CredABILITY Archives - The Five Abilities

Want more credibility? Do these three things.

May 8, 2025

Businesses don’t make decisions people do, and people make business decisions for personal reasons. Personal and professional credibility is at the core of addressing the personal reasons that drive decision-makers to choose you over your competition. Do three things to earn personal and professional credibility and lifelong customers.

Demonstrate – Basic credibility is earned by showing your customer how your offering will work for them. Even better, let them show themselves. Nothing communicates product credibility more than letting the customer do it themselves. Equally important, if not more so, is how you demonstrate yourself. Answer questions honestly even if not in full agreement with your customer and you demonstrate integrity. Take notes when your customer is lamenting about their internal challenges and you demonstrate empathy. Ask clarifying questions in the face of heated objections and you demonstrate maturity. How you demonstrate your credibility is more memorable than a product demo.
Educate – Everyone benefits from working with people who bring new, relevant information to the table. Credibility is earned by sharing expert knowledge of your product/service, your industry and that of your customer’s. Advanced education comes when you can help customers, especially in enterprises, to understand the workings of their own company. Suppliers are often privy to information that doesn’t get through the complex communication barriers inside a company. When Boeing was making the transition from proprietary computing to open systems, many end-users didn’t know why applications were changed. Our salespeople educated business executives about the benefits of open systems. We were helping ourselves at the same time we were helping our Boeing IT partners who didn’t have enough hours in the day to educate end-users.
Advocate – Trusted advisor is an over-used phrase but it’s still meaningful. People buy from people they trust and with today’s speed of business the difference between your offering and that of your competitor’s, is typically small. The differences that interest decision-makers are indicators of whom with they’d rather work—you or them? Certainly, you want to advocate for your offering and you want other customers to advocate for you. However, the way you deepen your credibility is to advocate for others who can help the customer when you cannot. Some consider this a loss of control but, in truth, it’s a huge gain in credibility because the customer sees you as someone truly looking out for them.

I keep in touch with former executives at Boeing who I first met as prospective customers. After we had all moved on to different roles they told us over dinner one night that, “In the end, we chose you guys because we preferred working with you.” The project they referred to resulted in HP becoming the preferred server supplier to The Boeing Company. Not small business.

Companies don’t make decisions—people do, and people make business decisions for personal reasons.

Top 50 must-read blogs on Consultative Selling – The Five Abilities(R) in for the third straight year

May 8, 2025

The Five Abilities® makes the list of Top 50 must-read blogs on Consultative Selling for the third consecutive year.

http://www.docurated.com/all-things-productivity/top-50-must-read-blogs-consultative-selli ng

The Five Abilities is #19. The blogs are not in order of “quality or importance” as explained by Docurated.com below. It’s an honor to be included. Thanks Docurated.com

Top 50 Must-Read Blogs on Consultative Selling

Last updated 04:41h 15 Apr, 2016 in All Things Productivity by Cóbhan Phillipson

Consultative sales is a pretty niche topic in the blogging world – surprisingly so, given that it’s a popular sales framework that’s widely utilized by small businesses and enterprises today. Still, you won’t find many blogs dedicated solely to consultative sales. So we thought we’d investigate the far-reaching corners of the web to round up some of the top blogs with robust resources on consultative selling to help you build your reading list, we think you’ll like what we found.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE STATE OF SALES PRODUCTIVITY REPORT

The following 50 blogs cover practically every spectrum of the field of sales, from blogs focused on the technology niche offering resources for high-tech sales consultants, to CRM tools with blogs chock-full of tips for sales professionals to fill and work their pipelines, to blogs from some of the world’s most recognized sales thought leaders – including some who have developed their own sales frameworks, some of which share many similarities to the consultative sales process, and much more.

Note: The following 50 blogs aren’t listed in order of quality or importance. In other words, we’re not trying to say that #1 is better than #50, but that these 50 blogs are the best blogs on consultative sales among the thousands of sales blogs in existence. But we used a numbering system so it’s easy for you to reference a specific blog later, or to point out a blog if you send this list to a friend or co-worker. If you’re looking to brush up your consultative selling skills, these 50 blogs are must-reads

Relevant knowledge or superior knowledge – Which creates CREDABILITY?

May 8, 2025

Before I started my business career, I wrote music and played guitar in many bands. My goal was to become either a staff writer for a record company or a recording artist. This is truly a career where less than one percent of participants end up making a living, let alone making it big. Thus, most musicians had day jobs to pay the rent.

