How to Make It Easy for People to Help You

Source: Syed Sheraz Ahmed / Adobe Stock

Whatever you want to achieve, whether in your personal life or professionally, becomes much easier with the help of others. Yet, many people find asking for help challenging.

Waiting expectantly, hoping that your friends, family, and colleagues will recognise when you need their input, isn’t enough. We are all too consumed with challenges in our own lives to be able to spot what other people need.

This doesn’t mean people aren’t willing to help. We get pleasure from helping others, particularly people we are close to.

Professor of Preventive Medicine and Bioethics at Stony Brook University and author of Why Good Things Happen to Good People: How to Live a Longer, Happier, Healthier Life by the Simple Act of Giving, Dr. Stephen Post claims, “A striking amount of evidence demonstrates that, while we may understand the benefits of benevolence as devolving chiefly to the well-being of its recipients, doing good nourishes the giver as well.”

Allowing others to help you can be a gift to them. But only if you make it easy for them. It’s not a question of simply saying, “I need help”, but approaching such asks, particularly bigger ones, thoughtfully. Consider how you can make it as easy as possible for people.

Here are three simple things to consider when asking people for help. By doing so, not only will you be more likely to get the help you need, but you’ll find the act of asking easier in itself.

1. Get the Timing Right

Many requests for help fail simply because the timing is wrong.

In Influence, The Power of Persuasion, psychologist Robert Cialdini cites the power of reciprocity, the feeling of indebtedness we experience when someone has done something for us. This suggests that the best time to ask is when the other person has just thanked us for something we have done. By doing so, we are reinforcing the law of reciprocity, directly tying our request to the favour we are "owed".

While the correlation between gratitude and reciprocity is important, such direct timing is not necessarily the right approach. Particularly when viewed from the perspective of building long-term relationships. Connecting the two events in such a direct way creates a transactional relationship. Each favour has a cost.

Such an approach to serving others limits your ability to deepen relationships over time. Take an "investment" approach towards your relationship, paying in over time and building goodwill (you may be aware of Steven Covey’s concept of emotional bank accounts). The alternative is a transactional approach in which you exchange favours and then revert to neutral ground, much like going into a shop, paying for goods, and never returning.

Awareness is also an important factor when timing your ask. Where are you in your relationship with the person whose help you need? If the relationship is in its infancy, a big ask might damage the relationship. You may get the help you need, but is their heart really in it? How does that affect how they see you?

This goes back again to Covey’s emotional bank account: Think of the relationship as a pension. You pay in over time and let interest accumulate before you access support.

Be aware of how the other person experiences your request. Are they stressed and overwhelmed? Perhaps it’s not the right time to add to their burden. Have you just discussed a range of different subjects? If so, adding something else for them to remember may not work in your interests.

Try to ask when people have the bandwidth to give you their full attention and take action.

2. Paint a Portrait, not a Crowd Scene

Many people are lazy when asking for help. They are vague in forming their requests, leaving the person they are asking to do the work. A business owner might ask, for example, “Do you know anyone who might benefit from what I do?”. Someone looking for a job may say, “I’m happy to do anything”.

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“Anyone” or “anything” will get you no one and nothing.

For people to find it easy to help you, direct them towards the help you need. Paint a picture in their mind’s eye. If you need an introduction, let them see an individual they know in their imagination. As they recognise someone, they will be more committed to helping.

Take a moment and picture your favourite singer in concert. First of all, picture the crowd, singing and swaying together as one. What do you see? Do you picture individual features on each face in the crowd? Or just a blur without such distinctions?

In my experience, most people will see a blur when they try to picture the crowd.

Now picture the singer, belting out your favourite song. What do you see now? Most people will be able to picture features clearly, creating an image in their minds that would be recognisable to anyone who knows that artist.

That’s what you want your request for help to produce, a portrait painted in people’s imaginations, not a blurry crowd scene.

3. Show Your Appreciation

It’s simple but often overlooked:n When people do help you, let them know you’re grateful. Whether or not their help works out shouldn’t matter; positive feedback is essential.

That gratitude should be expressed in a way that is meaningful to them. Countless bottles of wine are presented as a "thank you" to people who don’t drink alcohol or may simply have different tastes. A meaningful token of appreciation is personalised to the individual receiving it, demonstrating thought behind it.

Your response doesn’t need to be so elaborate, though. A simple "thank you" card, particularly a handwritten one in these days of online cards and emails, can have a huge impact.

By saying "thank you", you will be reinforcing the positive feelings people get from helping you and encouraging them to do more of the same.

Asking for help doesn’t need to be a challenge. If you make it easy and pleasurable for people to help you, they will willingly do so time and again. Get your timing right, be clear and specific with your request. and show appreciation—and you will get the support you need to achieve whatever you want.