You’ve likely seen or heard this quote before. If you didn’t know that Henry Ford is the one that said it (way back in 1906) then that’s a nice bit of trivia for you.
What’s it mean? That’s easy. It means “we do what we believe we can do”. We also don’t do what we believe we can’t do. We prove it every day of our lives.
Stand over a four-foot putt & tell yourself you are no good at four-footers & guess what? You miss.
While writing an email, you come to a point where you need to spell a tough word. “I’m a horrible speller”. Bingo, you need look it up. Parallel parking. Another example.
There are lots of examples of what we say to ourselves (what we think) talking us out of accomplishing things.
So, it works. What we think we can’t do we often don’t do.
Why not change the way we think. Why not think “I can do that”?
As salespeople, there are hundreds of things we tell ourselves we can’t do, but in the end, it’s all B.S. We can. You can.
- I can’t get referrals in my business (hogwash)
- They won’t buy from us, they already have a supplier (really?)
- I can’t get to the real decision makers at this account (uh huh. . .)
- I can’t ask for the budget or target pricing, they won’t tell me (utter BS)
- I can’t ask for different terms (better terms) they won’t budge (not true)
- I should just send an email, she never answers her phone (wrong)
- I can’t charge full price, they’ll never pay it (doubly wrong)
- They won’t talk to us. We had a bad experience with them a few years ago (not!)
- I can’t ask them to lunch, they will never go (your competitors don’t think this)
Start thinking differently. Ford did.
