Paul Sloane speaking on Assumptions

One. I didn't say, what one thing? You assumed, what one thing? Why did you assume it? Because you'd heard similar problems before which fit that pattern. You thought, this kind of problem is this kind of pattern. He's looking for one answer. And you're desperately thinking of it. There's a much easier way to solve the problem. And we do it time and again. We assume a situation is like a previous situation. This kind of client must want this kind of solution. I'll bet if you went back and checked the deals you lost last year, Critically, you'd find that many of your losses were because you made a wrong assumption at some stage in the sales process. You assumed you were speaking to the decision maker when you weren't. You assumed they wanted this kind of solution when they didn't. You assumed they understood your proposal and they didn't. Assumptions are very, very dangerous things. And the more expert you are, the more dangerous the assumptions you can make.