To Get a Yes, Start With What They Want

Dia Bondi makes a living helping executives ask for things. Bondi, a communications coach and charity auctioneer who wrote Ask Like an Auctioneer, says the requests that work do not start with the requester.

Her method is a three part story she calls the mirror effect. It is built for the moment when you need an introduction, an endorsement, a sponsor for a project, or another favor where the other person has to say yes.

Start with "I see you." Tell the person, as Bondi puts it, "what you see is important to them," what they are trying to work on, what kind of impact they want to have, and what they value.

Then say, "here's what I'm up to." State plainly what you value, what you are trying to build, and what impact you want. As you tell both stories, you begin to show where their work and your work overlap.

Only then make the ask, and tie it to that overlap. The formula, in Bondi's words, is "you're getting more of what you need to reach your goals for yourself."

Bondi used it to launch Ask Like an Auctioneer, her project to, in her words, "help a million women ask for more and get it" and "put more money and decision-making power in the hands of women." She contacted a former client, a chief technology officer at a large company that many people use, a cloud storage company, and began with what she knew about her: a woman executive in rare air who wanted to elevate other women and leave a legacy beyond pay.

Then Bondi described the new workshops, and asked the executive to bring her in for a piloted, executive sponsored session. Saying yes would underwrite the project and give the executive what she wanted as a legacy builder.

Bondi calls this the offer inside every ask. She says recognizing that offer makes an ask easier to make, because you know you are bringing something to the table.

A perfect script does not guarantee a yes, she says. The payoff comes from using asking over time, so more tries turn into more wins.