited, but it isn't. It's all very, very good natured, but that's where it's focused. Who's up, who's down, and it's a way to get close too. It's not that they're not interested in closeness, it's that's how they achieve it, typically among the girls and then later women. We're focused more on the how close or distant are we? So the very same conversation could have both meanings. A quick example of that, I was walking with a female colleague on college campus. One of the older male colleagues came by. It was a cool fall day, and she said to him, hi, you know, where's your code? And he said, Thanks, Mom. No, she got what was happening there. Yeah. What's that about? He was focused on the who's up, who's done, the hierarchy. Mothers tell kids You're not dressed warmly enough, wear your galoshes. And that's true. It's true. She was thinking of, I'm showing concern for you. And she didn't mean it literally. Of course, it was just a way to say something friendly. But she was focusing on the connection. I'm thinking about you. And so much of that comes up in the workplace, where the women might use something, use a way of speaking, focused on connection, and it's interpreted as hierarchy. Another quick example, very common for women to be told a woman or somebody say something, says, Oh, I'm sorry. Don't apologize. It's not your fault. Now, apologizing does put you in a one down position. You're admitting fault. Another way though to look at I'm sorry is, I'm sorry that happened. It's about connection. It's I'm seeing this from your point of view. And if you think when you somebody has suffered a loss, and you say, Oh, I'm so sorry, you're not pleading guilty to a murder charge, we know that I'm sorry. Can just be an expression of regret or of fellow feeling of compassion, but it happens in the workplace all the time, and the women are seen as lacking confidence, lacking even competence, because they think everything's their fault when that wasn't the meaning of I'm sorry at all. And many, many other examples of that at work. You know, the quick one I did looked a lot at telling other people what to do, and it was very common for women to do it in a roundabout sort of way. And if there was they were doing it, saying this to a woman, it was often be clear that they wanted it done, and it would be done. And women, the one to whom orders are given in that way, often appreciate it, but it can be misunderstood, especially by men who wouldn't talk in that roundabout sort of way. There too they feel like she doesn't feel she has a right to tell other people what to do. Another very quick example a college president I was speaking at the college, and she was telling me she recognized the things I was talking about that a member of the Board of Trustees guy overheard her say to her assistant something like, Could you do me a favor? And whatever she was asking. He took her aside and said, Don't forget, you're the president. He thought that she was showing one downing her confidence.
Yeah, he thought she was one downing herself.
Yeah, taking Can you do me a favor? What? And she told me the story in front of her assistant, who said, I appreciate that. She just says it that way. And what I really love we make these conclusions about other people's intentions, you know, and abilities. So I'm often told, well, she's trying to put herself down thinking of what it says about her internal state, whereas often what it is is focused on the other person's internal state, talking in a way that won't make the other person feel that they, you know, are one down because they have to take orders from you. Last comment about that, a woman commented to me, you know, he thinks I lack confidence. It's because I'm so confident that I don't have to push my weight around. I know she has to do what I tell her, so I don't have to rub her nose that it the river custom can be significant in the workplace, because we're constantly being judged.
It's so it's it's so complicated. I think what you're, what I'm gathering from, you know these examples is it's never just one way of looking at something. Why somebody says something to us could be based on any number of factors or combination of factors. It could be they're saying it because they want to push their weight around, or they say it that way because they don't want to push their weight around. Or they say it because they are, you know, trying to have connection with us. And so, you know, it's, it becomes, how do you interpret? But I think women, in particular, because of the way we're raised, have kind of this overactive interpretive sense, because we, we are not allowed. Be aggressive, for example. And you know, if you imagine women, girl, young girls in, say, middle school or high school, and the ways that girls interact and the ways that girls are socialized, I think that we're always over interpreting, and sometimes there's nothing to over interpret. I don't know if you found something in that realm.
