How To Make Strategy Sessions Less Monotonous

OK, strategy strategy, how tomake strategy sessions lessmonotonous.OK this is an objectioncoming from a client saying,I've done this before.Right I want to do this again.Last time was soboring, it's so long.And it's like we alwaysreach the same conclusion.And if somebody says that ifyou use Tony Robbins matchand mirror technique,you're like,yes, I know you'vedone it before,but you haven't done it with me.Give this a try.It will be different.It won't be monotonous.So you match the energy,you match their language.And you tell them it'sgoing to be differentand you agree with them.I know they're really boring,but not the way we do it.Well, let me askyou this question.The last time you dida strategy session,what actionable insightsdid you come up with?What did you learnabout your customersthat you didn'tunderstand before?Oh, nothing.Well, let me tell you,this last strategy sessionthat I did, here's what Ihelped the client understand.Here's what they'redoing differently.Here's how they save money.Here's how they grew.Oh, OK.Now, I'm just curious,whoever asked this question,I know you posted it on theFacebook event or insidergroup, which is this isare you running strategyeither in the corefacilitation methodor through the designsprint thing by Jake knapp?How are you runningyour strategy sessions?And tell me whythey're so boring?Hey, Chris Filippi.Hey, Felipe.I'm Nick Giovanni withthe core framework.Yes and I asked theclient for this feedback,and he said, oh, it's kindof monotonous, you know?But he already happened.Sorry, my Englishis not so good.OK it's good enoughfor me to understand.And the clientsaid, oh, I alreadyhave been throughthis process before,but with the layout changes,some layout changes.And look just prettier for me.Right and I have no responseand I said, oh, thanks, I, we'llbe better than that.Wait, wait, wait.So you ran the strategy sessionfor him and then you deliveredand then you ask for feedbackand he's like, it wasn't reallythat great.Yeah, really.So maybe you need to sharpenup your strategy skills, so,Philippe, are younew to this group?No how long you been here, man?And so you're thinking, OK.I don't know why, I don'tknow You better than this.OK you've watchedall our videos.The supplementalvideos on strategy.Yes, sir.How is it that afterall that you justmake some visual changes?Mm-hmm I think this is sorry.I think there's AI don't know.It's because it was onlineor my energy's not so.Good at the time.Yes it happened yesterday.So, OK, I see.I don't know.I'm lack of the skills yet, but.And where are you based out of?We're leaving today, Brazil.You're OK, so you'reBrazilian, yeah, yeah, OK.All right, so doing it onlineis a lot more difficultthan doing it inperson for sure,because it's hard toread people like rightnow I'm looking at a piece ofglass, not at a human being.So my energy has to be crankedup to like 25 for some of thisto transmit through the screen.And that just takesa lot of practice.And it's not for everybody.And then you can'tlike just joke around.It's just veryhard to do online,but it's I have done it before.So what we have to do is wehave to figure out a betterway for you to do this.So is it possible for youto go to the client's officeor have them cometo yours or no?And not really, becausethe state is too faris too expensive to go there.OK, OK.Let me think here,so let's bringeverybody that's doneremote sessions on strategy.Let's bring you guys online.Let's have aconversation about this.Those are you guys.Zach, is that you?Yeah, I've done several online.OK give us some tipson how you maintainthe energy, how you're ableto have some breakthroughs.Otherwise, poor Felipe isgoing to get bad reviews.Yeah, I was saying in the chat,it's still pretty challengingand I've done several and it'sstill nothing beats in person.So first of all,I try to recommendto any client wework with like we'dlike to come to youbecause we are all remote.But to answer yourquestion about tips.I was asking software,what softwareare you using every day?Do you use like somethinglike neural or real time boardto do your sessions?I'm kind of curiousbecause they'llhelp me give you some tips.Maybe Yeah.I sketch in the Illustratoritself, you know?Yeah so after that, it'slike, sorry, it can continue.No, I was going to say, Ithink using a proper softwaretool is a really good start.Like, you use something likereal time board