Your Customers Don’t Trust…Themselves

Your customers don’t trust themselves, not really… and that’s a big reason for lost sales.

In this post, let’s take a look at what Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote on the matte of self-reliance:

“Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this.”

Translation: We don’t trust ourselves until we see someone else first having done it.

This is like the person who “had thought of Uber first”, yet did nothing about it. Surely, had he believed his idea was a ~$100 billion idea (as Uber is presently valued) surely he would have done something about it? Unlikely; validation creates validation.

It doesn’t need to be Uber, either. It could be buying marketing services, or perhaps a nice new suit. We may not feel worthy to pursue it until we believe we’ll “make it work”. The fear of failure and of being misunderstood holds many back.

Which leads us to the next quote:

“Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

Turns out, breaking consistency, being seen to fail on occasion… these things are what all greats suffer.

Those we wish to serve need to believe the transformation they seek is possible for them… and that even if it isn’t, the act of trying will still transform them into that which they seek to become.

Are you helping your customers trust themselves?