Every day, all day long, we take information around us, interpret this information through our past experiences, and assign meaning to it. It’s even more critical to consider this automatic process right now. We are Meaning Makers. But sometimes the meaning we give a particular situation is not accurate.

Imagine a Choose Your Own Adventure® book. Remember reading those in elementary school? In the story of our life in sales, let’s imagine we’ve gotten to the part where you’ve found a potential client and you have emailed or called them, but they haven’t yet gotten back to you.

As a character in the story, you’ve got to have a response to this situation. 

One option at the bottom of the page might be, “They haven’t gotten back to you because they don’t want to work with you.” Another option could be, “They haven’t gotten back to you because they haven’t gotten back to you.”

Do you see you have a choice here? ...how the meaning we assign to the events changes not just what we feel but what we DO? 

In the first option, you’ll just stop trying to reach out because of what the lack of response means, and the story is over in a few short pages. 

With the second option, the meaning you assigned is an acknowledgment that you need more information. It is a neutral response. Just a simple fact. With that fact, you can decide that the next action means to vary your methods of reaching them and try again. And the story continues.

And here’s a spoiler alert for the end of our story: there is only one path to sales success and that’s to not give up on reaching out too soon! 

How we make meaning right now affects if we’ll sell and if our business will survive and thrive. Don’t let your inner voice tell you lies about your prospects about what people will and won’t do right now during COVID-19. Selling has likely changed forever because of this pandemic, so the meaning you assign matters right now.