Our keyboardist, Dave, had a day job selling pianos. He did well enough that he was made manager of one of their stores. After being promoted, he had to assess the performance of his team and was surprised to learn that they were all selling less than half of his totals. He was shocked because all of his co-workers were incredible pianists, which made their demonstrations much more impressive than his – while Dave was a great keyboardist for our rock/pop band, he wasn’t a classically trained pianist like the others.

Now that Dave was the manager he needed to find out why these great pianists weren’t selling pianos. In addition to observation he also asked non-buying patrons what made them decide no.

The most common reasons people gave were:

They intended to buy for their kids to learn but, by listening to the salesperson play and talk, they realized it would be many years (if ever) before their kids could play like that. They decided not to buy or to look for used pianos.
They played a bit, but after hearing the salesperson and learning how long it took them to become so good, they were discouraged and no longer wanted to spend the money. They too either decided not to buy or to buy used.
Many never intended to play but wanted a nice showpiece for their living room. After hearing the expert play and say why these were the best pianos, they learned that good-looking pianos weren’t necessarily the best or most expensive.

The difference in how Dave engaged customers is that within a minute of meeting them, they were sitting at the piano. If he found out they played, he’d encourage them to play more. If they couldn’t play he would teach them something really simple and then walk them through the store testing other pianos for feel, sound and comfort of the bench. He helped them obtain relevant knowledge.

Dave didn’t demonstrate how he would use the piano but instead he would have the customers experience the relevant knowledge that applied to them. The trained concert pianists wanted nothing more than to perform for people, and they’d push people to the very expensive Steinway pianos even when they were just casual players. One salesperson even said, “Steinway is the only real piano.”

In this case, and in all cases that don’t involve selling pianos, helping the customer get relevant knowledge wins us more business than demonstrating superior knowledge. We need to always remember that people make business decisions for personal reasons, and our job is to help them get the information that addresses those personal reasons.

What do we see when customers get too much information? – They get confused. The number of variables becomes large and unmanageable. They have to think about it.

Why does this happen? – This generally happens because the seller is very proud of their offering and the things they consider to be huge benefits aren’t relevant knowledge to the customer’s personal decisions.

What are the best next actions to address the Why?

Observe – Most studies show that visual cues account for most of what is communicated by human beings. If the pianists had looked up while playing Mozart they would have seen people who were discouraged rather than excited about buying the piano.
Listen – Another important part of communication is what people say between the lines. What people really say isn’t always in the words they use. The customer might say, “We’re looking for a piano that’s good for beginners.” But what they mean is, “We don’t need the best piano you have.”
Invite their participation – I call this same-side-of-the-table When Dave had the customers sit down to play the piano and then try other ones, he was inviting them to participate in selling to themselves. Dave would tell you that he didn’t really do any selling. He was just on the same side of the piano helping customers get the information they needed.

As Lisa Earle McLeod touts in her book, “Selling with a Noble Purpose”, we are much more successful sellers when our actions are grounded in a noble purpose. When we remember that our job is to help people make business decisions for personal reasons, we consistently execute on the best next actions. It just works out that, in sales, when we do well at helping people, the fallout is that we tend to win more sales and make more money.

Sales is a numbers game… But…

May 8, 2025

…too many have a view that is too narrow to properly apply to the speed and mobility of business and business leaders of today.

As the saying goes, it’s not about who you know but who knows you. Social media, mobile communications and the web accelerate the speed at which good and bad customer experiences travel. Good news travels fast and bad news travels at light speed. The old numbers game used to be about making a maximum number of sales calls, hot and cold, per week. The new numbers game is about motivating decision-makers and influencers, beyond the ones you meet, to want to know and learn from you. This happens when customers/clients are compelled to advocate for you via the many broadcast mechanisms they have. From word-of-mouth to word-of-digital, we want to be seen in the right way, by the right people, at the right time, whether we’ve met the prospects or not.

VISABILITY and CREDABILITY in the digital age.

It’s not about who you know but who wants to know you after learning of you through word-of-mouth and word-of-digital. This is today’s numbers game and too many small and medium businesses still play the old numbers game. What are the keys to playing the new numbers game?

30-second and 3-second value propositions – At minimum, its good confirmation that you have a real value proposition when you, and others, can communicate it in less than 30-seconds. It’s good word-of-digital when you, and others, can write your value proposition in a way that can be consumed in less than 3-seconds. Whether a tweet, text or a tagline, creating a suspicion of value such that the prospective customer/client wants to know you, is the numbers game of the word-of-digital generation.