Bossy at ten, and what the word turns into
25:22
Well, first of all, to your first point. Yes, we think we know what people are, what they mean, and what it says about them, because we know what we would mean if we said that thing in that way, in that context. But because styles are different, it may not mean that. And yes, there are many, many different meanings. Often, though it's hinging on, are you looking at it from the point of, who's up, who's down? Or are you looking at it from the point of, are we closer distance? So? So that difference, I think, often, often plays out. Why do women in particular find it so difficult to put yourself forward. It really does trace to the way we're socialized as kids. The boy who tells the other boys what to do, he's the leader. His status goes up. The girl who's telling the other girls what to do is bossy, and they don't want to play with her, so girls have to learn ways to make known what they want without making it, without seeming bossy. And I think we're all because when you're a kid, it's bossy, and when you're an adult, it's that other word that starts with B, right?
And how does that play out? You know, fast forward to adulthood, to the business world, or then the world of running one's own business. What are the ways that we might adjust around that conditioning that we got
so early? I think partly one has to just be aware of the differences, because women do have to walk a fine line. I mean, I can't tell women to just go in and start talking like the guys. When a woman does it, it's going to be come across very differently we and it's not that all women talk in this way, absolutely not, but we are judged by how people expect us to talk and so so the solution is to get something, something in between, sometimes communicating and writing can help. Send an email so that you've you've got it in writing. That some people find that easier than trying to make a demand voice to voice. Another thing is make people aware. It's, again, this is a larger organization. We don't like to be seen as boasting, but find a way to let people know what you've accomplished. And interestingly, it's very common that women don't do well in an organization because they're seen as lacking whatever is needed. And then they start their own businesses, and they do just that, and do it really well, yeah,
well, and all those communication styles and the way that you are judged, and you know how your communication is received when you're in a company which is a very hierarchical environment. What I see is that oftentimes when women start their own businesses, even though they're not subject to that same hierarchy, that same judgment, they still there are remnants of it. And so I see that they hold back, or they don't follow up, or they don't, you know, quote, unquote, tooth their own horn, because the memories, you know, some type of, you know, emotional memory of that is so
strong, speaking habits are very, very, very ingrained. You've been doing it that way your whole life. And I think many women have an instinctive resistance to something that we're going to be criticized for. So being pushy, being being aggressive, being bossy, these are all things that we would have been criticized for and may have been criticized for still. So those are the things that I think women often find hard, that what you're calling tooting your own horn, let it be known what you what you're good at not call back, because you don't want to be a pest when maybe you should call back.
Why following up feels like being a pest
29:09
Oh, that happens all the time. I mean, I have a whole thing about how to follow up without feeling like you're bugging somebody, because there's nothing that says you are bugging somebody. But we believe that we're going to be annoying. We believe that we are somehow imposing. Who are we to take up space in this other person's inbox? Right? And to me, it's to me, it's all part of I sort of see it in the context of this one up, one down concept, if you you know, the way I have interpreted it is that selling feels so uncomfortable because we find ourselves in a one down position, and we put the other person in a one up position, either by believing that they have all the power, or both by believing that they must know better than we do, or they have a bigger title, or what have you. And that feeling of being one down. Feels so uncomfortable, but the feeling of being one up feels uncomfortable when you put yourself artificially in a one up position. It makes you feel salesy. It makes you feel like you're being too aggressive. It goes against everything that we've been conditioned to do as women. And in my opinion, the opposite of feeling one down or being one down is to put yourself in a peer level. And in my experience, in the way I sort of teach it with my clients, is you can do that using language. I think the power, I mean, I learned from you how powerful language can be. And I think that we teach other people how to think about us with the words we use.
