Your Gut LIES (Part 1)

What we call “gut feeling” is usually a combination of wishful thinking, conventional wisdom, personal experience, half-remembered true information, and projecting our own preferences upon everyone around us.

It’s an easy – and human – thing to do; to project your own experience, opinion and beliefs on everyone around us.  We all do it, all the time.

Have you ever heard someone express an opinion completely the opposite of yours, and wonder to yourself how any “normal” person could think that way?  Was that person a friend, and did it change how you thought or felt about that person? 

LALALA! I'm not listening!

In our professional life, we do the same thing – we make the assumption that our preferences and beliefs are held by the people we want to do business with.  Much of the time, it's because we either couldn't or wouldn't take the time figure out our business from the customer's point of view.

Do you have in place a way to "represent" the customer?  Check out how HubSpot does it here:  Your Customers Are Not Ignorant, Selfish Control Freaks

Here's the thing: when you run your business by your "gut", you're allowing your business to be run to your personal satisfaction, not to the satisfaction of your customers.  Remember, it's the customers who pay the bills, so their preferences are of prime importance.

When our customers state a completely different preference from one we hold dear, we’re baffled – how could they think this way? What is wrong with them?

There’s nothing wrong with them, they’re just not you.  Your "gut" is outright lying to you, 

More on how your gut lies (and what to do about it) in Part 2.