When You Try to Cheat Nature, Nature Cheats Back

So many of us try to cheat nature. Instead of doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, we look for shortcuts or “hacks” that make our lives easier.

Yesterday, I wrote about a person who connected with me on LinkedIn and told me he had a prospective client to introduce. Instead, he pitched me his virtual assistant program. This lie was an attempt to cheat. Nature won that round, as trust is the foundation of all relationships, even commercial relationships, which is a fundamental aspect of the nature of sales management.

People try to treat nature in the following ways, but few if any ever work the way as intended.

Cheating Prospecting

Prospecting and cold outreach are time consuming, low-yield activities that produce few outcomes for the effort. An increasing number of sales organizations have implemented a fully automated prospecting sequence. This cheat allows the cheater to send tens of thousands of emails to people with a certain title.

You find the same approach on LinkedIn, where cheaters violate the platform’s terms. Instead of creating content and executing a pull approach, they use automation to follow a person and then send them a self-oriented pitch for a meeting.

Even when so many people use these cheats, nature takes over. Leaders' inboxes overflow with these automated emails and InMail, making these communications essentially invisible or deleted immediately. Those in the cult of efficiency are thwarted by nature, reflecting the true nature of sales management, which cannot be bypassed through shortcuts.

Cheating Cold Calls

A salesperson promises to make cold calls every day for 90 minutes. Lacking the discipline necessary for success in sales, they fail to make these calls on Monday and promise to double the number of calls on Tuesday. When Tuesday arrives sooner than expected, the salesperson lies to themselves again, promising to spend all of Wednesday on prospecting. This pattern continues until the end of the quarter looms closer.

Without having done the work, the salesperson has waited too long to book the first meetings needed to reach their goals. The nature of prospecting requires you to prospect so you have time to win the deals by the end of a quarter. Nature will impose a penalty on the salesperson who fails to do the work at the right time, as no client will buy in a first meeting. This cheat back effect highlights the importance of adhering to the natural principles of sales management.

Cheating the Sales Conversation

When sales leaders and sales managers prioritize velocity, their sales reps try to speed up the acquisition deals. In doing so, the salesperson tries to speed up the buyer’s journey, cheating the buyers and decision-makers of the time and conversations they need to move forward.

Winning is more important than winning sooner. Nature punishes those who try to cheat. When a buyer doesn’t have the experience and the information they need because the sales rep is speeding past them, they disengage and look for a salesperson willing to give them the help they need. Instead of winning faster, the salesperson loses faster. Nature is not concerned with your goals,  Nature is not concerned with your goals, and any attempt to cheat back against these natural processes will likely lead to failure.

Cheating Communication Mediums

You may have heard someone say, “That meeting should have been an email.” The opposite is often true. It is easy to send your client an email instead of having a meeting. When the content of the conversation is important to your client and your future, a face-to-face meeting is the platinum standard.

Any attempt to avoid having an important conversation by using a medium that allows you to avoid that conversation is cheating. Nature will pick up where you left off, with your client discovering you are afraid to deal with the client’s problem. One salesperson hid from a client with a problem by refusing to take the client’s call. His client called a competitor for help.

Cheating Authority and Expertise

Your clients want to buy from a person who is an expert and an authority. They want to work with someone who knows the things they don’t know. Rather than doing the reading and the research necessary to create value in the sales conversation. Instead of doing the work, the salesperson shows up cold and asks questions they could have easily found on their own.

This salesperson will believe they will be okay by talking up their company and their solution. The client, however, needs a better conversation, one that allows them to learn what they need to know to change and who they will choose as a partner. Nature will not be cheated, and the unprepared or know-nothing salesperson will be deprived of a second meeting.

The Problem of Making Things Easier

We humans tend to want to make things easy. We try to get what we want without paying the price to possess it. The more we try to find an easier way, the more difficult it is to produce the desired outcome.

Those who do the work without trying to cheat routinely produce better results and faster. You can go further faster by aligning your actions with nature instead of trying to cheat your way to success.

When You Try to Cheat Nature, Nature Cheats Back

Try as you may, you will have a tough time cheating nature. Trying to avoid the effort or the required actions will not only waste your time, but will also result in a lesser outcome—if there is an outcome at all.

The most successful people possess the discipline to do what nature requires. By always doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time. If you want a cheat, this is the best cheat available.

Instead, do your prospecting work and make sure it is personal, so your client knows you are interested in them and their company. Give your prospect the time and help they need by facilitating their buyer’s journey. Don’t use inferior communication methods for important conversations and always do the work to be a world-class expert and authority.

The only things worth pursuing require you to pay a price to get it. Leaving this article, commit to doing the work and avoiding trying to cheat your way to success.