Dia Bondi 00:19
Hi everyone, this is Lead With Who You Are. I'm Dia Bondi. And on this show, we explore and discover what it truly means to lead with who you are. And we're doing it with people who embody just that most of the time. So we started this podcast as the Dia Bondi show a big podcast for women with goals. Why? Because I'd launched Project: Ask Like An Auctioneer, with a mission to help a million women and underrepresented people in their industries, ask for more and get it. And turns out that that conversation wasn't quite enough. we reimagine the show and we retitled it to be lead with who you are. Because my philosophy in my work and professional development in the domain of communication and leadership is that you are your most powerful when you lead with who you are. It's proven out to me over and over again in my 20 years of helping senior leaders, VC backed founders and ambitious professionals speak powerfully when it matters most. And that includes all I teach in my upcoming book, Ask Like An Auctioneer, asking big means speaking powerfully and in alignment with who you are and what you want. But what do I mean when I say ask like an auctioneer? Today, I'm sharing with you the audio recording of a short virtual talk I gave recently, and by the end, you'll know exactly what I mean by ask like an auctioneer, and you'll know how to do it and apply it to the goals you may have today. Right now, as you listen to this episode, you're going to hear me speak directly to the chat window that was open during the talk. And you're going to hear prompts that are meant for the audience in the session, but you can use them too. So let's go and let's ask like an auctioneer. You can ask for more and get it if you ask like an auctioneer. The book, Ask Like An Auctioneer: HowTo Ask For More And Get It, is coming soon. So, go to AskLikeAnAuctioneer.com and get on the list for pre orders now. In the book, you'll learn the power of asking big the one idea that holds us back from asking for more and getting it and the nine ideas I learned from the auctioneering stage that you can use as strategies to help you step into every ask with courage and conviction. Get on the preorder list. Now, for preorder bonuses, again, go to asklikeanauctioneer.com now.
Hey, just a quick reminder, you can subscribe to this show on your podcast platform of choice. We're live nearly everywhere. And you can always listen to the show at DIA bondy.com. If there's a leader or innovator in your life, who is it their shiniest when they lead with who they truly are, Please share the show with them. And rate subscribe, and leave us a review makes a huge difference in the reach that the show has when you let everyone else know what you love about the show. Thanks so much. Okay, hello, everyone. I'm so glad to be here with you today. And I do have the chat open because I'm going to be asking you some questions as we go through today. We are in our session, Ask Like An Auctioneer. And there will be a moment where I'm going to share a quick video. So you'll want to have your you want to just hopefully will blast into your ears. But I am going to I'm going to share a quick video clip to demonstrate something. So I'm hoping that you'll stick around for that. So I am My name is Dia Bondi and welcome to this session called Ask like An Auctioneer. And I'm so thrilled to share this project with you that I started, oh my gosh, like five, six years ago, and is actually going to be a book this year, which is really thrilling to me. November 14th, we'll have the pub date, but you're getting a pre preview of the content that will be there. So today, we're going to be talking about how to ask for more and get it and we want to aim it at a specific goal that you might have in your business right now. And I recognize many of you may be podcasters and your podcast is in fact your revenue source. But many of you may be using podcasting and related content, you know, as a way to promote the rest of another part of your business. Maybe you have a small agency, a creative agency or a small legal practice or a big legal practice for that matter, or a SaaS company or, or a creative services company. So take a minute please so that you can aim the content that you learned today in this session at something that is really real for you? And ask yourself this question, what is one concrete midterm goal you have in your business right now. And if you can drop it in the chat for me, I'd love to see it when I say mid term when I mean is not 15 years out, or something that feels like way out on the horizon I'm talking about in the next, you know, two to three years, you want to publish a book, you want to launch a course you want to land a whale of a guest, maybe you want to grow revenue by five times what it is today. Or maybe you want to get into consulting, or maybe you want to launch in and book stages, as a professional speaker to pair with the content that you're doing in your podcast. If you could take a minute and ask yourself, what is one concrete midterm goal you might have right now and throw that into the chat that will be really helpful, be great for other folks to see and hear what kind of goals you might be working on. Two years ago, one of my big goals was to write a book called Ask Like An Auctioneer. And