Aikido and The Art of Cold Calling

Imagine being in a crowded concert or bar. All of a sudden, a fight breaks out between two men who’ve had too much to drink.

You happen to be a few steps away, and the next thing you know, one of the men turns to you and looks as if he’s going to take a swing at you.

What's your first instinct? Most of us will do one of two things. We’ll either try to step away, or we’ll raise our arms to deflect him and fight back, which can result in harm to you or to your attacker.

But if you were trained in Aikido, the Japanese martial art that focuses on diverting an attacker’s energy, you could quickly diffuse the situation by immobilizing him without harming him in any way.

In essence, you’re diffusing the energy that he’s using to try and attack you in a way that takes the conflict out of the situation.

Unlock The Game and the philosophy behind Aikido have many similarities. Traditional cold calling and selling are designed to focus only on the “close” by presenting -- or in too many cases, “pushing” -- your solution onto prospects, sometimes even when they’re not interested. But if you focus only on your goal of making the sale before having a discussion about the problems that you can help your prospects solve, something happens.

They start feeling that you’re “attacking” them. After all, you’re a stranger to them, and when you start talking about yourself and your solution rather than about them and their specific issues, you immediately trigger their suspicion and cause them to start “pushing back.”

This pushback is the resistance or energy that Unlock The Game teaches you to diffuse. Then both of you can quickly “get on the same page” and open a natural dialogue that will let you determine whether it makes sense for you to work together.

Let's look at the cold calling experience.

Suppose you’re at your desk and you receive a call from someone who says “Hi, my name is Jack Johnson, I'm with XYZ Company, and we’re a full-solution provider of...” Is your first reaction to welcome and be open to his call? Or do your mental defenses immediately kick in and you shut down against this stranger “salesperson”?

Probably the latter, especially if you sense that the caller is focused on his interests and not yours.

That’s why this old-school cold calling approach triggers the resistance and negative energy that prospects immediately throw your way.

The Unlock The Game way to make a successful cold call -- "successful” being defined as not triggering rejection -- is by beginning your call with, “Hi, my name is Jack, maybe you can help me out for a moment?” That simple question is a very natural way of beginning a conversation with a stranger.

But you can't just read this word for word, like a script. It won’t work. That would be like an Aikido instructor teaching a first-time student the physical movements before he or she has learned the philosophy necessary to carry them out.

The same applies here. First you need to integrate a new Mindset that changes the goal of your call from making the sale, or getting an appointment, to engaging the person in a natural two-way dialogue.

To do this, your voice has to be low-key. You have to avoid communicating any hint of typical “salesperson” enthusiasm, or any sense that you’re trying to direct the conversation to an end goal. Once you integrate the Mindset, all this kicks in naturally.

So, if you want to succeed in prospecting and cold calling, become aware of how you might be triggering the resistance or energy that instinctively causes prospects to push back against you. Keep in mind that this process will work only if you fully integrate the Mindset so it feels as natural to you as breathing.

In short, if you’re using any form of traditional selling, you could be triggering a resistance every time you communicate with your prospect. But if you learn this new Mindset, along with words and phrases that remove any conflict or tension from the relationship, you’ll have taken your first steps toward your black belt in unlocking the cold calling game!

Martial Arts

Martial arts refers to various self-defense techniques, usually unarmed combat, based on skills developed in ancient China, India, Korea and Tibet. Some of the popular martial art forms include karate, kung fu, judo, tai chi chuan, sumo wrestling, aikido and tae kwon do, among others. However, in the contemporary world, martial arts are not only used for self-protection but often focus on spiritual aspects, as well as increasing self-confidence, assertiveness and concentration.

Martial arts are generally characterized according to the fighting styles i.e. striking, kicking, grappling and throwing, and weaponry. Kung fu and karate, a popular martial arts form, use striking techniques that include kicks, throws, dodges, holds, leaps and somersaults. However, tae kwon do, which originated in Korea, employs kicking, punching, and various evasive techniques. Meanwhile, grappling and throwing techniques are used mostly in sumo wrestling, aikido and judo. In sumo wrestling, huge men attempt to force each other out of the ring or bring each other to the mat by employing various grappling skills. Aikido is considered to be the gentlest martial art, and is not practiced as a competitive sport. On the other hand, judo, a popular wrestling form, attempts to turn an attacker’s force to one’s own advantage by using throwing and grappling techniques. Some martial art forms also use weapons like in fencing, banshay, Iaido, etc.