Address the personal reasons people make business decisions – Decision-makers make decisions to enhance safety, simplicity, rewards, recognition or revolution. (Five things people buy that are not on the invoice) You need to build value propositions that speak to each type of customer/client and do so in a way that others can communicate on your behalf.

Demonstrate, Educate and Advocate – Demonstrate how you’ve created success for others. Educate prospective customers/clients about new ways for them to address their needs with your products or services. Advocate for others who can help your customers/clients. Use your voice to make partners and/or existing customers/clients, more visible and credible to your digital community. It helps decision-makers and broadens your scope from seller to advisor. News about advisors travels faster than news about sellers.

Recently, I was at a social gathering where I had the opportunity to meet many new people. A few of these exchanges led to describing our professions. Each conversation was different but I tend to be very consistent about how I describe my business. I help salespeople and CXOs focus on the personal reasons people make business decisions by teaching and consulting on The Five Abilities® for winning lifelong customers.

Two weeks after that event I got an email from a customer of a person I met that night. Ava had heard about The Five Abilities from our now mutual acquaintance, Daniel – she had visited my website, and was hoping to learn more from me. We had a 20 minute phone conversation and scheduled a meeting for late this month. I don’t know if this will turn into business but after just a 1-2 minute conversation, Daniel knew enough to create a suspicion of value in Ava’s mind such that she wanted to know more from me.

Word-of-mouth is the original numbers game – Word-of-digital is today’s amplification. Tune up your value propositions and know how your offerings address the personal reasons people make business decisions. Demonstrate how you’ve helped others, educate existing and prospective customers/clients and advocate for your customers, clients and partners. This is today’s numbers game that you must do well.

©Rick Wong – The Five Abilities® LLC

You earn credibility in three simple ways

May 8, 2025

Decision-makers want to talk with people who are credible information sources. Whether a salesperson or CEO, if you are credible and have valuable information decision-makers want to talk with you. If you have not yet earned personal credibility you will not get a meeting with anyone influential.

You earn credibility in three simple ways:

Demonstrate your product/service. If your product lends itself to physical demonstration do it. Product demonstrations are the most common display of what people consider to be selling. For established products that are easy to transport, live demonstrations are the norm like with PCs, tractors and other hard goods. For larger or newer products, videos have become more the norm like with industrial cranes, electric cars or commercial airliners.

Service demonstrations show how an engagement works along with results you have created for other clients, if possible. Workflows, videos, and ROI calculations are also good tools to show the benefits of your services.

Educate your customers to help them be better, whether or not they are yet customers. By educating prospective customers you show yourself as a subject matter expert (SME). Decision-makers and key influencers see SMEs as advisors rather than just sellers and they always want to see advisors.

One of my managers at Microsoft, Steve, had a wealth of experience and knowledge from years of working in various product management roles. He had a lot of market knowledge and customers considered him a SME in many areas of the IT industry. His status as a SME put him in demand by our customers which made him part of the benefit of buying from Microsoft.

Advocate for partners and peers who can offer help to your prospective customers and clients. Helping your customers, by introducing them to providers other than you, shows you as a SME interested in the customer’s success. You show that a long-term relationship is important to you even if you do not make a sale today. Advocating for others also shows that you are collaborative and confident enough to bring someone else to the party.

After winning significant business at Boeing we had the opportunity to win more revenue by including our software development tools. This was in the early days of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software and it was clear that Boeing would be better off buying versus building a solution. The group with whom we worked didn’t have the expertise to know all of their options and they lacked the expertise to build software. It was an easy call that earned us lasting credibility leading to years of repeat business.

When you demonstrate, educate and advocate, you earn unshakable CREDABILITY in the minds of your customers leading to more wins and more lifelong customers.

Three successful paths to earning customer credibility (CREDABILITY)

May 8, 2025

Once we create a suspicion of value in the mind of decision-makers we earn CREDABILITY by showing the customer how we make our value proposition a reality. In earning CREDABILITY we’re evolving that suspicion of value to an acknowledgement of value. The three primary paths to customer credibility are demonstration, recommendation and education.

Demonstration – If you’re able to, show them how you’ve done it before and how you can do it for them.

At HP we bid on and won a new manufacturing solution at Boeing Commercial Airplane Company. We were bidding against the incumbent so we had to prove that we could do what we proposed. We set up a large conference room with a mock-up of an airplane assembly-line and had the customers assemble model airplanes while using our software to log and monitor activities. We had fun and while letting them experience the usability of our solution.

