Just today, alone, I’ve been in several meetings. A couple were deal reviews, one was a major strategy/restructuring discussion. I learned more in these sessions by what they didn’t say and present than by what they did say.
Listening/observing what isn’t being said or done is as important to understanding what is being done. Whether it is working with a customer moving them through their buying cycle; working with your people in deal, account, or other reviews; or major strategy/business planning sessions.
When we focus only on what’s being said, we are focused on what people know and how they are responding to what they know. The problem is, it’s seldom what we know that hurts us. It’s those things we don’t know, or don’t address that hurt us.
And often, are blinded because we don’t know what we don’t know.
So one of the most important things we can do as sales people or leaders is listen to what is not being said that should be, try to find what’s not being done that must be done.
Helping our customers and people think differently, helping them discover what they (and we) might be missing, enables us to learn, grow, developing and implementing solutions that are more likely to be successful.
Repeating myself, it’s never the things we know and have addressed that impact us, it’s those things we don’t know. Focus on reducing what you don’t know.
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