or muralbecause it's like designfor online collaboration.So we using the URL.When we do our online sessionsand we use Zoom like we'redoing here for viewing.And Chris, you bringup a good point.I do have to likerack it up the energy,tell more jokes morelike I got to performway more than I do in person.Like I feel like I'm more ofan actor in videos, for sure.So, yeah, but you get to jumpup the energy chair doable,though.Yes, there's a coupleof things that youcan do to crank theenergy up, because Ican tell you're kind ofa low energy guy, right?Philippe, a little bit.I can dance now if you want.But you know what?But even the way that you justsaid I can dance right nowbrings a smile to my face.And I think what wehave to do is sometimeswe're intimidated by clients.We think there's a lot ridingon the line there, the client,I'm the vendor.We have a certain relationship.We'll screw that.Just have a conversationwith people.You need to connect with them.So one tip that I wouldgive to you first,and this is anybody thatwants to do this, OK,is get yourself one ofthose sit stand desktopsand crank that thing up.So you're standingand talking to them.Your energy will be different.OK that's number one.A couple of otherthings is you needto make sure your internetconnection is superblazing fast, I'll pay forthe most expensive connectionyou can get.You have to upgrade youraudio and your video gameso that you look as goodas you would in person.So I invest time and money.I look at trying to soundgood so that it connectswith people, because ifyou get that Skype voiceand it's like, oh,that's just horrible,it's like I didn'teven understand youand you would never havethat problem in person.And then use theproper tools, youmight have some kind ofremote mike, so you can get upand you can walkaround and then there'sa whiteboard behind you.You can have someprops behind youjust so like itlooks really engagingand then you have to do thecore session correctly and askthe right kinds ofquestions and notlet your clients off the hook.Typically, whathappens is if you onlytalk to one person ina strategy session,it could be wildlydifferent from itwas amazing to it was terrible.You need to get three orfour people in the roombecause you can play off theperson's the people's energy.If you don't have enoughpeople in the session,you get locked intoone answer, and if it'san answer you don't like or ifthey're stuck, you're screwed.Couple of other things, whetheryou're an English speakeror whatever language youspeak in, what I would haveis a bunch of differenttools ready to go.So you have anotherscreen or laptop,have the thesaurus thing open.So when you're doing thebrand attributes exercise,you can be a lot smarterthan you really are.You just put in somewords and you're like,oh, oh, do you mean thisword or how about this word?This is an excitingword, and you would notbe able to do that in person.So let's takeadvantage of the factthat you can control the camerasin which they look at youand you can do otherthings on the side.And you can havemore of your teamparticipate, so they'realso helping you.Maybe one person takesnotes and one person says,hey, we need tocircle back to thisbecause we wentoff on a tangent,we got to get back to it.So let's try to useas many of the toolsthat we have at our disposaland let's make a disadvantageand advantage.But I suspect we're notasking the right questions.We're not looking at the problembecause I've said this before.When you do strategy correctlyfor big or small clients,more often than not.What I do is I get a hugor I get some really lifeaffirming statementstestimonies by sayingI can't believe we've donemore in five hours than we'vedone in the last five years.Then I never thenhave to worry about.Well, it was kind of boring.We didn't do a lot.You just change some graphics.I don't think it madea difference at all.So you have to belooking for that insight.You're looking forthose gaps, ok?All right.Can I can I ask youa question to zach?Go ahead.I was like, do you agreewith Chris about that?Because what's yourexperience with school?Yeah, no, I mean, I do.I'm sure short answer is Yes.When it comes to, yeah,taking advantage of the tools.When you're doing online,there are some benefitslike, I'll slack like mycolleagues behind the scenes,like, oh, let's likewe should pivot here,or we should thinkabout this answer,and we have this resourceup, and we definitelydo all that for sure.So