We had to show how simple it was to do what we proposed. We earned credibility by letting them do the demo for themselves thus showing them how we’d done it before and how we could do it for them.

Recommendation – Having customers who will advocate for you is a great benefit. You should use strong referrals whenever you have that opportunity.

At American Bank Stationery, a key target market was top credit unions in the country. Boeing Employees Credit Union (BECU) and Alaska Federal USA Credit Union were in my territory. We did business with BECU before I joined so Alaska USA was a top focus for me. Their top two executives made the decision so I needed them to understand our value proposition. We were in Valdez, Alaska, for a credit union conference and I organized a meeting between the presidents of both credit unions. The agenda was about how to grow membership and the BECU president talked about how our New Accounts sales training had helped them. I ended up getting a dinner meeting with the president of Alaska USA and three months later we were supplying them with checks.

The customer developed a suspicion that we have value based on the recommendation of the BECU president. I used the next three months to prove we could make it true for Alaska USA.

Education – If you’re in an industry that relies on innovation as a value proposition you won’t be able to rely on demonstration and recommendation because it’s all new.

In the early 1980s, UNIX-based servers were new to the commercial software market. Computer manufacturers didn’t have the ability to show what had been done before. Our challenge was to sell the benefits of UNIX computing and to show that HP offered the most expertise. HP put our global account teams through training at Cambridge Technologies Group (CTG), at MIT, to learn the benefits of UNIX. It was so compelling we decided to go back with key customers. That customer education led many Fortune 100 companies to choose HP for this innovation in server technology.

Education is a very valuable tool even when you have demonstrations and recommendations. It helps customers assess your solution, makes them comfortable with the unknown and, most importantly, it makes them confident in your ability to deliver.

Without earning CREDABIILTY we can’t win business. Demonstration, recommendation and education are the primary means for us to earn sales CREDABILITY with current and future customers.

The Buzz: Creator, Contributor or Consumer – Sell no matter what

May 8, 2025

Company leaders strive to create positive noise about their offering. They strive to be the topic of positive conversations. They want to create “buzz” for their company and offerings, resulting in heightened visibility and credibility. It’s a bonus when we get to sell for the buzz creators but the best salespeople also know how to sell when we aren’t the hot topic. There are three stages of what I call the “buzz spectrum” and salespeople must be able to execute The Five Abilities® (VISABILITY, CREDABILITY, VIABILITY, CAPABILITY, & RELIABILITY) in all stages.

Stage 1: Creator – It’s beneficial to sell for a company that is creating positive buzz. (I’ll save the problem of negative buzz for another article.) With this fortunate circumstance we have to be ready to use this added visibility to see more customers and win more business. Customers will want in-depth information on our innovations that created the buzz and we have to be credible representatives so that we avoid turning buzz into doubt.

In the late 1980s, HP ran a set of “What if…” commercials. The message was that HP sales and service people were consultative problem-solvers. It was great visibility for those selling for HP but if we didn’t engage with a consultative approach, we lost the benefit of the buzz. If our focus was pitching versus problem-solving the customers would think, ‘Where’s the person in the commercial?’

Stage 2: Contributor – In the real world, we most often sell without the benefit of buzz created by our company and products. Many salespeople have never had the fortune of working for a buzz creator. Fortunately, creators need contributors. They need others, often channel partners, to amplify the buzz. When in the contributor role we must demonstrate our credibility with direct knowledge of the buzz and we must present ourselves as capable and reliable deliverers of products creating the buzz.

Windows 95 was one of the most anticipated product launches in the PC industry. Microsoft was creating so much buzz you couldn’t find a trade publication without an article on “Chicago” – the product’s code name. It was critical that our channel partners were credible experts on the product, that they were seen as viable Microsoft partners such that they had access to information not publicly available and that they were capable of helping customers succeed with the new product. Microsoft had to ensure that channel partners had access to information but it was ultimately up to the partner to become credible and viable experts so they could contribute to the buzz.

Stage 3: Consumer – Veteran salespeople know that there are many times when we aren’t creating or contributing to the buzz – we are simply consumers of information. Importantly, this doesn’t mean we’re irrelevant to our customers but we must help them understand how this new buzz will advance their business. We must learn enough to know how to help or we’ll be behind and become a hindrance.

