A handy way to say ‘No’
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No, but…
As I wrote about in yesterday’s post, through 9others I want to try and help as many people as possible — hopefully I’ve got something to give and something to learn.
However we all know there’s just no helping some people so even before offering general help it’s good to have a filter as the best people to help are the ones who want to help themselves.
So I often use my handy way of saying ‘no’ that separates those who want and deserve help, but will also help themselves, and those who just want to take and never really move forward. And of course this “No, but…” can be used to filter and prioritise in many other circumstances too. I hope you like it.
It goes like this:
“I would like to help you”.
“But for me to be able to help you then you need to XYZ [have an MVP / have raised from your own network / have paying customers / … ]”.
“When you score yourself 10/10 for XYZ please come back to me”.
This filter does a couple of things:
It allows me to avoid spending any time with or expending effort for someone who can’t, or won’t, execute. Entrepreneurs have to act. They have to make decisions and make progress on the right things. There are no magic wands. If an entrepreneur doesn’t put in the work then there’s precious little hope.
However if an entrepreneur is stuck then what I suggest they explore might be just the prompt they need. Good entrepreneurs will dig deep and be honest with themselves about scoring 10/10. What I’m asking is that they go do their best work and, while nothing in a fast moving startup is ever perfect, if things are a bit half baked it’ll be obvious to both of us. If the entrepreneur comes back and says they’ve hit it out the park then, however small or large the step, I get to further a relationship with someone who can execute on one or more of the things that I value. And they get a far more engaged and impressed me.
It’s not about being *right* but it is about discovering who can make progress so I always try to remember to say that I am looking to learn too. If the entrepreneur doesn’t agree with what I’m asking then they should challenge me back and, whatever the outcome, I want to hear from them so I can find out what happened, consider their point of view and improve my thinking, which in turn should help others too.
Incidentally, one of the best videos I have sent many times to early stage entrepreneurs who are stuck is this one by Derek Sivers, author of Anything You Want in the picture above.
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