I’m in Vancouver at the moment, taking Michael Port‘s “Beyond Booked Solid” seminar. The whole “okay, your business is thriving madly, now you need better systems to keep you sane” thing.

If you’re wondering how I manage to be attending a seminar and writing blog posts, I’m not. My superpowers aren’t that super.

We’re in session ALL DAY, so this is something I wrote a few days ago… and we’ll be back (very, very soon) to talking about patterns and habits and how to change them.

Okay, this is the second post in a series of three about how to annoy the people you want to help, which of course you don’t actually want to do. You can read the first one here.

The idea is this:

Sometimes when we want to help a friend or family member do something differently, or to help our potential clients and customers feel safe and comfortable receiving help, there’s stuff we do that scares them off and gets on their nerves.

Even though that’s not what we actually meant to do at all. Even though our intention is clean and loving and all that stuff.

Yesterday we talked about the first way to annoy the people you want to help: Don’t speak their language.

Today it’s all about the second way to annoy the people you want to help:

Put them in an awkward, uncomfortable situation!

There are so many ways you could go about doing this.

A big one is just not considering the things that people might fear or have worries about.

If you give these things some careful thought, putting yourself in their shoes, you can reassure them that none of the things they fear are going to happen. By not doing this, you accidentally give them reasons to feel frustrated and resentful.

For example …

“How’d you like a sharp stick in the eye? No? Really?”

I love acupuncture.

Love it. Not like “oh, man, I love carrot juice.” No, I love acupuncture with my entire heart. I would marry acupuncture and it could have my babies and stuff.

Acupuncture has a branding problem, though, since — I know this is somehow surprising to practically everyone who works in the field — getting poked with sharp needles doesn’t actually sound like fun.

It doesn’t.

It took me years to try acupuncture. Years!

Like, at least a decade after the first person I like and trust told me that acupuncture was the best thing that had ever happened to her and that it had healed her lifelong allergies and made her whole life happy.

The reason I never went and tried it out is that I had two nagging questions. And these questions weren’t being answered in the brochures or the websites I was looking at.

One was “So how much will this hurt?” and the other was “Will I have to get naked?”

The “How much will this hurt?” question is sometimes addressed on websites but usually only very casually as in, “Don’t worry!” Well, if I am worried, just telling me not to probably isn’t going to help.

Just speak to my fear and recognize that I have it.

With the acupuncture example … can you say that it’s like a quick pinprick? That it hurts less than giving blood?

That it releases insane happy hormones that will blot out the smidgen of pain so quickly that you’ll forget it even happened?

As I eventually found out once I tried it, acupuncture can actually be one of the most blissful, joyous experiences in the world. And even on days when it’s not outrageously mindblowing, it’s still pretty fantastic.

If you’re an acupuncturist, find someone like me right now, and quote me saying that on your website. Maybe even on your business cards. Tell your ideal clients that it doesn’t really hurt. Or at least that it won’t hurt much. Or at least that it will be worth it.

The “do I have to get naked” question is never addressed anywhere, and — even though I know other people who also had this question — it took me a while to work up the courage to ask it.

You know what? There are people in this world with histories of abuse and horribleness. There are people who, for whatever reason, don’t want to take their clothes off in your office. If they aren’t going to have to (and I’ve never had to) … tell them.

Moral of the story: if you want more clients and you don’t want them feeling awkward and uncomfortable, think of every single concern that a person might reasonably have and answer it somewhere on your website.

People won’t always tell you what they’re feeling nervous about, but a combination of common sense, identifying with them, and interviewing friends and former clients will give you a pretty good idea.

But there’s also another way to make your people feel awkward and uncomfortable.

Don’t give them a price.

This is a long, complicated debate that a ton of people have written about. We can get into the details of that whole discussion some other time.

In the meantime, trust me when I say that using a sliding scale or being in any way vague about prices can be panic-inducing.

Next week I’ll be at Michael Port’s Beyond Booked Solid seminar [Ed. note: Actually, there right now] . It’s a two-day program that was originally priced at about $1100, if I remember correctly. I paid something like $500, which is an alumni rate.

That was cool. It seemed more than reasonable, and I knew it would be worth it to me just to hang out with him.

Hanging out with Michael! I’ve been a Michael Port fan for several years and have taken a couple of his programs. He’s the real deal. Michael is a sweet, kind, compassionate guy who’s also smart and fun and does Aikido. I just like him.

He ended up doing a promotion, though, for this program, that kind of freaked me out.

Basically one day he decided that people should just pay what they want for this seminar. Now, it’s weird enough when it’s an energy healer in Berkeley offering you a sliding scale, but we’re talking about someone whose smiling face appears in full-page ads in Inc. magazine.

So … what happens when a marketing superstar says “Pay what you want!”?

Well, I’ll have to ask him how that worked out for him.

But I imagine that some people probably felt awesome. Like YEEHAH, I so wanted to do this and couldn’t, but hey, now I’m paying $100 and it’s doable and it’s the bomb.

And some other people (including me) felt weirded out. And uncomfortable.

When he said originally “Hey, this is how much it costs”, I trusted him. I didn’t need to think about how much it should or could cost. There was pricing resonance. There was stability and safety.

It was clear what the thing was “worth” (whatever that means), and it was clear that people who do his programs regularly get special treatment which is always a perk. And that was it.

Because it’s all about safety.

When I found out about this new “pay what you want” thing though, I was really relieved that I’d already booked my ticket and flights. Because otherwise I might not have gone.

It would have been too awkward to pay less.

Or think about it like this: suppose this were my last $500 and I’d decided to spend it on a marketing seminar (uh, don’t do that, by the way).

You know what? That scenario still feels better to me than the embarrassing situation of having him know that even though I’m supposedly “booked solid”, whoops, I don’t actually have any money. Horrible.

And it would have also been annoying to pay $1000, knowing that I didn’t actually have to. The thing about having a price is, knowing what it is gives you a lot of security.

Even if that knowing is disappointing. Even if that price point means you can’t swing it right now.

It’s one thing to have a scholarship fund or something, maybe one seat you give away to someone who needs it. It’s another to put the burden of decision on the person who is already feeling vulnerable because they’re coming to you for help.

And yes, I’m going to ask Michael about this when I see him. Because I like him so much. Because I have so much respect for him both as a marketing expert and as a real live human being who cares about people.

Maybe he’ll explain it to me in a way that makes so much sense that I’ll write a post taking back everything I said today. And maybe he’ll say, whoah, I had no idea this was making people feel vulnerable and uncomfortable. Will keep you, um, posted… 🙂

Bottom line.

People have worries and concerns.

They’re allowed to have them. Even when these worries and concerns seem kind of irrelevant or even ridiculous to us, the people offering help.

Helping is what we do. So when we ignore these worries and concerns — which almost always happens by accident and yeah, it’s something I totally need to work on too — we’re neglecting the people we care about most.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an acupuncturist or a consultant or a lawyer or whatever. Make sure that everything you do is about creating a feeling of safety and support for the people who need your help.

And hey, go corner some of your happy clients and ask them what they were most nervous about before their first visit. I’ll go do that again too.

Okay, back soon. I’ll be checking in to hang out with you in the comments though…