I learnt some of these principles I am about to share from my mother. Like so many people, my background and upbringing have shaped me. There are certain things we just pick up in growing up. There are certain principles we didn’t even read from books but which we are now writing into books. My mum likes to get things done without spending too much of cash. If she has to spend at all, she would prefer to pay a fair amount. She got a lot of things done so cheap! When I read her life like a book; I discovered that she knows how to make friends easily. She can make friend with a stranger in a blink! In getting her things done; she persuades people. Sometimes, it can be embarrassing because she will just apply this principle on anyone at anywhere. She just doesn’t care what you think of her.
Enough on my mother! If I ask you to take an inventory of your life right now, if you were to make a list of all your previous transactions, all the deals you’ve ever involved in. Is there anything you can find that you have bought that you could have gotten for free? What got in your way? Could it be your ego, Pride, class, or status? What were the things you bought recently? How much did you spend on each? Who could you have spoken to, that may have given you one or two of those items for free? Who in your network is able to give you things you may need next time? How will you prepare yourself, how will you package your request? Do you know how to deliver a speech delivery in order to make your request granted? Do you know what to do so that the other party will not say no to you?
The problem sometimes is in how we package our words...it is in how we ask what we ask for. Yes, I still make a mistake in this area myself. For instance, I ask hurriedly, I ask when my target is too stressed. I asked when my giver has nothing to give in some situation. I don’t wait patiently enough for the person to process my request positively. Sometimes I even want it right now! I could have asked for things that I have not earned enough trust to receive. Every now and then; I get into bumps like these and I get a no because I asked amiss. Sometimes, when we ask different things consistently from the same person, the person may feel overburdened and overwhelmed by our series of requests. That is why our approach matters. I am still learning how well to ask without getting a no from people. It may mean that I will need to become better at my negotiation skills. It may mean that I will have to stop asking desperately. It may mean that I will find a common ground. It may mean that I will need to think win-win more than ever before. It may mean that I will have to learn how my request will benefit the other party before I even make that request at all. That way, it will be a super win-win deal for us both.
Summarily, there are three vital aspects of getting things done without spending cash:
#1. Negotiation
#2. Speech delivery,
#3. Relationship
Negotiation: Here, we are concerned with details of the cost. What is the price? What is the amount required to get that thing done? What is the bargaining power involved? What is the amount on you as a potential buyer with which you want to trade? What is the flat rate? What is the industry price? Your target here is never to provoke the other party because you want to get things done for free or cheap.
Speech delivery: Here we want to know how to say what we want to say. What are the ways to package our words in such a way that it will be appealing to the listener? How can we avoid asking like a beggar? Sometimes, depending on the situation at hand; I will literarily beg the other person if I know that I have not been able to earn trust up to that time. We are concerned with the time that we must ask and the moments we don’t have to ask especially if for any reason the other person is biased, angry, et.al. When do we stop begging and start asking like we are actually making a fair offer? When do we start asking like we are trying to help the other party? It is in being flexible, sensitive enough to know the right time, the right mood, the right person, the understanding of the temperament before asking. When in transaction or negotiation, it is important to know what it means to be a great word processor, what it means to be a better speech packager. The writer of the book written to the Colossians wrote: “Let your words be seasoned with salt and grace that you might know how to answer every man accordingly.”
Relationship: Here we concerned about who we are dealing with? How long have we known the fellow? What have you done personally for the person? Were they things that count as great deposit in terms of their emotional bank account? Sometimes we think we have earned enough trust in a relationship but we are only presumptuous and full of assumptions because the other party don’t see things the same way. We need to understand what kind of person we are dealing with? We need to know what makes the person tick. We must find out what puts them on and off? Understanding how to earn trust. It will make us have access to people and with people. And that access is very important. Once it is abused. There is no remedy. And that is the thing that determines if people will do things for you for free or not. I would rather beg if I knew that I don’t fall into a person’s good book, rather than become so forceful in my request. If you don’t want to continue receiving a negative response in getting things done for free; you need to pay more attention to your relationships and how you ask. Queen Esther knew how to ask and when to ask for the lives of the Jews from the king Ahasuerus; when Hamman, a certain officer wanted to destroy them.
The relationship you create, nurture and sustain will bring everything to you for free. The bond we have with someone will determine if we will be able to get things done through them for free. So you may want to ask: what is bond or bonding? How do we create that? A bond is when the chemistry becomes one in any relationship. When your personality, ideology, perception, paradigm, perspective, principles, beliefs and sometimes behaviour; seem aligned with another person’s. Then you are able to relate better. Then we can say that there is a bonding between you both.
I am still learning how to make friends and influence people every day. I learnt from Dale Carnegie's book some principles of creating relationship. However, I have learnt over the years how important it is, to keep and sustain these relationships I create. I also discovered that in trying to keep relationships, not all relationships are worth keeping. Some like bread grow moulds and they can't be kept. In so doing, I have learnt how to sustain friendship with only people that matter to my destiny and life callings. I have learnt in a hard way how to let go of difficult people from my network. The reason is because you cannot carry everybody in the course of your life. That will sap you of energy if you are trying to carry difficult people along at all cost. Some people are opinionated; there are prejudiced people. There are biased, parochial people. There are racist. There are difficult people. These are people you will never be able to form any bonding with. They wouldn’t understand you. No matter how much you try. They won’t give you the benefits of the doubt, so why try?
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