#goodintention

The other day I was out running with friends. It was a beautiful day to be out.

We were doing a short run and were about 1/4 mile away from our target distance for the day. Then we crossed paths with a couple of people in front of the state house, one of which I consider to be a friend of mine. We said some hellos on the way by and planned to loop back around after finishing to chat.

The two friends I was running with are both interning in the area from larger cities. One from another country in the EU and the other from a large US city. Since they have been visiting, I have been trying to introduce them to cool people in the community, show them around and find fun stuff to bring them to.

I introduced both of my two younger friends that are visiting to my friend we passed by who is on the older side. They had some quick conversation and before I knew it, the older friend was pitching my fellow young friends on staying in NH. It was good for him to do this as we need to start retaining and attracting more young people to NH or we will see some serious problems.

Unfortunately he started to pitch the both of them on staying here before really learning much about them and about their experience here.

He had the best of intentions although he did not know what they have enjoyed in their time here and what they have not enjoyed. He did not understand what they found to work well here and what struggles they were facing as young people in the area. The conversation was good but toward the end I mentioned to my friend that he needs to rework his pitch a little. 

We parted ways. The three of us did our cool down walk to the gym where we started and discussed what it has been like to live here as a young person.

My take away from this experience was that it is really important to understand your audience before launching into a pitch of any kind. There are plenty of good things to say but if they do not align with your audience, it is likely to not be received well. Take the time to ask qualifying questions. Learn about people. Build a relationship before starting to sell them. Be prepared to show them the benefits they want or offer a solution to their problems.