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How Social Proof Dominates Your Life

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Cognitive Bias 15 out of 25: Social-Proof Tendency Humans are constantly having cognitive biases affect the way decisions are made. These biases cause people’s brains to distort reality, impair judgment, and cause impulse decisions. The social proof tendency is one of the most popular because of the absolute stranglehold it has on our lives. Psychologically, humans have a follow the leader mentality where action is typically taken when other people act or when they know it’s a safe decision. In the same sense, inaction will occur when other people are refusing to act. Even in times of emergency. This phenomenon is better known as social proof. This cognitive bias relies heavily on trust. Humans are fairly skeptical in general. However, we’re less skeptical towards friends, family, acquaintances, and influencers. This happens because the trust is already established. We know that people we trust aren’t likely to take advantage of us or steer us wrong. This causes fear and doubt ...
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The Number One Lesson I Learned From Haters

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There are some valuable lessons that you can learn from haters. More times than not these lessons are learned the hard way. Haters drag people down way too often. Some know they’re doing it. The unfortunate thing is others don’t necessarily think they’re hating. Instead their “being real” or “being a realist.” Whether a hater is oblivious or not, there’s no worse feeling than when your closest friends and family are your haters. In this post, you’ll learn the number one thing that haters taught me that no self help book or business guru can prepare you for. This phenomenon of haters happens because humans are like crabs in a bucket . Haters attempt to pull down anyone going against the norm. It’s sad but happens all the time.I’m not talking about when haters are roasting, playing pranks, or smack talking. These are harmless and what make your closest relationships so great… but have a tendency to go horribly wrong at times. Horribly wrong is alright when it doesn’t happ...
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Closing Technique of the Week: The Hard Close

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The hard close is a closing technique that some salespeople don’t like to keep in their arsenal. This happens because it’s more of a black and white close and can come off as pushy, if not trained properly on it. It’s not for everyone but sometimes a client will never buy unless they’re hard closed. The hard close is for those customers that can’t seem to make up their mind but want to “think about it.” Essentially, the hard close is when you get down to brass tax and straight up ask the customer to buy or attempting to figure out the true objection. I say true objection because “think about it” more times than not is a stall or fake objection. Why would you have to think about a sure deal anyway? So it’s basically the customer letting you down easy. Keep in mind that there’s multiple ways to use the hard close. It’s when you’re being as professionally blunt as possible asking for the sale or what the objection is. The ask I tend to resort to is “do you want to go ahead and b...
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How Loss Aversion Dominates Your Life

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Cognitive Bias 14 out of 25: Deprival Super-Reaction Tendency Humans are constantly having cognitive biases affect the way decisions are made. These biases cause people’s brains to distort reality, impair judgment, and cause impulse decisions. The deprival super-reaction tendency is one of my favorites because of the absolute stranglehold it has on our lives. Psychologically, humans can’t stand being deprived of things and will over react in ways to avoid the pain of deprivation. This phenomenon is better known as loss aversion. Loss aversion relates to how humans would rather avoid a loss than receive any sort of gain. That’s why fear is such a powerful emotion. This cognitive bias becomes more powerful the bigger your investment is. What’s crazy is it doesn’t only relate to financial investments. Loss aversion comes into play with emotions, time, life, safety, resources, and the number one thing that causes the most pain when you lose it… BEER. Loss Aversion and Business...
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7 Strategies to Perfectly Apply Pressure in Business

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Applying pressure is a tricky art form. I always say closing a business deal is like catching a butterfly with your bare hands. If you apply too much pressure, you’ll overpower your client and crush any hopes of a deal. On the flip side, if you don’t apply enough pressure the deal is guaranteed to slip away. In this post, I’ll give you some effective ways to perfectly apply pressure. The most important part to remember is that pressure is needed either way. Anyone that refuses to use pressure in business will never be successful. Keep in mind that pressure is required to make diamonds and that same idea is applicable in business. When pressure is used in the right ways you’ll enhance your customer experience, skyrocket results, and start making more money. Mastering the use of pressure will cause you to start seeing massive success. Not only that but when pressure is being applied correctly, it doesn’t seem high pressure to your clients. I’ve had clients that tell me that I’m su...
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A Quick Rant on the Phrase "I'll Try"

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We’ve all heard it. We’ve definitely all said it before; I’ll try. I’ve grown to hate this phrase and it’s one of my least favorite next to the phrase “I don’t have time” ( check out my post on that here ). The phrase I’ll try is basically saying that you plan to fail. There’s no commitment behind those words. If you think about it, whenever you truly want something you hold yourself accountable until you get it whether it’s graduating school, a promotion, learning a new skill, getting your crush’s attention, etc. You refuse to let failure be an option. It may take failing, a crazy amount of work, creativity, or even problem solving but you don’t stop until you win. Now take what your number one goal is now and put the emphasis of I’ll try behind it… it just feels wrong, doesn’t it? You may be thinking to yourself right now, “is it that big of a deal?” or something along those lines. The short answer is yes! I’ll help you understand why in this post. This phrase basically m...
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Closing Technique of the Week: The Ben Franklin Close

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Closing the sale is an art form. My favorite part about closing sales is that each and every single scenario that’ll ever happen is different. That’s why salespeople struggle the most with overcoming objections and ultimately closing the sale. There’s no one single way to do it. It’s actually recommended to have an arsenal of closing techniques along with continually practicing overcoming those objections. This week’s closing technique of the week is The Ben Franklin Close. This closing technique is as old as time itself… or at least as old as Ben Franklin… or at least as old as the old lady from Happy Gilmore. Yeah, that old. In all seriousness, the reason this technique is called The Ben Franklin Close is because it involves a pros and cons list. Back in the day Ben Franklin used to love making pros and cons lists. These lists are an effective tool for getting your thoughts on paper and figuring out what’s important and what you’re worried about. Who knows maybe without t...
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How Being Overoptimistic Kills Business

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Cognitive Bias 13 out of 25: Overoptimism Tendency Our minds work in mysterious ways. Many times we have to balance being positive and optimistic with a healthy dose of reality and logic. They’re extremely tough to balance and if one side significantly outweighs the other you’ll start having issues. The overoptimism tendency is part of the 25 cognitive biases that dictate the way we make decisions. Being optimistic is great for creating excitement and boosting morale but being over-optimistic may cloud your better judgement. Don’t get me wrong, optimism is needed because it inspires hope and gets humans to take action. Overoptimism will cause your mind to be in denial when you receive bad news or encounter failures. If you don’t know how denial kills business check out my post on it here . Overoptimism is proven to affect our decision making abilities at times. Generally, we overvalue our decisions and think that they’ll all work out. But if you think about it, it’s impossible ...
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5 Life Changing Lessons I Learned from Business

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The world of business is great for kicking your ass. It takes no prisoners and if you don’t keep your head on a swivel you’ll surely be blindsided. The reality is it’s a tough industry but you’ll learn so much if you’re open minded. Being in business can help you achieve things that you never thought possible. The opportunities are endless. In the same sense, you can live paycheck to paycheck as well. It’s all about how hard you work and how bad you want to become successful. In this post I’m going to share my 5 life changing lessons that I learned from being in business along with the stories that lead to me learning them. The important thing to remember is I am just a normal guy. I’ve had points in my life where I had no direction or confidence that I would be able to achieve anything worthwhile. While I am still early in my life and career (25 years old), I’m by no means done with where I aim to be. I share these 5 life changing lessons in hopes of teaching you somethin...
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