There's something you're reminding me of when I asked a lot of the work I did was with the mid manager level, and then I also talked to everybody above them and below them. When I asked men, what makes a good manager, most often, what I heard is, I hire good people and get out of their way. What I heard most often from women was I treat the people who work for me like equals? No, well, what I think is this value that's placed on what you're kind of talking about, don't put yourself up. That's bad to put yourself up. But if you say, I treat them like equals, you're acknowledging they're not equals, and that is very typical, again, for the way girls operate. It's not that there aren't high status girls and low status girls. The girls know who's high status and who's low status, but the girls who are high status are supposed to talk in a way that doesn't flaunt their status, and they don't have to because it's there. So they might say something like, let's the girls tend somebody study this. Girls, let's do something. Well, if she's high status, they're going to do what she suggested. If you're low status, they won't. But they didn't say, go over there. Give me that which we do see the see the boys doing so, I think just knowing what's motivating it, I think can help give you the courage, maybe the audacity, to try doing it the other way, I think getting back to what you said about about you don't want to call back, because you don't want to be a pest, I think many women also think you must be mad at me. I must have done something wrong. He probably, probably what I said wasn't, and it may just be that he forgot he's busy.
The slide projector, and the hundred reasons it isn't you
32:31
There's this analogy I use. You remember the slide projectors, like the donut of slides, right? Well, so one slide drops, and you only see that one slide because the light passes through that slide right? But while that slide is down, you don't see any of their slides. And so I always think, I always invite my my students to say, Okay, so the one thing that you come up with is that they're somehow mad at you. You've done something wrong, you've priced yourself too high, you followed up too fast, or, you know, some offense that you have committed. But I bet if we sat down, we could come up with a list of 100 reasons why we didn't get back to you. There was probably, you know, a fire drill at work, or, you know, I mean, I just busy, just there. Yeah, they're totally busy. Maybe their children are having trouble at school. Maybe they have an aging parent that they're taking care of. Maybe they went on vacation, maybe, and maybe, maybe, maybe, right? But we, as, and I see this mostly as with women. We believe that, you know, because we're not getting any communication back, that we've we've done something wrong, and which puts us even what we feel is even lower in the hierarchy.
Nothing is true of all women
33:34
Yeah, and I want to really emphasize nothing is true of all women. Nothing is true of all men. When we say women are like this, men are like that. It's not 100% versus 0% we're talking about inclinations, patterns and all these other cultural influences play a role too. African American women tell me they run into this. You talk in a more assertive way, and you get in trouble, you get negative reactions from people. So it isn't that all women talk a particular way, it's that we are expected to, and we need to be aware of that, and when we decide what we're going to do to get a better result.
Yes, well, and you had, I want to go back to what we said about I think what you said is you have to look at the intention of what's being said, or I forgot exactly how you said it, but like, what's the feeling behind why you you say something? And what I see with a lot of women business owners, especially the ones who feel uncomfortable selling, which is, you know, a fair number, a fair percentage, the in the feeling behind any communication is, you know, back to this one down position. It's, I can't say this, I can't push this, I can't follow up. I can't It's this feeling of just tremendous discomfort. And I think language holds clues right? And if the language that you use holds clues about your own discomfort, because maybe you soften something too much, maybe you're really indirect. Maybe. To leave it vague when really, you know, as the service provider, it's better if you're clear. I just I have to believe that language is so powerful that we have to be really mindful of what, how we are teaching people how to think about us, and how we are maybe betraying our own I don't know, our own insecurities, our own fears. I don't know. Maybe this is just my personal interpretation, but I'm wondering, you know, if
there's anything to that, I'm inclined to say we all have insecurities and fears, but different ways of showing it. So the person, maybe a guy, coming out all blustery, that may be because of their their insecurities and their fears and but I think it's really important to keep in mind you need to have antenna, not just about your style, but the style of a person you're speaking to. So there maybe you have some clients who respond really well to your being relatively indirect, to your not calling back too soon, for your being self deprecating, and then there may be others who dismiss you if you talk that way. So it's not it's not straightforward, that what you always need to do is push yourself to you know, maybe what they say now, lean in, but that sometimes that will not work. And so it's the antenna to perceive how people are reacting to you. I think
Antenna, and reading the room as a strength
36:24
you're totally right, and I think it's such a good point, because I think it's what makes a lot of the women that I work with actually very good at selling a lot better than they think, because they are reading the room. They are picking up what what the other person needs, right? So I know one of my clients is in Alabama, and it's very important to show deference. It's very important to use, you know, softeners and indirect language, whereas another one of my clients is in, like, a very high powered, like, media world where, like, they don't have time for it, you know, like, tell it to me in five seconds are like we're done, right? And so it really does depend. And I think that you're right, women actually have more of a sense of this than they think, because we have this little spidey sense, this antenna that you're talking about on how is what I'm about to say
going to be received? No, I love that point. Build on strengths, and in a way, being attuned to how other people are reacting and they're feeling that could be a strength, especially if you can stop yourself from turning on yourself as criticism, but so you see something's not right here, and try to stop yourself from immediately thinking, What did I do wrong? But what could I do differently because of something about our how our styles interact?
