What (Not) To Talk About

Our topic this week came from a listener question about dealing with clients expressing political views.

Jonathan and I decided to zoom out and address not only that, but the broader question of what to talk or NOT talk about with your audience:

How your target audience can guide how much you reveal about yourself and/or your beliefs.

Deciding which boundaries and guardrails make sense for you, your work and how you want to roll.

The advantage we have as soloists—but don’t always use—when deciding how much of ourselves to share.

One technique to deal with clients who have disclosed something distasteful to your core values (but you can’t fire them yet).

Quotables

“I’m not saying no to (talking about) chicken vindaloo, I’m saying yes to ‘Let’s talk about pricing today’.”—JS

“If you’re doing B2B to big corporates—unless you’re running a politically oriented law firm—then you’re probably not talking politics.”—RM

“I don’t know how to build a business or help someone build a business where you really don’t care about your clients.”—JS

“We’re soloists—we get to decide…we’re not working for ‘the man’ getting a salary and having to serve whoever comes in the door.”—RM

“Maybe you’re not there yet, but you will be able to become increasingly picky over time (about who you take as clients) and it’s delightful.”—JS

“If you can’t say goodbye right now, then you put them on the list—they’re the first one that’s gonna go, and you’ll find somebody else to replace them.”—RM

“Just write something that you want to learn a lot more about. Pick that as your central topic, and if you’re really excited to learn more, you don’t have to be an expert.”—JS

“Think about glass or plexiglass so you can see them, but they can’t touch you. That negativity, that thing that you really don’t like, can’t touch you—that’s a technique that therapists use all the time.”—RM