here we are publishing November 19th. And I use a lot, or 14th, I use a lot of what I'm sharing today, to help get me to this point. So great, more speaking opportunities we hear on big stages, getting paid for your podcast efforts, great, great goals. Any place where you think that you can put something concrete down that's measurable, and you'll know when you reach it, that's what we're going to be aiming today's today's content toward. So great hold on to that for yourself. Now, my hope today is that you're going to get one idea that gives you the courage and confidence you need to ask for more when you go to make the asks that matter to that goal. So one concrete idea you can aim and help you ask for more towards that concrete goal. I love this one published the workbook that goes with my book and and and a guest on 50 podcasts. Wonderful, wonderful goals here. So I pause it. You know, I've been in the world of leadership development and professional development for nearly two decades talk to 1000s and 1000s of people at every career stage from C suite to first first year graduates entering the workforce. And I have to tell you, I posit that we hate doing it when it comes to asking, and we're actually doing it wrong. And I didn't realize this until I started auctioneering. And that asking is the most overlooked and avoided success strategy out there. And I want you to ask and ask big, so you never leave any money or opportunity on the table ever again. And that's what today is all about. And we are going to be talking a lot about money. But money is a metaphor. I've learned since launching project ask like an auctioneer of five or six years ago, and having so many conversations with ambitious professionals that your asks can fall into one of four categories. Some of them maybe even struggled multiple money is one of them. But because we're talking about auctioneering today, and that is directly related to asks around cash, we're gonna use money a lot. But it's just a metaphor for every kind of ask you could make in the world. And in your career. I want to start with, with a, I call this a stance, you know, it's a place that we stand as we look at making the strategic asks that help us reach our goal. And this is something you might have seen floating around the internet. I love it. And it is so useful to me and my own ambitions as I use asking as a success strategy as well, which inevitably runs me up against other people's idea about what's acceptable or not acceptable. So here's the stance I want to invite you to hold as we look at the content throughout today, it goes like this, you will be too much for some people, those maybe somebody somebody can finish this in the chat for me, are not your people. Yes, you will be to suck too much. For some people, those may in fact, just not be your people. I love this because it's an invitation for us to continue to stand tall. Even when we confront someone else's idea about how we should be how we should ask and whether we are acting in a way that is misaligned to their expectations of us. This is an invitation to stand tall not an invitation to pretzel ourselves into a position to accommodate the comfort of others. This is not to say that we're obnoxiously who we are, but that we are anchored in who we are. I love this one because sometimes we will make asks that are too much for some people, whether it's in the being of who you are, or if it's in the material, ask that you're making hold strong and know that this misalignment between who we are and the people on the other side of the table is not an invitation for us to shrink, but just a recognition that there is misalignment. So here we go. Um, let's talk a little bit about this other inspiration that I found early on when I launched Project: Ask Like An Auctioneer, which is a quote from Jen Sincero book, part of her badass series, You Are A Badass At Making Money. And she says, when it comes to financial goals, make sure that when you go to set that goal, that it's something scary and something that you'd rather not do, because it's super uncomfy. And something that makes you feel like you just might puke. I love this quote because it reframes that feeling that we get when we run up about our assumptions about what's possible, not as a problem, but as a signal that you're doing something courageous. And I'm going to come back to that in a little bit. So who the hell am I? So I'm dia Bondi, I am a longtime leadership communications coach. For the last two decades, I've worked with ambitious professionals to help them speak powerfully at really critical moments. My first 10 years was traveling around the world teaching classes at companies like Frito Lay Intel Corporation, we said we worked in silicon chips and potato chips. And the last 10 years had been really dedicated to helping sea level leaders and VC backed founders, usually Series B and beyond, speak powerfully and use their voice as a strike point for their leadership. I've had the great opportunity of being the speaker coach for and the leadership communications coach for a few Olympic bids. I helped Rio de Janeiro win the right to host the 2016 summer summer Olympics I worked with, with turkeys bid for 2020 games, which we actually lost to Japan and those got those were hosted during our