A field technique on how to ask for help
Picture this situation. You’re walking door to door to promote your product or service, or you need help from a colleague and are approaching that person.
How can you speak and present so that the person will be open to giving you’re their time, and be open to listening to you?
Here’s the method I recently used in promoting my Mind if I listen in? presentation.
1. Enter the premesis/approach the person. Simultaneously fully face the person, hold eye contact and smile.
2. Say ‘Hi, (add their name if you know it) I wonder if you can help me out?’
3. Then P-A-U-S-E, for a second or two.*
4. The person will say something like, “Sure”, “Well, let’s see”, “Maybe”.
5. Then you ask for help. I said the following as I walked door to door to shops and offices along Sydney’s North Shore.
“Hi I wonder if you can help me out . . . I’m delivering a business seminar for the Ku-ring-gai Council at the Roseville Golf Club in two weeks time. I’d like to invite the owner of the business to attend.”
Your Call to action/How to apply for this post: When you need to ask for help, adapt the above steps to suit your style, words and syntax.
*I observe that many people rush when asking for help. Honoring silence during this pause – to give the person time to respond – is very important for projecting a sense of certainty – the certainty, that the person will be open to listening to what you have to say.