Dialing In Your Great Experiment

Experiments begin with a hypothesis. You have an idea based on your knowledge and what you intuit, and you guess at what some future result will be. You then test that hypothesis to see if it’s true.

These experiments return results. Your results show you whether your hypothesis is true or false. You might be proven right, or your underlying supposition might prove to be flawed.

Your Great Experiment

Take a look at any result you’re producing in your life right now. You have some hypothesis, some underlying belief about that result. Your results are giving you feedback on that belief. They’re telling you whether what you believe is true or false.

This is The Sales Blog, so we’ll use sales as an example. Maybe you believe you can make your number with very, very little prospecting. But your sales results may prove that your hypothesis about the amount of prospecting you need to do is wrong.

You might believe that more activity alone will improve your sales results, and you might take massive action trying to make your number. But that hypothesis may be proven wrong, too. You might be generating plenty of activity. Your results may be poor because what you’re doing isn’t effective. (There are a lot of sales people who believe that doing more of what worked in the past will help them now. But this is a new day and a new age).

Maybe the experiment you are unintentionally running is trying to win business by relying on a single power sponsor to guide you to a deal. But instead of winning you’re losing opportunities to competitors and the status quo. Your results may be telling you that you are missing something (maybe you need more stakeholders to win).

Whatever you want to improve about your life, whether it’s in sales or some other area, your underlying belief about that area of your life is what’s driving that result. If you’re killing it in some area, your hypotheses are driving those result, too.

If you want to make the most of the great experiment that is your life, carefully examine your hypotheses and observe the feedback you’re receiving. Then, change them and dial in your great experiment.