"Thank you for taking the time"
37:51
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I do think there's, there's some I don't know. The example I always go back to which I see a lot of my clients before they come to me, is this phrase. It's so simple and it seems so benign, but thank you for taking the time to meet with me. What I see in your face, what what do you hear in that what do you hear in that phrase? I will share what I hear, but I want to hear what you is
that something that people often
say, oh my gosh, all the time. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. Thank you for taking the time to chat with me all the time.
And do you recommend doing it or
not doing it? Okay? So, so to me, that phrase indicates that somebody else's time, the other person's time, is more valuable than your own. Yes, and okay, okay, so I've got that right?
And so as soon as you're in the in the position of thanking someone, you're positioning them as having the power to do something for you for which you're grateful. So okay, I'm so happy.
That means that the way I have interpreted, what I what I read from you, is correct. Okay, good, and, and, so what I advise my clients is, how can you well, you know, we're so accustomed to saying thank you, but what are you thanking them for? Thanks for a great meeting, thanks for a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. I feel like we put some great ideas together. To me, a phrase like that puts you at a peer level and doesn't put the person, the other person, in the one up position.
That's great advice. I'm really insightful. I never thought of that particular thing. But you're you're absolutely right.
Wow. Thank you. I really that means a lot to me to hear you say that well. So if a woman who is listening to this feels uncomfortable, maybe in sales conversations, conversations with potential clients, or in following up, or, you know, any number of ways that we communicate with people who we're. Want to work with what's one thing that you would advise
her try to think how you would interpret it if you were in the other position. So you're afraid to call again, because you're going to be a pest. How would you feel if you were had talked to somebody and they call it again. You might feel good. They're interested in me. Good they have I'm still on their mind. They haven't forgotten me. So sometimes just thinking of it from the point of view of the other person is enough to get you past thinking negatively about your own motives and actions. I love it. I think that's
such great advice. Dr Tannen, where can people stay apprised of what you're working on? Where can they learn about you point us in the right direction?
Yes, have a website. It is. Deborahtannin.com, my work on the everything I've written about the workplace comes from the book called talking from nine to five women and men at work. I do have that long article on the Harvard Business Review, which is based on that book, and they keep, they keep printing it in various handbooks. Yeah, What Every Woman Should Know and that kind of thing, yeah.
When I saw, when I read that for the first time, and then I saw that it was written in like 1995 I couldn't believe it, because it is so real and resonant for right now. I mean, I read it, I don't know how many years ago,
but still, yeah and yeah, just a couple years ago. It was published again by the Harvard Business Review Press. What Every Woman in the workplace needs to know. My most recent book, though, is not even about how people communicate. It's about my father's life and my relationship with my father. That book is called Finding my father, not that I lost him, but that he was as so many fathers are never there when I was a kid out working all the time. But the subtitle kind of tells what it's all about his century long journey from World War One Warsaw and my quest to follow. So my father was born in Warsaw in a Hasidic family. Wow. So Hasidic Warsaw, he had extremely detailed memories, and so part of the fun of the book is how he recreates that world. But he came to the United States when he was 12, and so he had no accent, and I didn't really think of him as an immigrant. I knew he was born elsewhere, but didn't really think about it that way. But he lived to be 98 and so the story of his life is kind of the story of the 20th century.