pandemic time. And I've had the chance the opportunity to work with social impact innovators, folks around the Clinton Global Initiative, Nobel Peace Prize winners, inventors, early professionals who are breaking boundaries every day, and it has been a privilege and an honor to get to satiate my deep curiosity and desire for for both adventure and connected experiences. As part of my drive of adventure and seeking deeply connected experiences, when I took a sabbatical a few years ago, I went to at to check off a bucket list auctioneering school it was me and 100 cowboys on the side of the road somewhere in the Midwest, learning to auctioneer, everything from livestock to art to real estate. And when I got back home to the Bay Area, I started doing fundraising auctioneering as an impact hobby for women led nonprofits and nonprofits that benefit women and girls, because it's kind of my jam, and a few dozen fundraisers into it. My two worlds communications and auctioneering crashed together. And I want to chat with you about what I saw. So clients come to me when they need to speak powerfully at really, really critical moments that come to me with a blank page often and say, What do I do about this? What do I say? What do I talk about? And when we start working together, the first thing I need to ask them is, what is it that you're asking for because we need to know where they're going with their story or their pitch. And it's usually things like headcount, budget, engagement, endorsement, investment. In my skills, workshops, folks make it a little bit more personal. They say things like a raise a promotion and opportunity to run a high profile project, a chance to access a particular network. And in that work, I have to understand great, but how much of that thing? And once I asked that question, that is when the hand wringing starts. And in that moment, there's a lot of trepidation about I don't know, because there's a big difference between asking for $100 million and asking for $1 million. When you go into a fundraise. There's a big difference between asking for a 40% Raise and asking for a 10% Raise. So the hand wringing starts, and often I met with another question, which is why don't know do what do you think I can get? And for years, I was like, yes, great question. What what is going on here, when we ask this question is we end up shaping our asks, based on what we think we can get. We ask in order to get a yes. Why. So when I think about it, look at this, check this out. And I'm going to invite everybody in this session today. Go ahead and take pictures or screenshots of the models that I might show today that are interesting to you. This is the first one and here's the here's the idea here. There is a relationship between courage and the asks that we make, and often we can I'm not sure thank you, Adam, for that question. I'm not sure if we'll be sharing the slides but this is all in my book, which is coming out in November you you'll have access to this and so much more. There's a relationship between an ask and the amount of courage we need to Make it and we usually shape our asks based on how much courage we can muster. And in some funny way that ends up actually landing us on a an amount, maybe something like this. I think in this case, I can muster 11 units of courage, which means I could ask for 11 units of whatever it is that I'm asking for. But what about everything? Beyond that? What about everything beyond that all these increments above that point that we that we limit our, our, our asks to, which is nine times out of 10, maybe even 10? times out of 10? The yes, that we know, we're going to get? What about everything, every little increment above that? Why don't we ask for more than we're sure we can get. I had this even just last week, my rev ops consultant that I work with, he we were negotiating, we're going into negotiate an upgrade and some software we're using. And I said, Hey, here's what I'd like you to ask for. And he said, they'll never go for that. They'll go for this. So let's ask for this. And I said, No, no, that is aiming everything at getting a yes, we're gonna go for everything that is not guaranteed. Everything above that guaranteed yes, these increments up there that have energy about them. Why don't we do this, we don't do this, because everything that lives between that guaranteed Yes, and that menacing word, no lives in a place I like to call the zone of freaking out. Or for short, you can call it the Zofo. And that's what I'll use to refer to it from here, on out. So everything above the guaranteed yes lives in the zone of freaking out or in the Zofo. And fair enough, because the truth is way out here. There is actually a no rejection exists out there. But if we're willing to step into our Zoho, go for that no, and then negotiate down, we very often will end up with a yes, that is higher than what we'd aimed for in the beginning. This is a powerful tool, as we think about how we strategically ask for more and get it and this is exactly what we do, as auctioneers, this is what it means to ask like an auctioneer. So I'd like to show you now what it means for us as auctioneers to ask to get a no. And we'll let you see it play out using this small demo. Everybody wants to see a demo of me doing auctioneering let me know in the chat. I'm sure you do. Now I'm going to set this up by saying I am not a great auctioneer. I'm a good enough auctioneer. This is from an art auction I did a few years ago at Kola Art Institute in Berkeley, California. I'm going to do their their auction this year as well. Here's what I want you to listen for, because I'm going to ask you when it's over. Listen for how many what I asked for and what it sells for. And notice what's going on in the audience now. I hope the audio plays here. Everyone gets your ears ready. Here we go. It's about a minute long. So So listen, listen closely. 