Silencing my critics.

Unfortunately, it took a lot longer than I expected.

I started my career with incompetence, and when that didn’t work, I worked even harder doing more incompetent things. Yes, I doubled my daily output of stupid activity.

How did that work out? Not well.

My results only improved when I learned new things to say. It was a humbling lesson. I couldn’t just use willpower. I had to learn to say better things.

Learning new things to say is easy for humans. Our minds are designed to look for patterns. We try to find patterns in everything, even when there are no patterns.

We can experiment our way to finding a winning pattern. How?

Use one opening sentence with every prospect we meet for a week. Notice how our prospects react.

Then, use a different opening sentence with prospects the following week. Notice how these prospects react.

See a pattern? We should.

Let’s look at an example.

I want to sell diet products to prospects. I ask prospects what they do for a living. In reaction, they will ask me what I do for a living. Now I can test my answers to see which answer gets the better results.

Ready?

Week #1:

Prospect: “And what do you do for a living?”
Me: “Well, you know how we always feel hungry?”

Week #2:

Prospect: “And what do you do for a living?”
Me: “For example, let’s imagine you were thin …”

I will pick up the pattern that the answer for week #1 performs better.

Trial and error works. But it works slowly. We can accelerate our learning by reading a book or listening to an audio. Learning from other people’s experiences is more efficient.

So what do we want to test? Here are a few ideas:

The decision is instant. An easy choice.

Don’t concentrate on the final goal. Instead, concentrate on choosing the day-to-day activity that will get us to our final goal.

That is what pros do.

Here is how we can tailor our activities to our personality color. This means we will enjoy working towards our goal.