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Negative Communication Can Be the Most Positive

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Saying No Is Hard, But Often the Best Answer

Just Say NO was an anti-drug advertising campaign from the 1980s. This campaign was aimed at discouraging children from engaging in illegal drug use by offering various ways to say no. Saying no is hard to do in all sorts of situations not just drugs.

We need to initiate a “Just Say NO” campaign for other things to.

“No” is one of the first words we learn. Two-year-olds are famous for saying “no”. They use this word more than any other. It’s an easy word to say and at two, they’ve heard it as much or more than most. These toddlers are on to something; it’s okay to say NO!

As we mature, we are looking for acceptance and inclusion. One of the ways to avoid being left out is to say yes to everything. I think this is where the problem with saying “no” starts.

Not only is “no” one of the first words we learn, it’s also one of the first words we forget.

As adults we continue to want to be accepted and continue saying yes. This week one of the things on my mastermind accountability list is: Say no to at least one thing that I would normally say yes to. As I thought more about this, I realized I had written about this several times. Here is an excerpt from a post I wrote late in 2019 discussing this topic of saying “no”.

We can’t DO everything.

Our natural desire to help others is a big driving force behind too many yes’s. There are so many people with so many needs. A servant’s heart leads us to over promise. This can be controlled, but it requires intentional actions. Especially in business, we don’t want to say no to any potential opportunity. Too many yes’s is not a good way to treat customers. Trying to be everything to everybody isn’t a good business plan.

The big question is how do I know what to say yes to?

This is definitely a big question and one that’s hard to answer. As we begin to approach the end of 2019, I’m beginning to think about 2020 and all the things I want to do. As I think through the list it becomes clear that clarity is needed.

Focusing on the right yes’s is going to be my goal for 2020. After all, 2020 is perfect vision. It isn’t going to be easy, but it can be done. It will require a clear plan of what the highest priorities are and removing things from the list that don’t qualify.

Here we are, half way through the year and I don’t feel that I’ve done a very good job of being clear on my yes’s and saying no. I can’t change the past only the future. The process of growing and improving is a never ending one and we will never be perfect at it this side of heaven.

I can either quit trying or keep working at getting better.

A few weeks ago, in one of our mastermind meetings Ray Edwards said something that I’ve heard several times before but sums this up well.

“You can do ANYTHING you want; you just can’t do EVERYTHING you want.”

What am I going to say “NO” to this week?

What are you going to say “NO” to this week?

Share your “NOs” in the comments below.

The Most Positive Communication Can Be Negative

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An Honest No Is Better Than A Yes That’s Really A Maybe

 

Why is it that we say yes to more than we can possibly do? This trying to spin too many plates is a common problem. It’s a problem that’s thousands of years old. In Exodus 18:13-23 Moses’s father-in-law tells him to stop trying to do everything by himself.


Being too busy is no one’s fault but our own. I do think that overscheduling can push us to accomplish more than we would otherwise, but we take it way too far. There are too many puzzle pieces to fit in our puzzle no matter how hard we push. So many important things that need done, but…

 


We can’t DO everything.


Our natural desire to help others is a big driving force behind too many yes’s. There are so many people with so many needs. A servant’s heart leads us to over promise. This can be controlled, but it requires intentional actions. Especially in business, we don’t want to say no to any potential opportunity. Too many yes’s is not a good way to treat customers. Trying to be everything to everybody isn’t a good business plan.


We can’t BE everything to everybody.


Trying to DO EVERYTHING for EVERYBODY has been something that I have always struggled with. There’s just so many great things to be done and someone needs to do them. It never works any time anybody tries it. We have to learn to say no.

 


The big question is how do I know what to say yes to?


This is definitely a big question and one that’s hard to answer. As we begin to approach the end of 2019, I’m beginning to think about 2020 and all the things I want to do. As I think through the list it becomes clear that clarity is needed.


Focusing on the right yes’s is going to be my goal for 2020. After all, 2020 is perfect vision. It isn’t going to be easy, but it can be done. It will require a clear plan of what the highest priorities are and removing things from the list that don’t qualify.

 


There are a lot of good yes’s but only one best yes.


I’ve been thinking forward through the long list of things that I want to do. All things that are good and important, but there are too many to do them all. With God as the Chairman of my Board of Directors, I’m confident that we can get a clear vision for 2020.


There are some new and exciting things on the horizon for this next year. I’m excited and ready to get started.

 

Honesty Is the Best Policy – I Don’t Care How Hard It Is

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How to Create Realistic Expectations for Customers – Part 2

 

Last week we discussed the importance of communication to creating realistic expectations for customers. This week we will look at three more things that need to be addressed to provide customers with a WOW rather than a woops experience.

 

 

 

• Everything takes longer than you think

There’s a lot of information out there about this. It is a very common problem. The planning fallacy gives some explanation, but I think it is more than this. I think many of us have a desire to help others and in an effort to fulfill expectations we over promise, which leads to under delivery. Especially when doing a construction project with all the pieces that have to fit together. Many of these things are out of my control which makes planning and scheduling more difficult. In an article by Emily Guy Birken she tells of a contractor friend who has come up with “a formula for figuring out a more realistic time frame: Double the number and go to the next unit of time for your estimate. For instance, if you believe your kitchen renovation will take two weeks, according to my friend, it will actually take four months.” This seems a little extreme, but I know everything takes longer than expected.

Solution – There are formulas and systems for determining an accurate amount of time needed to do the work. It will take some experimenting to get a realistic projection for the time to do a project. (Even if it is as extreme as the example above.) Be open and honest with yourself and your customer. It would be better to tell them the longer time in the beginning. This goes for the designing and pricing stages as well. Remember that most generally customers aren’t as familiar with the construction process as contractors, and this makes the realistic time gap even wider.

 

 

• Saying yes to too many things

There are so many things that I want to do. So many great wonderful important things. With all these things drawing us to them with overpowering magnetic force we get stuck and can’t move fast enough or far enough to get away from the pull. Mistake #2 of Michael Hyatt’s blog post “The 10 Biggest Mistakes People Make in Setting Goals” is creating too many goals. He quotes the old Chinese proverb, “Man who chases two rabbits catches neither”. I think chasing too many rabbits is what causes us to us to get lost on rabbit trails.

 

Solution – This solution is simple…say NO. This will be the hardest one to do. Those of us that want to help others struggle with this a lot. In 2014 we did the “Best Yes” study by Lysa Terkhurst at church. She said “Whenever you say yes to something, there is less of you for something else. Make sure your yes is worth the less.” We have to find our specific purpose. Then we have to focus on that. We have to be honest with ourselves so that we can create realistic expectations for customers.

 

 

• Details are worth the wait


Another thing that takes time is craftsmanship. I’ve heard people use the saying, “we’re not building a piano” when trying to move a project forward faster. This may have been true, but I believe we should give the same level of intentional care to building someone’s dream as to building a piano. People have different levels of expected quality. Being a recovering perfectionist, I ‘m going to naturally move toward that. Others may not be expecting that level of quality.

 

Solution – Each customer’s expectations need to be determined early in the process so that the length of time can be determined and communicated. This is one of the hardest to determine. Often, they don’t even know what makes one thing quality and another not. It takes time to build a piano or a dream and we need to help them determine what quality of dream they want to build.

 

 

It’s hard to tell people things they don’t want to hear. That a project is going to take longer than they expected is one of those things. Communicate with them. Be honest about the time needed. Say NO if it doesn’t fit your purpose. Quality takes time.

 

If we aren’t honest with ourselves and others then we are creating unrealistic expectations for everyone involved.

Feel free to share examples of unrealistic expectations in the comments below.