In all my years of working with people and companies on sales and market strategies and tactics, I discovered one basic, workable truth that is the secret behind any success I have had in unraveling seemingly unsolvable complexities.
It is simply this:
The source of what is wrong with any bad situation is never what they already know all about.
It is always some other influence; uninspected and unsuspected that turns out to be the source. All the talking points, reasons, explanations, excuses or justifications are just red herrings put forth intentionally or not to divert attention from the real cause of the trouble. Any failures I had were when I paid more than passing attention to these distractions; the result was inevitably that the problem, even if temporarily masked, would continue to crop up again and again in the future.
Only by training myself to hear what isn’t said and see what isn’t there have I been successful in unraveling the myriad of seemingly unsolvable complexities that I have been presented with over the years.
No matter how long it takes, I always operate from this one stable point.
The true source of any problem is never what they say it is.
Remember this the next time you find yourself in a sales situation where you can’t seem to get around the prospects objection. It just may open the door to a handling.
Because, it it were the correct source, they wouldn’t still be searching around for an answer, they would be in motion handling the situation and they wouldn’t be calling me in to help sort it out.
It appears to be a common human failing, this inability to recognize the source of something, until you realize that much of the communication devices of our country are intentionally and in my mind, nefariously designed to hide the truth.
It is nearly axiomatic that anything put forward by most media is only an attempted manipulation and control of the thoughts, ideas, emotions and actions of the readers or listeners. Further, that you can turn off the TV and cancel the newspaper subscription without fear of missing anything of real import to your life, and you might feel a lot better about life in general.
I won’t get off on a rant here; I am only putting forth one workable bit of truth that I have found useful in my work.
If someone thinks they “already know” what the source of the problem is and the problem continues . . . it is not the correct source of the problem . . . ever.
daniel w. jacobs
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