The Flywheel / Marketing / 12 Conversations
Conversations
Talk with everyone who answers, one at a time, and learn who is ready for more.
The tool for this step
The Roundtable
Answer everyone who answers. Talk with everyone who answered, one at a time, listen to what happened to them, and learn who is ready for more.
What it is
Conversations talks with everyone who answered, one at a time, and learns who is ready for more. It is the last step of Marketing, and the one that hands people to Service.
A conversation is not a sales call. It is a person from the team listening to someone who has held the gift and wants to say something about it.
How to run it
This is the ENGAGE handoff. Service starts once some people are clearly ready and someone says go.
What you produce
The Roundtable: answer everyone who answers. Talk with everyone who answered, one at a time, listen to what happened to them, and learn who is ready for more.
Examples
“Can I write back?”
Of the people who answered the letter, a third asked the same thing: could they send a letter back? Those were the ones ready for more. The question itself went back to the Compass.
Where it goes wrong
- Selling in disguiseIf every conversation ends with a pitch, people stop answering.
- Leaving people waitingA reply three weeks later says the answer didn't matter.
- Answering with a scriptPeople can tell a script from a person. Trust lost here doesn't come back.
- Mistaking kindness for readinessPeople who were only polite will be polite in Service too. Mark them not yet.
What it hands on
The Workbench starts with each person who is ready, and what they asked for.