Please Apply Tension

If you want to develop a muscle, you need to apply tension. Too much of it, and you will hurt yourself. Too little tension, and you won’t build the muscle at all.

If you want to go around the block sprinting, thinking that will get you in better heart health, you won’t do it very often, and you won’t do the good you wanted to make. You want a lot of time spent in your heart rate’s Zone 2, not as much (but some time) in Zones 1, 3, 4 or 5. Some tension, but pace yourself.

If you want a happy client, you’ll be asked to apply some tension too. Just the right amount.

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At the beginning, when you’re getting to know each other, you might want to discourage them from hiring you. That’s because a bit of that sort of tension will get you into a discussion about what brought them to you specifically. For having applied that tension, you’ll earn a conversation about value.

When offering options, propose a set that creates tension, so your customer can feel helped in making the deliberation, and feel the satisfaction from choosing. “I have an option that gives raw availability but it will be costly. Or I can guarantee the result, and you get a fixed price. And there’s an option in the middle, where we go this far together for this value and I teach you along the way.”

When doing work, you will be tempted to let go of your professionalism and to be more relatable. Please apply tension, because being professional implies finding out what and how things should be done, and adding the tension to make it happen.

When teaching the customer, set boundaries, set expectations, set the tone. Leading, being first, setting the example, those are examples of applying tension.

When you’re creating a long-term story around what it’s like working with you, you get to choose which tensions will be felt. If you don’t impose any, there’s still going to be a story about the tensions people felt while working with you.

So please apply tension. The right kind. The right amount. In the right interactions. And people will be delighted that you helped them make progress.