The Fool.

My successful coach: “Stop giving prospects all the information.”

Me (the fool): “I would never be a coach unless I had all the information.”

Yes, I was 100% correct. I would never be a coach unless I had all the information. My successful coach was wrong. I was living proof. And I didn’t mind telling him how he wrong on this one, many years ago.

Uh ... but I missed one important fact. I wasn’t giving presentations to me. I was giving presentations to prospects who did not think like me!

That is when I learned the lesson, “Don’t judge skills or lessons based upon what I think. My prospects will think differently because they are not me.”

So, while I loved information and needed it for my decision, this was a terrible way to present to others. Then when I learned that decisions were made immediately in the subconscious mind, my humiliation grew. I didn’t even understand how my mind made decisions.

I changed. Now when I hear something I disagree with, I don’t immediately discount it. I try to have a more open mind. I should not judge the skills of how to talk to others based upon my personal preferences.

Take a look at a few brain rules for Professionals. See if you have the same resistance I did when I first saw them:

• All decisions are made in the subconscious mind.
• Decisions happen immediately.
• Decisions happen before the information.
• The close can be in the ice breaker.
• Prospects don’t want to hear information unless they have already made a decision.
• Limit prospects’ choices to just two.

Well … we get the idea here. I could make a longer list of initial brain rules, but for most people, here is what happens.

They experience the same knee-jerk reaction I had when I first saw these. Our immediate response is to resist. For me, I wanted to keep those manipulative 1960s sales techniques I had learned. They were not working for me, so why did I believe they were true? No idea. Maybe I was a fool.

One brain rule is that humans hate changing their minds. I didn’t like hearing that rule either. :) But once I learned about cognitive biases, I changed.

If there is one thing we should take away from my sad story, it is this: “Don’t pass judgment on what works or doesn’t work based upon us. We are not our prospects. We think differently.”

Opening sentence ideas. (The painful approach.)

• “Are you okay with paying too much tax ?”
• “Are you okay with? the Government taking 40% of your inheritance ?”
• “Are you okay with losing your house if you lost your job ?”
• “Are you okay with depending on a state pension ?”?

These 4 words “are you ok with” then point out the pain…. Then wait for soft NO, then you know you have hit a nerve which needs to be solved.

Too many of us are guilty of information dumps!!

Humour

The guy who invented the umbrella was going to call it the 'brella'. But he hesitated.