Sales Tip 1836: Are You Thinking Critically and Deeply About Your Ideas and Problems? – David Weiss

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips Podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from David Weiss. David is the CRO of the Sales Collective and founder of DealDoc. Here he is.

David Weiss: What is up Sales Society? This is David Weiss with another Tip of the Day. My tip on this is related to critical thinking. You know, one of the challenges I see with a lot of salespeople and really people in general these days is there seems to be a decreasing amount of critical thinking. And what I mean by that is there’s so much available information, there’s so many crutches for data that what we’re often doing is thinking about something, looking for some confirmation bias or not peeling the onion, and then assuming that thing is fact, or if we don’t have an immediate answer to something, going to your boss or going to somebody else to get you an answer. And this happens to me a lot when I’ve led and coached salespeople where they just come to me immediately. There’s a problem, they immediately come to me and I’m like, have you thought about a solution? No, I just wanted to get your opinion first. And it’s like, you need to remember that one. You should never go to your leader without a solution in mind for them to press or test with you and for you to fully think through the thought.

But just also in general, there’s so much information, so much misinformation out there that you really need to take time to think through the problem yourself. Maybe this is because I was an only child and needed to solve a lot of my own problems, or maybe because I’ve worked at a lot of startups and started my own businesses and I didn’t have anyone else that I could rely on and I had to figure it out myself. But, you know, one of the things that I think is a super power for a lot of people is that ability to critically think and solve their own problems and to do so quickly. And so, you know, my recommendation for you is when you run into an issue, don’t give up. Don’t, you know, turn to your boss or, you know, look for someone to rescue you, really put in the time and thought to critically think about the problem, research the problem, do maybe ask peers or look online or other places, then critically think about what they said and pressure test their ideas, and then actually then potentially even form a hypothesis and test your idea. Or at least at that point, then maybe you can go and have a conversation with your boss or others. But one of the big, big challenges that I see is just the ability to stop and really be thoughtful and think critically about things. And I want to instill that back into the communities that I am in, into the people that I coach. Because anytime I teach people to slow down and think critically, they almost always feel more empowered, self-reliant, and ultimately they’re able to solve their own problems in a more effective way.

Scott Ingram: For links to connect with David Weiss, DealDoc and The Sales Collective, just Click over to DailySales.Tips/1836. Once you’ve clicked over there, be sure to click back here for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening.