Insight: How’s Q1 Sales Results? Everything is what we compare it to.

As you come to the end of Q1 2025 what does your sales team need to change? What are your client’s feeling? Is your price high? Is your service great?

The only answer is:  Compared to what?

You can change how someone feels about anything based on what you give them to feel before that thing.

No thought exists in a vacuum – thoughts exist within a network of linkages and associations – thinking is linking.


The environment around us – what we see, what we hear when asked a question, what we read and talk about, all influence what we think and feel. And what we focus our thinking on, changes the linking in our brain.


This concept (the scientific term is “perceptual contrast”) was first illustrated in the 17th century by a scientist (John Locke) using three buckets of water: the middle bucket would be filled with room temperature water (neither hot nor cold) the bucket on the left filled with ice water and the bucket on the right with hot water.

Placing your left hand in the ice and your right hand in the hot and holding them there, you would get used to what you are feeling in each bucket.

Taking both hands out and placing them in the middle “room temperature” bucket, changes your experience: the hand that was in the ice experiences the room temperature as warm; the hand that was in the hot experiences the room temperature as cool.

The middle bucket did not change. Same bucket.

What changed was your perception based on what you experienced PREVIOUSLY.


We can change how someone feels about anything based on what we give them to feel before that thing.


What are some of the most powerful reframing moments you’ve experienced relative to presenting yourself, your company or your products in sales situations?

How are your best performing sales reps creating context now?

This is part of the YESCALATE® Sales Optimization Process, to get to yes faster… what we do every day with sales leaders, their sales teams and their sales processes helping create the right context, the right framing to get to yes faster in an honest and ethical way.

Let’s create the framing together for success in Q2!

More insights

4:30 AM Terror. 9:30 AM Successful SKO. The four WHYs every sales kickoff needs to answer.

4:30 AM Terror. 8:30 AM Time to Deliver.

Nine months building a new branding and messaging toolkit. Sixty minutes to introduce it. The four WHYs every sales kickoff or presentation needs to answer.

Responsiveness Reduces Risk

Not every request can be solved immediately, but every request can be acknowledged. How HUA (Heard. Understood. Acknowledged.) reduces uncertainty and builds trust.
Because Beats But. Give a reason why to maximum engagement.

Because Beats But

Sometimes one word changes the direction of a conversation. Why "but" signals resistance, "because" gives a reason, and how to use the difference.