How long do our conversations take on average? And what was it about? And why do we do it this way?
A question we sometimes get is how long the conversations we have do take. Well, today we put a stopwatch on it and let’s take a look at the last 15 conversations.
(We do not consider anything under 10 minutes to be a conversation, and the same goes for “small talk”)
- 1 hour 10 minutes
- 1 hour 12 minutes
- 32 minutes
- 1 hour 1 minute
- 37 minutes
- 39 minutes
- 21 minutes
- 1 hour 46 minutes
- 15 minutes
- 2 hours 42 minutes
- 35 minutes
- 1 hour 12 minutes
- 35 minutes
- 1 hour 14 minutes
- 1 hour 52 minutes
943 minutes in total, in 15 conversations, which gives you an average conversation of 63 minutes. In other words, one hour on average. What were they about then?
- Depression
- Fear
- Believe
- Suicide
- Love
- Self confidence
- Shame
- Prayer
- Money problems
- Relationships
- Energy
- God
- Pornography
- Loneliness
- Decisions
And this is just one day, not including the “small talk” and the “less than 10 minutes”. And now let’s do a quick calculation… A “normal person” has an average working day of 8 hours. There were two of us running today, so you should have a maximum of 16 hours on average.
But, uhh…. These were conversations that lasted a total of 15.7 hours… and we haven’t even covered the reporting, preparation, closing, making appointments, etc., etc., etc part. How many hours were there in a day again, and why are we sometimes completely done for after one day? Well… that’s why. Fortunately, it is not like this every day, but this is what an average working day does looks like. That’s right, it’s bizarre sometimes.
And now the why. That’s what it’s all about in the end. And here it comes:
Once upon a time in the gray and distant past, I seconded people. To “get” 1 person seconded to a client, I had to conduct 5 intakes. To conduct 5 intakes, 25 people had to be introduced. To introduce 25 people, 100 interviews had to be conducted with potential candidates.
In other words, to achieve results, you literally needed numbers. If you only have 1 conversation a day about a serious topic, what are the chances that it will lead to your end goal? If you take that “secondment example” you literally arrive at a one percent chance between a “conversation” and achieving your goal. One percent. This means that you score once every 100 days if you only have one conversation a day. And since there are only 260 working days in one year, you only score 2.6x per year. If you only “get” 2.6x people a year, would your boss be happy with you? Or are you a bad salesperson because you don’t even pay your own salary with your turnover / efforts? Oops.
And very honestly… if we believe that the message we convey, the work we do, is essential and even of vital importance… is scoring 2.6 times a year enough? Not for us.
And that’s why we keep pushing forward. As hard as we can. We are literally hunting. Because the conversations we have are often really about life and death. Often really about eternal life or eternal death…
And then one hour per day… per week… per month… per year perhaps?.. is really not enough if you really understand what it is about.
Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.
1 Timothy 6:12
And now you also know why we’re sometimes completely done for, and we have to “pull the plug” / “get out of here”. It’s a tough “job”…. but for a great goal.
And sometimes? I do long back to my old commercial job. It was WAY better paid and so(!) much easier. But then I think about the “eternal revenue”, and I’m happy with what we can do today. That’s worth it. Although we do pay a huge price today.
Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
Colossians 3:23-24
