What’s Left Out of the Story
Karl Hockenbarger emailed me an interesting comment after reading my article Hindsight Isn’t Perfect When Selling Professional Services, which was published in Business KnowHow.
Here is Karl’s comment:
What is left out of the story is often more telling than the story itself, and relates precisely to the purpose of telling the story.
I was executive director of a not-for-profit which assisted inmates in a state prison during their last year before parole eligibility to support their transition from “inside” to “outside” life (an unofficial precursor to today’s focus on re-entry). The Chairman of my Board of Directors was a successful real-estate developer specializing in strip malls. He totally disapproved of my wearing a cowboy hat and boots. To make his point of how inappropriate my dress was for an executive position he told the story of one of his deals in which the loan officer of the bank they were approaching for funding opened the branch office on a Saturday morning to meet with my boss and his partner. My boss showed up in a business suit, the banker in his golf shirt, and the builder partner in muddy work boots, blue jeans, and a T-shirt. My boss was mortified. (end of story)
I asked if they got the loan, which they did. Suddenly his attitude toward my dress changed, although I did put the hat in its box in the closet, when he realized that his partner showing up straight from the work site gave credibility to their efforts instead of showing disrespect to the banker, just as my boots were part of the uniform of the corrections officials we worked with.
Did John correct the perception that this one account was his sole pursuit? Without feedback COmmunication becomes SOLOmunication.