Episode 41 - Always Talk To Strangers

After a brief rant about their listeners in Iran and the intimidation tactics of police in the United States (get off topic much, guys?), Kurt and Steve discuss a recent study about confidence.  According to the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, well all have some internal wiring that makes us want to trust strangers.  Despite being told not to trust them our whole life, strangers are able to gain our trust.  Whether it's online or at a retail storefront, we are more likely to trust strangers when there is a social norm involved.  When we feel it's our duty or responsiblity to trust others, we're likely to comply.  This is because the human brain wants to creat short cuts and make decisions easier.  So it's likely to make you trust people that maybe you shouldn't. Kurt suggests that it's better to trust and risk getting hurt than to never trust anybody.  Otherwise you could end up "living in a van down by the river."

Continuing onto the topic of charisma, Kurt and Steve briefly review last week's subject, passion.  You have to have passion (only one guy has ever been able to be passionless and still hold our attention).  But beyond passion, you have to have confidence.  But how do you know when you've crossed the line between confidence and arrogance?  It's okay to be aggressive and try to show that you have confidence.  We want confident people that we can trust to tell us what to do so we don't make mistakes.  That's part of human nature.  But as we said before, avoiding arrogance is key.

We can avoid arrogance by taking criticism with an open mind and heart.  Kurt uses a recent interaction with his teenage son to illustrate this (way to go for the low hanging fruit, Kurt).  Confidence is about you serving your prospect.  Arrongance is all about you and what you know and how great you are.  We all hear the same objections over and over again.  We think that we can jump in and cut the person off and give them the answer.  But that crosses the line between confidence and arrogance.  Your prospect has to verbalize the objection as this is likely the first time they thought it.  This takes time and there is simply no way around it. Steve then can't help himself on the food front and compares spending sales prospects to a delicious rack of baby back ribs.  And no, listening to him explain it probalby won't help it make anymore sense than it does here. 

But what if you aren't confident?  What if you're new or what if you don't even believe in your product?  Sometimes you have to fake it until you make it.  Sometimes you have to do what athletes who are in a slump to.  You have to stay in the game until you get even a minor victory that you can build on.  But if that doesn't work, sometimes you have to make a change.  Ironically enough, passion again comes into play here.  If you aren't confident you aren't passionate.  If you aren't passionate you aren't confident.

Finally for this week's blunder, Kurt and Steve revisit the gift that keeps on giving, Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling.  Kurt and Steve discuss the PR debacle this has become and why Sterling is a horrible example for anyone who finds themselves in a situation where they need to back peddle.