demanding a ransom. And we never had it backfire.
Once I was working with an accounting consultant
named Kelly who was owed a pile of money by a corporate
client. She kept consulting because she believed she was
developing a useful contact, and because the promise of a
future payday seemed to justify continuing in good faith.
But at a certain point Kelly was so far behind on her own
bills that she was in a bind. She couldn’t continue to work
with only a vague idea of when she’d get paid, but she
worried that if she pushed too hard she wouldn’t get paid at
all.
I told her to wait until the client asked for more work,
because if she made a firm payment demand right away she
would be vulnerable if they refused.
Luckily for Kelly, the client soon called to ask her for
more work. Once he finished his request, she calmly asked a
“How” question:
“I’d love to help,” she said, “but how am I supposed to
do that?”
By indicating her willingness to work but asking for help
finding a way to do so, she left her deadbeat customer with
no choice but to put her needs ahead of everything else.
And she got paid.
Besides saying “No,” the other key benefit of asking
“How?” is, quite literally, that it forces your counterpart to
consider and explain how a deal will be implemented. A
deal is nothing without good implementation. Poor
implementation is the cancer that eats your profits.