Wow, that's awesome, finding my father that what a wonderful story. Well, Dr tan, and thank you so much for joining me. Thank you. This has been such a pleasure, and certainly one of the highlights of the work that I've been doing. And thank you so much for taking the time, actually, you know what I do? See what I just did there. Thank you so much for taking the time. Oh my gosh.
See, for the work you're doing, you want to do that, even if you don't think people are such big deals. You want to make them feel like a big deal.
Well, to me, you are a big deal. Thank you for taking the time and spending the time with me.
It's really been a pleasure to talk to you.
My take: you didn't do anything wrong
43:23
All right, I love this conversation, like talking to one of my idols. It was awesome. And by the way, she is lovely, even from you know what you weren't able to hear here, like when we were just talking before we started the recording, she is just so lovely. And seriously, I could listen to her share examples all day, because each linguistic example has just so many layers of meaning and intention. And I just think this stuff is so cool. So there's a lot we could pull out of this conversation, but I just want to hit one point home, which is that language has the power to change the dynamic between you and another person. And for the purposes of our work here, the person, or people that we're talking about are your potential clients. So language has the power to change the dynamic between you and your potential client so that you feel more comfortable in the sales process. And the way we do that, at least in the methodology I share with my clients in the academy is by establishing more of a peer dynamic. If you listened to the episode just before this, it touches on this concept, because the client I'm talking to in that episode was being treated like an employee, and she needed to establish a new dynamic where she was treated more like an expert, and language is one really powerful way to do that, because we can teach people how to think about us and how to treat us with the language that we use. So that's why Dr tannins work on language and dynamics is so important to the ability to work with clients in the sales process. So what can we do with all of that? Right? Do I want you to walk away with? And again, there are a lot of little nuggets in this conversation, but the one I want to pull out here is when Dr tannin said, if you can stop yourself from thinking you did something wrong, so many of the women I talked to believe that if they didn't get a response back from a potential client. So to put it in sociolinguistics terms, if they didn't get communication back, then that means that they did something wrong, like, we've offended the other person in some way, but unless you really did do something wrong, like, unless you, you know, slapped your potential client's mother or something, you probably didn't do anything or say anything wrong, but I think so many of us want so badly to get it right. And you know, when it comes to selling, we're a little unsure of how to do that, that we're almost like bracing ourselves for having done something wrong, and that can really stifle your ability to show up as a peer to your clients, it can keep you from showing up as yourself, and it can make you shrink back, you know, not just with that one potential client, but in your conversations and interactions with all potential clients. So just remember, yes, of course, pay attention to the language that you use and think about how you're teaching clients to think about you and how to treat you, and also remember that if you're not getting any communication back, you didn't do anything wrong. Hey, everything we're talking about in this episode is part of the system women like you are learning in the academy. In the Academy, we help women consultants install the two systems every B to B consultant needs a marketing system to consistently attract the right clients and a sales system to lead a sales process to a yes and get paid more for every contract. So even if you've only gotten clients through referrals or word of mouth in the academy, you'll learn how to attract and sign clients outside your network, how to lead a sales process with confidence, and how to get paid for your value, not your time. And there's no cold calling or cold emailing involved, no changing your services or making a course, and you won't use any pushy sales tactics. That's just not our vibe. So if you like what you've heard here, the academy may be your right next step to learn how you can get these two systems in your consulting business and make progress faster and with fewer roadblocks. Head to smart gets paid.com/academy and apply and we can chat about next steps. All right. See you over there. You. Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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