“Pressure is the combination of urgency and uncertainty.”
- Dr. Bhrett McCabe, sports psychologist, as quoted in a recent Golf Digest Magazine
It’d be too cheesy to link the 1981 song (“Under Pressure”) by David Bowie and Queen, or would it?
It ain’t cheese when the quota or bonus hangs in the balance.
Urgency is often imposed upon us, sometimes unfairly. A topic for another day, urgency is typically nourished by a lack of preparedness. Uncertainty, on the other hand, is well within our grasp. How do we grasp it? With curiosity.
Ask questions! Dad was a “Licensed” McCurdy Seed Company salesman, which, in the 1970’s meant he got about a 10% discount on his seed if he made five sales calls. Not five sales, mind you, five sales calls. Every year, he’d strike out down the road (round trip ~5 miles), and stop, first at Alden Biggs’ place. “You don’t want any seed this year, do you, Alden?” Dad would say. “No thanks, Richard!” Alden would reply. As would Delbert, Larry, Doyle and Roy, before Dad’s “territory” was covered.
Looking back, Dad was a pretty chill guy, and I wonder if the lack of uncertainty he chose to endure is part of why.
Even when things were urgent (think floods, wind damage, bugs, whatever else could hurt a crop) Dad had little uncertainty. “If it floods, I’ll plant it again, granted it’s not too late,” was his mantra. If he couldn’t prepare for it, it wasn’t urgent.
As B2B sales types, preparation is a differentiator today, and we have a fantastic bundle of tools to reduce uncertainty: the Googler, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms, among others (referrals, new coverage, thing through the effect of tariffs, etc.)
Take the time to find out as much as we can before we need it, and then let’s measure how much more-better the results are. (“More better is still a technical term at The Diff.)
“Alden, have you ever tried McCurdy seed corn? No? I wonder why not…” It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon (or was that brain scientist?) to choose a path paved with curiosity and then leverage the information we gain to help the Client solve a problem they might not know they have.
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