BlogHop

Although it’s risky and hard, seek first to understand, or diagnose before you prescribe, is a correct principle manifest in many areas of life. It’s the mark of all true professionals. It’s critical for the optometrist, it’s a critical for the physician. You wouldn’t have any confidence in a doctor’s prescription unless you had confidence in the diagnosis. When my Niece Jenny was only two months old, she was sick one Saturday, the day of a football game in our community that dominated the consciousness of almost everyone. It was an important game-some 60,000people, were there. Sandra and I would like to have gone, but we didn’t want to leave little Jenny. Her vomiting and diarrhea had us concerned. The doctor was at the game. He wasn’t our personal physician, but he was the one on call. When Jenny’s situation got worse, we decided we needed some medical advice. Sandra dialed the stadium and had him paged. It was right at a critical time in the game, and she could sense an officious tone in his voice. “Yes?” he said briskly. “What is it?” “This is Mrs. Covey, Doctor, and we’re concerned about our daughter Jenny.” “What’s the situation?” he asked. Sandra described symptoms, and he said,” Okay. I’ll call in a prescription. Which is your pharmacy?” When she hang up, Sandra felt that in her rush she hadn’t really given him the full data, but that what she had told him was adequate.

If you don’t have confidence in the diagnosis, you won’t have confidence in the prescription. This principle is also truth in sales. An effective sales person first seeks to understand the needs, the concerns, the situation of the customer. The amateur salesman sells products; the professionals sales solutions to needs and problems. It’s a totally different approach. The professional learns how to diagnose, how to understand. He also learns how to relate people’s needs to his products and services. And, he has to have the integrity to say, “My product or service will not meet that need” if it will not. Diagnosing before you prescribe is also a fundamental to law. The professional lawyer first gathers the facts to understand the situation, to understand the laws and precedents, before preparing a case. A good lawyer almost writes the opposing attorney’s case before he writes his own. It’s also true in product design. Can you imagine someone in a company saying, “This consumer research stuff is for the birds. Let’s design products.”In other words, forget understanding the consumer’s buying habits and motives-just design products. It would never work.