Taking Control & Giving Up Your Power
- Dan Greenberg
- Jun 7, 2024
- 6 min read
Taking control of a meeting is not easy. Many sales books talk about how important it is to keep control of encounters. Very few talk about how to do it. Emotional IQ, and perceptiveness of the buyers’ emotional states at any given time go a long way to giving sellers clues about how to handle situations. But it is easy to get caught up in the nuance of power dynamics and forget that sometimes taking control is as simple as dictating the setting, the agenda, or the format of the meeting.
In the early stages of a relationship it is hard to get a sense of individual buyers and what incentivizes them, but there are advantages as well. In the early stages of a sales process the buyer does not yet know how interested they are in pursuing the relationship. Because of this, buyers often choose not to assert themselves, which leaves the door wide open for the seller to take control and it is important to do so. Chet Holmes, author of “The Ultimate Sales Machine”, and architect of many well known sales team success stories, goes to great length in his book to explain that if the buyer controls the meeting or the process, the sale is very unlikely to happen.
Due to the inherent limitations of knowledge early in the sales process, it is important to seize the opportunity to take control over meetings and interactions in the most simple way possible. This means things like asking people to sit in certain spots, setting the agenda and talking through the goals and planned outcomes of the interaction, and dictating how the current interaction should fit into the broader relationship.
It is important to iterate defensible reasons for taking control and for individual asks. An example would be asking a group to get up and stretch because a meeting has been going on for a long time, and dictating that the meeting will resume in 15 minutes. It is important to look for buy-in from others once you have asserted control, but the best way to ensure that the buy-in will happen is by displaying calm and confidence as you assert yourself.
I have laid out some simple strategies for taking control in the early stages of relationships, and I will cover the more nuanced latter stages in a later blog. For now, let’s move on to giving up power strategically which is even more tricky. Giving up power on your own terms can be a very useful tool for a seller. It can be used to draw out information, as well as to increase long term ability to hold onto power. In order to give up some power, you need to be in control in the first place, which we covered above. Control allows you, as a seller, to frame the interaction as a situation where there is a mutual benefit to be achieved rather than a situation where you are need them and their money, which automatically makes people run the other way. However, there are times where strategically giving up control makes sense, and I want to briefly touch on two of them.
Here is the first: Many buy-side participants in the sales process are interested in power, status, and playing the alpha role either by rote, or because they care about how they are perceived internally by their own buying organization. This means that in practice, they don’t actually need to be the alpha in the room, so long as they preserve their alpha status relative to the buying organization. This reality can work nicely with the incentives on both sides of the table. You, as the seller, can ask questions that you know to be well within the domain of expertise of the individual trying to retain that status. Further, you can direct those questions at the alpha, and comment on the alpha’s ability to help move the process along given their expertise and handle on the situation.
When questions like these are asked, it is important to step back and create space for the alpha to answer. If you try to step back in before they are done, you will just end up ruffling feathers and alerting their conscious brain to the fact that there is a power struggle going on, which will cause them to entrench and make your situation tougher. If you do allow the alpha to talk through the answer and the situation and allow the alpha to lead for a couple of minutes, often, they will simply hand the floor back to you when they are done because they feel less threatened. But even if they don’t, you will be free to take control back and move to whatever topic makes sense as soon as the issue that you passed to the alpha is covered. Your voluntary relinquishment of control will give you license to take it back when you need it.
It is important to be aware of when you are doing this. Pick your spots and do it at a time where there is not already an active power struggle taking place. If you do it in one of these moments, you may lose it for good. You also want to make sure that you do not do it in a situation where two hopeful alphas, both on the buying side, are engaged in their own struggle, because they will use the opportunity to drag the group into their battle. The point is to look for opportunities where you are completely in control, and then voluntarily give up power in a very well defined and well structured way so that you have the ability to get it back. Doing this from time to time will keep alphas on the other side of the table at bay and help you in the long run. It will also help enhance your respect and trust amongst the rest of the group as you position yourself as more of a seamless cohesive entity with the buying organization.
Here is the second: In many scenarios it is important to keep control in order to keep a firm grip on power. One useful tool when trying to hold onto power is asking leading and assumptive questions, and limiting the scope of possible answers in order to stay in the driver’s seat. But, as mentioned above, there are also times when it is important to give up power in order to get information. Once you ask a good open ended question to a truly receptive client, try to indicate that you have handed over control of the conversation to them on your own terms. Let them know that you are looking for their guidance as to where to take the conversation because you are an expert in the industry and the tools that clients use, but only they are an expert in their business and where they truly want to get to.
This proactive relinquishment of control gives the client license to be more open, but it also gives you the opportunity to reassert yourself later when the conversation shifts again. It is important not to be afraid to give up control at these moments in the sales process, because if you don’t give up control at some point, you will have trouble opening the buyer up to a point where they will really share with you.
The best times to give up control and ask truly open ended questions are one-on-one or in small group settings. It is also good to think about doing it in conversational and social settings. These commitments to learning through giving up control will give you the ability to keep control later on in the large group meetings and presentations where keeping control is more necessary and beneficial to the process.
Give up some of your power sometimes; but only on your terms so that you can get it back when you need it.
Give up power when you need it least.
Give up power in order to gain respect and trust, and a firm grip power in the long run
Give up power because deep down it sends a signal to other people that you don’t need it, and that keeps you in power over the long run.
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