Your Social Conditioning Can Create Your Reality and Limit your Success Potential

By Jim Masson

You might say, "Reality is reality" or "what is ... is". I would like you to consider another possibility if you are willing. Consider that "Your perception is your reality". Then add this concept, "Your social conditioning often creates your perception", a.k.a your belief system or, in simpler terms, your point of view. There are two more factors to consider within this premise.

Because we are individuals, we each have an ego. Our individual ego wants to be right, every single time, so it will actively defend the perception that we hold and in doing so will usually bring in judgment in order to justify the position. Our individual position is right therefore the other person's position must be wrong.

This is the basis of virtually all conflict that we see around us whether globally, regionally, in our neighborhoods, even within our families. What I intend to do here is to try to bring this concept into your awareness and to relate it to the selling process and the customer's buying experience.

When you are in a selling situation, it is important to realize that your prospect also has his or her firm perception of reality which has also been been shaped by social conditioning. This fact means that your prospect's point of view may be significantly different from your own. That's perfectly alright.

Master salespeople will always recognize this truth. Masters understand that, in order to create a stress free, win/win selling experience for all, it will be necessary to set aside personal ego and move quickly into the prospect's reality to properly serve him or her. After all, the selling experience should put the buyer's needs ahead of the salesperson's needs, shouldn't it?

At the point of first contact between the prospect and salesperson there are often dramatically opposing perspectives. Salespeople who can't explore and understand the buyer's reality will usually be unable to guide or persuade the prospect to alter his or her perceptions and accept the salesperson's offering without resorting to high pressure tactics. Those tactics regularly lead to stress, confrontation and a dissatisfied customer or perhaps even a lost selling opportunity.

We as individuals do not give up our socially conditioned beliefs easily, even when those beliefs no longer serve us well. I could give hundreds of examples but to make my point I will offer only one.

If you were to say that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west you would get few who would disagree with you. After all, that is what we have been taught a.k.a. conditioned to believe all our lives, haven't we?

That conditioning likely goes back in history to the days that we believed the earth was flat and thought that the sun moved around the earth. Today we understand that the earth rotates and revolves around the sun. Therefore, it may be more accurate to say that that earth's horizon is rising in the evening thus obscuring the sun. That would also mean that the earth's horizon is descending in the morning which exposes the sun to our view.

It's a different point of view for you to think about, hmmm. Which is correct? It really doesn't matter, does it. Neither point of view can change the amount of daylight or night that one receives. Don't worry about the conditioning changing anytime soon. There's not much romance in the idea of a horizon rise, is there?

For you as a salesperson, it is wiser, more profitable and less stressful to consider and respect your prospect's perception of reality than to get caught up in your own ego's need to be right.