Try This Stoic Exercise To Better Understand Your Clients

I have read lots of sales books, worked at several sales organizations, and there is a common theme among all of the training programs- they try their best to provide processes to better understand the buyer.

It’s a simple idea- put your ego aside and put yourself in the buyer’s shoes.

It’s simple but difficult to think from someone else’s perspective.

Sometimes, the best we can do is see through our self-deception, which helps us get closer to the truth.

This is a principle of Stoicism.

If you have ever heard the names Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, or more recently Ryan Holiday, you might be familiar with it.

Stoicism is an ancient philosophy that tries to understand what it means to live a good life.

It provides a logical system to view life through reason and virtues.

Stoicism provides practices to help us see through the illusions or cognitive biases we hold.

You can find out more here.

There is a specific practice that can help salespeople.

?It’s called, “Taking the view from Above”.

The idea is to look at your situation from a different perspective.

Imagine looking at your experience from a third-person perspective as part of the rest of the world.

How might your paradigm shift?

This same concept has been used in Neurolinguistic Programming.

Have you heard of Tony Robbins?

?“Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a?psychological approach that involves analyzing strategies used by successful individuals and applying them to reach a personal goal. It relates thoughts, language, and patterns of behavior learned through experience to specific outcomes.”

In Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) there is an exercise called Meta-Mirroring. There are variations of it, but I use the method from Kain Ramsay’s course.

Step 1: Identify an interaction with a client/prospect that you’re looking to gain insight?or develop a better understanding. Focus on the memory.?

What is happening?

How are you feeling right now?

What do you believe or perceive about this situation?

What is important to you here?

What can you learn?

How has your perspective changed?

Step 2: Now imagine you’re able to step outside of yourself, and step into the other person’s experience. Now you’re this person looking at you.

What is happening?

How are you feeling right now?

What do you believe or perceive about this situation?

What is important to you here?

What can you learn?

How has your perspective changed?

Step 3: Now imagine your able to step out of the other persons and you’re floating ten feet above the two of you.

What is happening?

?How are “they” feeling right now?

What do “they” believe or perceive about this situation?

What is important to “them” here?

What can “they” learn?

How has “their” perspective changed?

Step 4: Now step back into yourself.

What have you learned from this process?

How has your perspective changed?

You can also use this practice to deal with virtually any experience you have with another person. I hope you find it helpful.