42 jump into 4640 240-642-4646 45 Are you in at 45 Sir 40 to 45 looking for 4646 looking for 4746 looking for 47 Here she's in a 46 looking $4,700 here 47 Looking for 4847 Just looking for $4,800.48. Looking for 40 949 looking for 5049 looking for 5000 He's in a 49 he's got it at 4049. Looking for $5,000 Here 49. Looking for 5000 He's in right now at $4,900. Are you in at five? Five looking for 51? Five looking for 51? Five? Are you in at $5,100? Here? She's got it at 5000 looking for 51. She's got it at $5,000 looking for $5,100? Yes, who is she go ahead and look $5,000 $5,100 Are you outs or $5,000? All in right now. So $5,000 You've got it? Yes. Thank you so much, Andrea. Yes. It's really fun. And it's actually quite hard. I'll ask everyone in the chat right now to let me know, what was the last ask I made? What did I ask for? Somebody tell me that. Yes. Great. Thank you. 51. Great. What did I sell it for? Yes. Because here's the thing, when I get to know in the room as an auctioneer that lets me know I've maximized the potential of that ask and I sell it for a number below. Rejection is a positive thing. It lets me know I've successfully touch the ceiling of what's possible. My invitation to you today is to use this mental model as you go and make decisions about who and what and how much you ask for. For the tasks that are strategically linked to the goals that you're that you're going for right now. Now, here we go. Great. So if we're going to actually enter our zolfo because ultimately if we're going to actively make asks that threaten a no Those are inevitably going to be somewhere inside of our Zoho, which is also by the way, the zone of potential. So we're gonna get into our Zoho. How the heck do we do that? Because it feels Zophar wish. We do it by using some of what I've learned from the world of auctioneering to help you find the courage to go ahead and ask for more than you think is guaranteed. And here I'm going to share with you I'm going to share with you four of the nine insights I've gotten from the auctioneering stage to help you do just that. Idea number one, pay attention here they're just going to go really really quick. Yes, the Zoho stands for the zone of freaking out Andrea the zone are freaking out is the area above any guaranteed ask you might get it's it's it's where we go. When we go to make an ask that we know might threaten a No kiss, you know that that tingly feeling in your belly? Right? So here we go. Idea number one Insight number one I got after doing 20 auctions, I realized that people are irrational. Or if you don't like that you can say your rationale for what you might say yes or no to or what you think they might say yes or no to or should is not their rationale for what they may say yes or no to I sold at auction a few years ago, a one night camping trip for $55,000. Twice I doubled it. This was a crazy moment for me and recognizing how I cannot use my rationale for what other people may say yes or no to and neither should you. So just get out of your head, get into your Zoho and ask and find out. Idea number two, you've got to know your reserve, the moment I step on stage when I'm going to live auction something and now in my own business and life, the moment I go to make a big strategic Zoho, ask, I know exactly what my reserve is, which is to say, I know what the minimum is, I'll take as a counter offer, when I said sit down with an organization like kala Art Institute and we identify the six things that we're going to auctioneer at the live auction, we always identify what's the minimum we'll take. Because if I know that we're going to start the bid at 500. I won't sell it for less than 1500. I know that if I only get 14, I know I can put myself together a plan for what I'll do when we don't hit our our minimum. So you've got to know exactly what your reserve is. Because this will help you answer this question which I get all the time. Well, what do I do dia if I actually get an entire hard? No? What if they won't even meet my reserve? And if you know what your reserve is, and they don't meet it, you can answer this question yourself. Because the truth is, is I don't know what you're going to do. What do you want to do? You get to decide. So identify your boundaries before you go in to the big Zoho ask you're making. Idea number three, this is one of my favorites and can be kind of controversial. Price is a measure of value not worth now, right now in our cultural narrative, especially around pay gap, the idea of of women earning, you know, pennies on the dollar investment. VC backed founders or VC founders who are attempting to be VC backed, under 4% of VC funds go toward women led startups, we recognize how difficult