When I sold checks for American Bank Stationery, in the early 1980s, the banking industry was just introducing the Automated Teller Machine (ATM). ATMs and credit cards, were creating buzz as the future of how people would get cash and how they’d make purchases. Part of that buzz was that people wouldn’t need checks anymore. No need for a checkbook, simply use a little plastic card. Certainly, we had to tout the continued benefits of checks but we also had to acknowledge where the industry was moving. When we did sales training for new accounts representatives, we helped them develop benefit statements for the bank’s ATMs and credit cards. We still represented checks as necessary in certain cases but we changed our approach to adapt to the industry and to ensure we were helping – not hindering. We remained consultative and kept selling checks even though we weren’t creating any buzz.

Know where you are on the buzz spectrum (creator, contributor or consumer) and adjust your sales approach to ensure you remain consultative and beneficial to your customers.

Four reasons gatekeepers are gold for salespeople

May 8, 2025

In the sales world, gatekeepers are often referred to in a negative light. You’ll hear things like, “Don’t get stuck in procurement – they’re just gatekeepers” and “You have to get past the gatekeepers or you’re just wasting your time.”

This is short-sighted advice because real gatekeepers are assigned by decision-makers. That being the case it’s typical for them to know what’s important to that decision-maker. Their job is to help decision-makers be more efficient and ensure that any meeting they book is worthwhile.

(Note: Gatekeepers are not the people who fake being a decision-maker. People faking it are barriers who are usually trying to inflate their position with you and their peers. Real gatekeepers know that their role is to find good information that their decision-maker will value and they’re smart about it.)

Why are gatekeepers gold?

Decision-makers rely on them – These people are information gatherers. It’s their job to assess the value of the seller’s proposal and decide whether their expected value is worth the time of the decision-maker. This is why they’re called gatekeepers and not gates. You help them do their job by giving them information that is credible, logical, and easy to digest and analyze – information they want to pass on.

Good gatekeepers open the gate – Real gatekeepers know that their job is not to keep the gate closed but to find reasons to open it. Decision-makers in that C-Suite, need valuable information. They need information that will help them advance their business. Real gatekeepers know enough about both the business and the decision-maker, in order to sift through all the information and pass on right pieces. Help them open the gate by helping them find those valuable pieces for their decision-makers.

Good gatekeepers win when you win – Gatekeepers want to get into the decision-maker’s office, too. The more value they bring to their leaders, the more time they’ll spend with those leaders. When they open the gate for someone who helps their decision-maker win, the gatekeeper wins too. This is a very important win-win opportunity in any sales effort. We get to this place by delivering helpful information to the gatekeeper, even when they’re not in the process of making a decision. Helping gatekeepers succeed earns you valuable advocates because they win when you win.

Good gatekeepers become decision-makers – Real gatekeepers have titles like Director, General Manager and Business Manager. They have full-time jobs in addition to helping their leaders sift through information to decide what is worth passing on. The ability to do quick analysis and make smart judgement calls is part of being a good leader. Ask anyone in the C-Suite if they’ve played gatekeeper during their career and you’ll get yes from all of them. In fact, you’re likely to learn that they’re still playing gatekeeper for other important people.

Gatekeepers are gold for salespeople because they’re gold for decision-makers. Find them, deliver value to them, turn them into trusted advocates, help them win and you’ll find yourself signing business in more C-Suites going forward.

Delivering Superior Knowledge

May 8, 2025

With the ease of information access in today’s digital age, customers can learn a lot about our products and services before we make our first sales call. They comb our websites to research our offerings. They also read what our competitors, critics and customers say about us.

If customers can get all the information they need through research, what is the role of the salesperson? How do we bring superior knowledge to the customer when they can learn about our products and services without talking to us?

The Open Systems Era

In the late 1980s a major shift was happening in the computer industry from proprietary computing systems to open computing systems. In short, proprietary computing environments meant customers continually had to deal with systems integration issues, which decreased their productivity. Customers were also limited in their choice of software applications often meaning they had to settle for less than they actually needed.

It was the desire to enhance their operations that drove the industry to demand a standard server operating system based on UNIX. Even though all the major computer manufacturers had their own versions of UNIX, the foundation was still UNIX. This meant better cross-platform integration and more open choice for customers. Thus was birthed the Open Systems era.

Given the infancy of this new technology it was impossible for our salespeople to have superior knowledge. We were trained on the basics but many of the people who would be evaluating us needed true expertise. Since we couldn’t become experts overnight the next best thing was to make sure our customers had access to experts. The job of sales is to be the expert on the customer so we can connect them with exactly the right people to answer their questions and concerns. That’s what HP enabled for us.