that's definitely a good tip.And one thing I alsowanted to mention too,like Chris talked about makingsure you're making sure youhave the right technology inplace, that's super important,but then also consideryour clients as well.You might need to helpthem learn to Zoom.But I was asking inthe life section,what about the life section?Yes do you do youdo you get the urge?OK, I know what he's asking.I heard it the first time, too.Yeah what was that?I'll tell you.OK, who is it?What's your name again?It's John.Yo Yo.OK Yo, ask this question.And here's the thing when youask a compounded question,you're bound to getdifferent answers, right?So get into the practiceof asking one question.His first question was,do you agree with chris?And then do you getthose kind of results?OK, so the first questionZach answered beautifully,and then he startedtalking about that,and then he wasn't able torespond to the second, whichis, do you get the hugs?Do you get the accolades?Do people want to throwyou over their shoulderbecause he wants to know, man?Now I want to open it up toeverybody that's done before.OK, that's fair or not.What kind of results do you getin terms of client feedback?Yes right?But, you know, it was Christian.Go ahead, Zach.Short answer is I've neverhad a client complainabout a strategy session.I do get the hugs andthe love and the embrace,and you're usually veryexcited about what happened.The next step.So I could attest to thatboth in-person and online.I've never had an unhappy clientcourt session or design screen.Cool Thanks.I'm feeling very bad right now.No, no, no.Don't go back.OK, hold on, Priscilla.Say something.Oh, I've only hadone life right now,but the woman wasvery, very happy.It made her think because alot of times she was like, huh,I didn't think this through.Let me see what you'rethinking to do here.I mean, it's a new business.They're launchinga health insurance,selling health insurance.And anyway, at the end, whenwe deliver the document,she was really amazed and shesaid it was what they had.She had taken the10,000 Small Businessescourse with Goldman Sachs.And she said, this is exactlywhat it teaches there.And I took this as areally good compliment.Mm-hmm you know,when you do it right,you surprise yourself withwhat you're able to uncoverand you can see the lightfrom the client's faceand they say itand they share it.Because you're helpingthem to uncover truth,so core isn't somuch about plantinga seed of what youwant, it's helpingthem to nurture what'sinside of them to bring thatto the surface.That's why it'scalled surfacing OK.So, Yo, when we're talkingand you ask the question,you're like, oh, I don't knowhow to phrase the question,you know, English is myfirst language, right?And then I'm like, is this thequestion that you're asking?And then you feel,yes, thank you.That's what I've wanted to say.You've got my intent,and it should makeyou feel kind of nice inside.No Yes.Yes that's whatyou're going for now,I have to ask you a question.Why did you ask that question?To get more feedback.Well, I mean, tobe more specific.Have you run cooler?Are you thinkingabout doing moreor do you thinkit's just like, oh,these guys are justsmoking something here?And no, because this is why Iwant to do to get your results.So yes, at this moment,I want to farm experienceto get this result becausethis is AI want in the future.This is my value to Toronto.Like the.OK, so you kind ofwant to know, like, arethese results real, what arepeople getting because you werereally motivated to do this.And do it well?Yeah, exactly.OK, perfect.I want to get to the result,to the result where people are.I feel good.And they managed to dolike you said, and whenwhat they want todo in the past year.Yeah, I get it.Perfect cool.OK excellent.Thank you very much.So that's how we makesessions less monotonous.But if you guys are curiousor if you're really, reallycurious, what Iwould suggest youguys do right now is to go andcheck out ajayan smart channelon YouTube.The video is calledLightning decision jamand watch how theydo that and pretendthat they did that for you.How would you feel?OK it's called thelightning decision jam AJand smart Johnathan Courtney.Go check it out.So good, use it for salesopportunity like we could,it's like here's like a previewof what we can do all day.It works almost all the time.Yeah, it's really good.OK yeah, go ahead.No, Thanks.Oh, you're welcome, man.You're welcome.