How Not Testing Your Assumptions Is Costing You Serious Business

Every day, entrepreneurs act on their assumptions. Making assumptions is a part of doing business. Assumptions are often based on our experiences and are not often questioned. It’s part of our system of beliefs. If our beliefs are not sound, our assumptions are not sound.

These assumptions can serve you or they can deter you from getting your products and services out into the world in a big way. If limiting, they get in the way of creating and selling products or closing on more sales.

When you test your own norms, the possibilities can be endless. As an example, let’s take the bottled water industry. In the 1960s, who would have thought that people could make a profit off of something that that was readily available and was as close as the nearest water fountain? Years later, someone tested their belief. Today, you can’t enter a supermarket or gas station without a wall filled with brands of water to choose from and mixes to put in them.

You might think that testing assumptions is risky. Take the risk any way. By not testing assumptions, there is risk. In this fast-changing world, what worked yesterday, may not work today. Yet, many people approach their sales and marketing with assumptions about certain techniques that worked in the past will work the same way today, despite the changes in technology and human behavior.

Assumptions can work for you or limit you. Testing your beliefs and notions creates possibilities. Without challenging our beliefs, you may be resisting possibilities. Because of how one of my clients was innate hardwired, she assumed everyone wanted to receive a lot of information before they made their decisions. She found herself giving away a lot of useful content during her initial consultations with prospects, but frustrated because she was not converting them into clients.

In working through the Entrepreneurial Edge System, she discovered two very important assumptions:

1. She gave information the way she wanted to receive it. She was delivering her information methodically with long descriptions. However, many of her prospective clients wanted to receive it very differently. They wanted to receive their information in quick, short, concise bullet points.

2. She was offering only one way for them to work with her. Her prospects liked choices. After a few adjustments in her delivery and service offerings, she went from sales failure to sales superstar now closing on up to an average of 98% of her prospects.

In your daily interactions, ask yourself:

• What assumptions am I making?
• What are the possibilities (ones that will get me closer to my vision)?

The moment you start limiting yourself with an excuse or telling yourself something can’t happen - stop yourself.
Ask yourself these two questions. Then, watch how many possibilities are created just by checking just one assumption.