We had come to a point when all companies were considering a move to Open Systems. At HP, we had spent years behind competitors like IBM and Digital Equipment Corporation because their systems had set the proprietary industry standards. With the advent of Open Systems, the playing field was again leveled and companies who once were closed to us were now open. With most Fortune 500 companies considering the move, we had to share superior knowledge in order to keep that door open.

It was impossible for our salespeople and engineers to become experts overnight. At the same time, the CXOs of all our prospective customers were clamoring for us to deliver superior knowledge about Open Systems. Would it make them more efficient? Would it reduce their costs? Their primary need was for unbiased education so they could correctly decide if Open Systems was right for them and, if so, who they should work with to make it happen.

At HP, rather than sending our salespeople out to do traditional sales pitches, we worked with a company called Cambridge Technology Group, in Boston, to provide educational opportunities for CXOs, so they could get that unbiased, superior knowledge, about Open Systems. Equally important, we got to attend the training with the CXOs of our prospective customers. We got to hear the questions they asked and they shared their concerns with us when we weren’t in the classroom. We got to spend two days with CXOs as they were pondering whether or not to make this significant change.

These trainings, not only delivered unbiased, superior technical knowledge, but we got to demonstrate the one thing prospective customers couldn’t research then and can’t research today. The customers were able to learn about us. While they learned about Open Systems they also learned what it would be like to do business with us, as individuals, and with HP, the company. In the end, this path to CREDABILITY earned HP a lot of business when companies migrated to Open Systems.

Superior knowledge delivered

We earn CREDABILITY by delivering superior knowledge to our customers, whether it comes from us or not. The customer simply needs us to be experts on their needs which allows us to properly represent them back to our companies and to the community that can help them, even if it’s not us. This is how incredibly successful salespeople consistently earn the CREDABILITY that allows them to win more business with more customers.

Five things to learn about your customer’s personal history – A habit of the best sales people

May 8, 2025

We all prepare for sales calls by researching our customer’s business – At least I hope we do. How many of us take the time to research the personal history of the people making decisions? From what I have seen, most do not spend enough time on this key part of selling. The best sales people do.

No matter how high-level the decision maker, they can only act on what they know. A small part of what they know comes from what we teach them about our company, our product and, most importantly, ourselves. The larger part of what they know comes from their personal journey on the way to becoming a high-level decision maker.

Every executive starts his/her career in individual contributor roles. They all worked their way into a position of influence by generating better results than that of their peers. There may have been politics involved to boost their career, but mostly we find people who have a wealth of great results in their wake. Learning their history will help us predict how they will make decisions in the future.

Success – What are the common threads throughout all of their successful results? What are their noteworthy accomplishments that have brought them celebrated status within their company and industry? Even though we have Google and LinkedIn, the best way to learn about our customers is simply to ask. We can search the jobs people have done but we only learn what really makes them successful by asking the decision maker and the people around them.

Mistakes – Important people have made important mistakes. It is part of their learning process. In Microsoft, it is common to hear veterans talk about the times they got dressed down by either Bill or Steve. This “right-of-passage” is something from which leaders learn how they improve. Show me a person who cannot recall the things they learned from mistakes, and I will show you someone who has never taken a risk or made an impact.

Barriers – What significant challenges have decision-makers faced, both in business and in personal life? I had to deal with racism while growing up. I was bullied at least once a week between kindergarten and second grade simply because I was Chinese. That continued until I learned how to fight back. While I am not proud of all of the fighting I did in school, a lot of my confidence comes from when I learned how to fight well enough that the bullies no longer wanted to pick on me. When I have told people that part of my history, the common response has been, “That explains a lot.”

Helpers – Everybody in highly influential positions has received help along the way, regardless of how smart they are. We want to know who helped our customers and what aid they needed along the way. It gives us a picture of whom our customers like to work with and the kinds of assistance they look for and appreciate.

Luck – While most successful people never bet on luck, they will readily talk about times when things just went their way. They will talk about how lucky they are to have learned from great people. They will rave about how lucky they are to be part of great teams. They will laugh about the hunches that turned out to be right. Listen to how they describe their luck and you will hear people describing how they put themselves in the position to take advantage of good circumstances. You will also hear about how they did not let bad circumstances halt their progress.

Learning our customer’s history of success, mistakes, barriers, helpers and luck, is a foundation from which we can infer how they will make decisions in the future.

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