This Is the Paradox of Insight

The paradox of insight is that in order to be paid for it, you have to give it away.

You can’t easily capture your dream client’s attention if you can’t share your ideas about how they can improve their results. That’s the value proposition for spending time with what you send them as part of your nurture campaign, that they’ll gain new ideas. It’s also the value proposition for your first sales call.

You also can’t capture your dream client’s trust if you can’t share your ideas and experiences with them during the sales process. It’s critical to listen and understand your dream client’s needs, but they want to hear what you think and why, even on an early discovery visit.

You can’t propose your best ideas about how to help your dream client produce better results without sharing your very best insights, the things that you would do differently, why you would make those choices, and how it would benefit them. This is why you are presenting in the first place, to capture your dream client’s imagination.

Sharing your best ideas is scary. You worry that your dream client may run off with your ideas, share them with your competitors, and allow them to execute your plan. And from time to time, this happens. Occasionally you will even run into someone whose sole purpose of engaging with you is a treasure hunt; they want to learn everything you know and have no intention of ever buying from you.

But you can’t allow the fear of having your ideas and insights taken dissuade you from sharing or cause you to hold back. First, you can’t sell effectively without having chops, and no one will ever know that you are a deep well if your fear prevents you from sharing. Second, most of your competitors have their own ideas, their own business models, and their own ideas about how they create value, ideas that prevent them from executing yours.