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{{first name | friend}}!
My consultation calls don't feel like consultations. No script, no rigid agenda, no "so tell me about your business" opener that makes someone sit up straighter and start performing.
They feel like catching up with someone I've known forever. Because that's genuinely how I show up to them.
I didn't plan this. I just noticed early on that the calls where I dropped the "professional coach" voice and talked the way I'd talk to a friend were the calls where people actually opened up. The stiff ones, the ones where I stayed polished and structured, got polished and structured answers back. Nothing real.
Here's what I think is actually happening. People mirror the energy you bring into the room. Show up formal, they perform formal. Show up like you've known each other since the 5th grade, they drop the performance too, because nobody has to keep up a version of themselves that doesn't match yours.
1 question for you:
Think about your last few calls, conversations, or consultations. Were you talking at someone, or talking with them like you already know each other?
2 things I keep coming back to:
Rapport isn't built with rapport-building questions. It's built by just being a person first. The "getting to know you" small talk everyone's taught to do often does the opposite of what it's meant to.
Formality is a wall, even when it's polite. The more "professional" I try to sound, the more distance I accidentally put between me and whoever I'm talking to.
3 things about talking like besties instead of strangers:
Drop the script, drop the performance. Nobody talks to their best friend with a mental agenda. Neither should you.
Match their energy, don't set the tone. If they're nervous, don't stay clinical, get warmer. Warmth is contagious faster than professionalism ever is.
The best information comes out sideways. People rarely hand you the real answer to a formal question. They hand it to you in the middle of a story you weren't even asking for.
Stephen
P.S. If a client ever tells me a call didn't feel like a consultation, I take that as the highest compliment in the business. Reply and tell me the last conversation that actually felt like that.
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