Business Networking and Sex - Ivan Misner [50]
Does this sound familiar? Of course it does. If we don’t express our expectations clearly, others can’t help us and we’re left to do it all alone. This is not an effective way to build or run a business. For years I was superwoman and did it all, never asking for help. I left everyone around me guessing what I wanted and needed, not to mention how I did it all. I came to realize that my success was limited by my ability to do it all. If I was going to build a successful business or life, I was going to have to learn to be clear with others about my needs and expectations. We also must be willing to allow others to help us once we ask.
I listen to women complain all the time about how they have no work and personal life balance and have to do it all. When I ask if they’ve considered delegating some of the work at home to the spouse or kids I get the usual, “Oh, it is just easier if I do it myself.” Really? Is that actually true? If it’s so much easier, then why do they spend so much time moaning and complaining about it?
When I ask men why they don’t help more, they say, “She doesn’t ask, and when I do something for her, she’s critical, saying that I didn’t do it the way she would have.” Ladies, all of this plays out the same way with the men in your network. You have to tell them what you want and need, be willing to delegate responsibility, and once you do that, let it go! If you want their business or a referral, then ask for it. Clear, direct, and simple (but polite) communication is the way to go with men in every area of life.
Men become confused and scared when trying to figure out what women want. They would rather stand in the middle of a football field with no pads on and let a 300-pound linebacker knock them to the ground than try to guess what we want, only to get it wrong.
Men and Shopping
Men approach shopping for themselves and with the woman in their lives much the same way they approach networking activities. They are direct, to the point, get what they want, and move on, but when they are standing across from a woman talking about personal stuff, their minds begin to wander.
Men don’t browse and wander. They have a target, make a plan, and go and get the goal. How many men do you know who LIKE to shop? I mean for clothes and necessities for themselves. Few men that I have met actually enjoy the process of shopping for clothes. Some men even draw a map of the mall and then plan out their path from one store to the next, so they can be as efficient as possible. On that topic, I am thinking of coming up with an app called Mall GPS for Men that will allow men to map their way through the stores they need to go to using minimal time and effort.
I use to think that shopping was a learned behavior, but my son hated to be in the mall from the moment of birth. Every single time we went into the mall, he began to cry, later to beg, “Can we please go home now?”
The only thing men hate more than shopping for their own clothes is shopping with a woman for her clothes. Not only do they dislike shopping with women, but when they’re shopping with us they’re actually thinking of ways to injure themselves, just to be excused from the activity.
How do I know this? I was torturing one man to give me the “inside scoop” on how men think, and after three days of unending questions, got him to reveal the universal male thought process on mall shopping with women. Incidentally, this secret source of male mall anguish is my co-author Frank!
He Comments . . .
Yes, as soon as we pull into the giant mall parking lot, the survival flight instinct kicks in with ideas for feigning injury. What if I pretended to trip? I could fall down, say I hurt my knee, and we would have to go home. I could also go into the bathroom and say I got sick. No, wait! I could slam myself against the wall and the urinals and say I was mugged. That