this is. And we want to we talk a lot about getting paid what you're worth paid, what you're worth, paid what you're worth, and I want you all to get paid what you're worth, but I also recognize that that's from the world of auctioneering. That price is a measure of value. And we cannot conflate that with your own sense of worth. So here's a better way to think about it. Price, or what someone may do or pay is a way to see what they value and how they value it. Not a way to derive or measure our own worthiness because that is infinite. When you uncouple your own worth and worthiness from what someone else will pay or do or say yes to your Zoho request, you're more free to step into that Zoho, get out of your head and just ask and find out. Last idea. Actually, I have nine but I'm sharing four with you today because I only have a half an hour. So I know in all of my leadership communications years, I have identified that purpose drives courage when I work with leaders who have to step on stage at really high profile moments when backstage or in the greenroom are leading up to the event. If we can reconnect them to the purpose of the narrative that are going to share with an audience. They are more ignited and in their place of courage. and they're able to use that when they go to try to have an impact in the moment. So we're gonna hold this and then borrow the idea that I learned from the world of auctioneering, which is that you can be an agent for your purpose. Now I know you're not asking for more and getting it so you can go by go out and buy that big Lambo. I mean, maybe you are, but mostly are doing it because I need to, I want to earn some more money so I can send my kid to that college they want to go to, I'm funding that world trip around the world, I'm securing financial, financial security for my family, for the next generation, there is a purpose behind either the money or every other type of ask that you're making. And when you can be an agent for that purpose, it can often give you just enough distanced to step in and act on that purposes behalf and help you step into your Zoho. So these are the four tasty ideas I wanted to share with you today, insights that I got from the world of auctioneering. And my forthcoming book, you'll see there are, there are five others. They're all my favorite. It's really like a changes as the wind changes depends on what's most useful in my life. Here's a great example, from a friend and colleague of mine, we'll call her Jane, the champion, she is a founder, let me check my time here. Oh, I just have a minute here or two. She's a founder of a of a coaching nonprofit that is designed to help to provide and match up so women and social impact with world class coaching, leadership coaching. And what's really critical is that she last three, four years ago called me and said, Hey, do I have I'm going to go out and start pitching partnerships and sponsorships to make this organization more sustainable because she was doing it on her side as her side hustle. While it was wildly I mean, folks, like the founder of the muse was a participant in the coaching program like she works a lot of a lot of high impact women professionals come through her program. But she wanted to transition out of her technology chief of staff role, and double down on it full time and needed to make the organization more sustainable in order to do that. So she called me and said dia helped me with my pitch, she needed to speak powerfully. And in that conversation we talked about, you know, what is it that you're asking for? And she was asking for sponsorships? And I said great, but how much? And she said $10,000. And I said bullshit? How much actually do you need, we kept it all out. Turns out that each of them were more like $27,000 sponsorships per cohort of women that were going through the project. Now she's a very networked person in technology. But when she said 27,000 out loud, she felt like she was going to puke. But I read that feeling of oh, now we're actually on to something that you're doing something courageous. So help me understand Jane, what's going on? She said, I just, I feel so weird talking about it, I'm totally fine negotiating a contract on behalf of any of my employers, I can I can stand up for a million dollar engagement but to ask for myself feel so weird. And in that moment, I shared with her the idea of being agent an agent for her purpose. And in identifying that she was able to get just enough distance that she wasn't asking for herself. She was asking on behalf of the purpose and impact of her organization, which she was deeply passionate about. And when she got that distance, she was able to do what she was able to step into her Zoho, and ask for more. Now, when she came back to me next week, I said, Hey, how did it go? She said, we didn't get anything. I said, what Jane? She said, Yeah, we got nothing. I asked for 20. I asked actually, for 37. She said something like 10 grand over and I went What are you talking about? They didn't even meet your reserve because she knew what it was going in? And she said no, because my asked revealed to us and to them that they didn't actually have a giving strategy in their organization and that they couldn't say yes to anything. So what she learned though, was that other