I had heard that Scott Heiferman from Meetup.org was sometimes a provocative speaker, so I was looking forward to hearing him speak at the 2010 National Conference on Volunteering and Service in New York a week or so ago.
As it turned out, he said something that has stuck with me.
I keep returning to it, rolling it over in my head.
He said we should use the word “let’s” more often.
He argued that when asking people to join you in fighting for a cause, you shouldn’t say, “Help us…” or “Join us…”
But rather, more simply, “Let’s…”
People, Heiferman argued, want to have a stake in the game.
It’s difficult to convince someone to help you achieve your goal, he said, but much easier to ask them to work with you – to achieve something together.
I like it.