In Asia the teaching of martial arts still follows the Confucian cultural tradition of teacher-disciple apprenticeship, wherein a student is trained in a strictly hierarchical system by a master instructor. However, martial art forms in Europe are more in-tune with contemporary technology and are used as an extension to modern-day warfare. In the US, Native Americans had their own martial art forms which became obsolete with the passing of time. However, European colonists and Asian immigrants brought their own martial arts such as boxing, fencing and wrestling, which gained considerable popularity.

Traditionally, martial arts were used as a self-defense system. However, in the contemporary world, the fighting form is not only modified into various sports forms, but some of them are also used in dance-like settings as a popular style of self-expression.

Aikido and Conflict: Turning Difficult Moments into Ki Moments

One of the things that interests me most about conflict is the tendency to resist it and the ways in which this resistance causes me to miss a ki moment - a key moment, when I might respond with purpose and intention but do not. Resistance is a reactive habit. When I resist, I'm on automatic, and I fail to spot the opportunity to respond with the conscious engagement of being fully present.

Aikido - the martial art I practice and teach - suggests that resistance escalates conflict. When I push, the conflict pushes back. Aikido replaces resistance with alignment and redirection. I change my view from "this person is attacking me" to "this person is offering energy that I can use."

Aikido (pronounced eye-key-doe) is Japanese for "the way of blending with energy." Ki means universal energy or life force. Ki Moments are those in which we are fully aware of our life force and our ability to influence our environment.

In aikido, the attack is inevitable, a part of life. We can influence the outcome of the attack by the way in which we engage and direct it. Will I resist and create a contest, ensuring a win-lose outcome? Or will I practice aikido and transform the attack into a gift of energy? How do I make these choices when I am feeling attacked?

To begin:

• Have a positive and useful purpose. Without a purpose to guide us in the conflict, we end up falling back on habitual patterns of reaction. Refocusing on purpose answers the question "What am I really going for here?" and directs the conflict toward a useful outcome.
• Practice skills and techniques that move us toward our purpose. We have reactive habits that - in the heat of the moment - take us away from the goal. Changing our conflict "habits" requires skill building, practice and persistent application.

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Managing Emotions: Begin with Self-Awareness and Self-Management

"This being human is a guest-house
Every morning a new arrival."
-- From: Say I Am You, Poems of Rumi Translated by John Moyne and Coleman Barks
I turned around in my kitchen and walked into the open dishwasher, cracking my shin on the edge of the door. Ouch!#@%*! Pain went through my body, and my anger barometer zoomed from zero to one hundred in about two seconds. It was all I could do to keep from kicking the door. Good thing – the pent up energy in my body would have torn the door off its hinges. But I caught myself and made some better choices. I quickly put ice and arnica on my shin, drank a glass of water, and took a few deep breaths. The barometer began to drop. I still hurt, but I hadn't done any damage.
Practicing aikido on the mat, I learn to first manage myself so that I can better manage the attacker. I center and extend ki (energy, life force) in order to blend with the attacker's power and direct it toward a positive outcome. Off the mat, I can do the same. In the face-off with my dishwasher, a huge emotional attack threatened. How could I blend with that?
Emotional Intelligence (EI) – a phrase made famous by Daniel Goleman, author of many books on the subject – begins with self-awareness and self-management. Goleman writes that in high emotional states, we often get "hijacked" by the power of our feelings, but we can learn to catch ourselves and direct our emotions before they direct us. Research shows that EI can be learned and that those with high EI receive higher salaries and manage teams that regularly exceed their objectives.
When you are intentional with your emotional energy, you increase your EI, improve interpersonal interactions, and lead a happier life. Here are some thoughts that might help:
Notice, acknowledge, and honor your emotions. "Wow! I'm pretty upset. Where is this upset coming from, and what do I want to do about it?"
Breathe and Center yourself. Put a moment of awareness between the event and your action. Give yourself time to notice your emotional energy and decide what to do with it.
Act Purposefully. Putting ice and arnica on my wound aligned with my purpose. Kicking the dishwasher did not.
Emotions happen. And we can make choices about how we manage them. By gaining awareness in the heat of the moment, you will become more practiced at managing all of your emotional energy with intention and purpose.