Avoid assumptions: an assumption might lead to a howler of a mistake.
Me: “Hello, is that Annette?”
My unfortunate partner in conversation: “No, it’s Adrian.”
Boy, did I feel a complete fool — asking a man if he was a woman.
No matter how long I have been involved with lead generation, the mistakes still creep in. I still make rubbish assumptions and presumptions. And if twenty years in the field hasn’t cured me of them entirely, I think it’s safe to say that assumptions are not a habit we simply grow out of. They’re baked into the way human beings think.
Why we make assumptions in the first place #
Dr Marcia Sirota, a Toronto-based board-certified psychiatrist with over twenty-five years of experience, has written compellingly on exactly this tendency. She argues that it’s part of human nature to base our understanding of other people and the world not just on the facts we observe, but to a greater or lesser extent on what’s going on inside us psychologically.
Instead of basing our understanding of people and events on what we observe and what we know for a fact, we often prefer to make judgements based on our emotions, beliefs, expectations and wishes. We too easily confuse these psychological mechanisms with reality, and the assumptions that spring from them become the basis of our own version of “reality” — even though it’s not actually real.
We don’t recognise just how much our inner world is colouring the way we see and understand our outer world, and how it distorts things for us. When making assumptions becomes a habit, we become less and less grounded in reality, and more and more prone to creating problems for ourselves and others.
The Annette/Adrian moment was trivial, and Adrian was, I hope, magnanimous enough to find it funny. But the same mechanism that produces that kind of social embarrassment can produce something far more costly in a business context.
The business cost of getting it wrong #
Research by The Harris Poll and Grammarly found that miscommunication is costing American businesses $1.2 trillion annually and at the root of much of that cost are unchecked assumptions. Assumptions about what a client already knows. Assumptions about what a prospect actually needs. Assumptions about who the decision-maker in the room actually is.
Sales professionals are particularly exposed to this. Assuming you understand a client’s problem without checking is one of the most reliable ways to offer the wrong solution with great confidence. Research from AskForensics, drawing on hundreds of in-depth interviews with executives, identified that some of the most damaging assumptions in client relationships are the ones that feel the most certain, including assuming a client is satisfied simply because they haven’t complained, or assuming that resolving a problem means the client knows it has been resolved.
The pattern is remarkably consistent: the assumption feels like knowledge, and that feeling is precisely what makes it dangerous.
Pausing to help us through #
So how do we stop making so many assumptions and start basing our understanding of people and the world on more tangible facts?
Dr Sirota’s answer is elegantly simple. We pause as we’re jumping to our conclusions and ask ourselves: “How do I know this?”
If the answer to that question is anything other than “I learned it through observing the evidence or through obtaining factual information,” then we’re at risk of making an incorrect assumption. The pause creates just enough distance between instinct and action to let reality back in.
In a sales or lead generation context, this translates directly into asking better questions. Not assuming we know what a prospect needs before we’ve listened. Not assuming we know who we’re speaking to before we’ve confirmed it. Not assuming the person on the other end of the line is an Annette when they might very well be an Adrian.
The antidote #
“Before you assume, try this crazy method called asking.” — a great quote from an unknown genius.
In my case, though, I had asked the wrong question. Which is perhaps a lesson in itself; that even the antidote to assumption requires a little care in its application. Asking is better than assuming, but asking the right question is better still.
The good news is that this is a learnable habit. The pause, the question, the willingness to let the answer surprise you ; these are skills that compound over time, just like any other. And the more consistently we apply them, the less likely we are to mistake an Adrian for an Annette.
Thank you for reading.
Author: Richard Bull-Domican, founder of New Era Financial Introductions, a B2B lead generation consultancy with over twenty years of experience. The perspectives shared here come from two decades in the field; not theory, but practice.
I create small, digestible guides on Gumroad for business owners who hate aggressive tactics and prefer relationship-led approaches. New resources are added regularly. For longer reads on lead generation and the human side of sales, follow me on Medium and join the daily conversation on LinkedIn.
Gumroad: https://richardbulldomican.gumroad.com/
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardbulldomican/