things can happen when she asked to now her team are much smarter about who they ask and and how who they get in the room. So they're not wasting cycles on asks that won't even meet their reserve. So it's worth asking even in the face of a hard No, Lorena the braid was the first woman ever to sit in a room when I shared these ideas a handful of years ago, just at a sample a sample group of 65 women in a room I said hey, let me know if this if this idea of as like an auctioneer is useful to you or and I should pursue it or if you think it's garbage Well, everyone in the oven everyone in the room raised their hand and said Go for it. And I never even met Lorena the brave but this woman tweeted at me a week later this she said I just asked like an auctioneer and I feel like I'm going to puke but she knew that I knew what she really meant was that I just asked like an auctioneer and I feel like I'm doing something courageous. I'm standing up for my dreams for myself and I'm asking for more so I can reach my goals faster. In the coming years she tripled her salary and quadrupled her role and now Al runs, runs all of HR and operations for an augmented reality company in LA in the gaming and entertainment space, massive impact in her own household as a single Latina mom, she stepped into her zone of freaking out. And what she did was she asked the question, while she said told me that the entire experience was eye opening and empowering, she didn't ask What am I worth? She asked, is it worth it? To me? The counter Office offers I got. So the question is, what is your next strategic ask? You might be going like? Well, I want to ask for more and get what do I ask for? Well, I'm gonna give you a tiny little framework. And I'm also if I can ask Andrew and others to put into the chat, maybe I can do that some resources for you, that are on my website to help you think about what might I ask for as I think about asking strategically, in my to reach my goals more quickly. Here's a quick, quick little preview into this is only four steps, but the six step framework for putting together a strategic ask for you, I want you to go back to that midterm goal that I asked you about before. And ask yourself, Okay, if that's my goal, step two is what is my next big move I need to make that gets me closer to that goal. When I was shopping, when I was looking to I knew my goal was to write a book called Ask like an auctioneer to help a million women and underrepresented people in their space, ask for more and get it. And I knew one of my big moves was to get an agent that understood the book and could find it a home. Third question for you is great if that's my goal, and that's my big move I need to make whatever it might be for you. What might I ask for? That helps action my big move that gets me closer to my goal? And then once you've identified what is the ask, and how much is it, to check yourself to make sure that it is not? Is not the kind of assets being held hostage by the word yes. But instead is a Zofo version of that ask that it's big enough to challenge what you think is possible. And to surprise you, when you get an answer that is well above what you would have asked for had you designed for a yes. So this is a four little four bit prompt you can hold in the back of your head as you think about getting going on asking for more and getting it and I'll just finish by saying, you know, only when I love this quote from Brene Brown, and it just I stand in it when I have to go step into my own Zofo, which is you know, only when we're brave enough to explore the darkness when we discover the infinite power of our own light. So yes, you will be too much for some people, those are not your people. Here's the deal, if you'd like to you can go to DiaBondi.com. And you can find the two resources that I've already linked in there. There are other ones around my communications work as well. But these two are going to be the ones that might might keep you accountable to making the Zofo type asks that you might that you might want and also understand that the book is coming in November. And it's up for presale now but nobody really knows we haven't linked it to the to the page site yet. But if you go on Amazon, or you're already there, you can get it there. I had such a I know we're supposed to leave five minutes for q&a, you may always get to me at hello at DiaBondi.com. Please go to our resources page in the library page to find the two these two frameworks that are really simple and easy. You can print them up and stick them up in front of your desk or wherever your creative or business strategy work gets done. And my hope for you is that again, you got one idea today that will help you ask for more and get it when you go to make the asks that matter to your goals. Thank you so much everybody and happy podfest.
Lead With Who You Are is a production of Dia Bondi Communications and is scored mixed and produced by Arthur Leon Adams the third. Have a question or an inquiry? Reach out to us at hello@diabondi.com. You can like share rate and subscribe at Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your favorite shows. Go to diabondi.com for the show notes to find our tools, frameworks, content and programs to help you and your team speak powerfully and lead with who you are.
