The TL;DR, Coming For Your Blind Spots


A bi-weekly roundup of something unseen and something you can't unsee
January 22 - February 4

Three Blind Spots

As we've been conducting our new Sales and Systems Assessments, we've started to observe some common blind spots. Every entrepreneur we've worked with- and let's be real, every human ever- has blind spots.

It's normal. It's the nature of having a brain that loves to recognize and identify patterns, even when there aren't actually patterns there. Our brains skip over gaps and make connections-that-couldn't-actually-happen because that's what brains love to do.

Here's three blind spots that we've seen (and you probably have in some degree):

"If I close five sales this quarter, I'll have big money."

How long does it take to close a sale? How big is a typical sale? Have you closed three sales in a quarter before? Is this a time of the year that your market typically buys? How many leads will it take to make five sales?

This blind spot can appear when you develop a logical statement (If This, Then That) and imagine that the world will actually follow that logic.

It's all the assumptions bundled in the IF that's ripe for blind spots. Unpacking assumptions will uncover blind spots.

"I can use the free version for now."

Time is an expensive and invisible cost. It seems like the easy resource to spend when other resources such as financial or human capital are in short supply.

If you spend time frivolously, it's no better than spending money frivolously.

The blind spot manifests when you are unaware that you are spending time, rather than making a financial investment OR choosing not to do that thing at all.

"I'm waiting to make a decision."

We all can recognize the tradeoffs around making a decision. There are also tradeoffs to not making a decision.

When you delay making a choice, it could be because of an emotional blind spot: you might fearful of regretting your choice.

This manifests when you look at a decision through a scarcity mindset (what will my pain be?) rather than an abundance mindset (what opportunities will this present?).

If you're waiting to choose, ask the Five Whys to understand if it because of fear (scarcity) or that the opportunity isn't compelling enough (abundance). And if you can't Five Why yourself to an answer, then ask: Are you not choosing to choose because the status quo is better than the possible upside from the choice?

---

Everyone has blind spots. Ironically, the people with the most blind spots think they have none.

It's how we constantly reflect, evolve, and grow through our blind spots that defines and allows us to find success.

If you think your blind spots are holding back your business, we'd love to chat with you about how our Sales and Systems Assessment can quickly spotlight some blind spots and provide recommendations to address them.


A TL;DR from the CRO

You'll eventually dry off after bad weather.

-Roman Noodles, Chief Ruff Officer


TL;DRs From Around the Internetverse


A Very Special TL;DR To the Intern of the Year

Longtime TL;DR readers may remember the 2021 Learn to Scale Intern of the Year, Margo. She not only penned the Conversations in HR blog series, but also designed an on-demand course designed to help streamline how you use the Google suite of apps and was featured in an episode of the 20/20 Perspective.

Learn to Scale is thrilled to see that Margo's joining connectRN, an amazing organization that has no idea how lucky they are. Congratulations, Margo!


Remember how last TL;DR I said that I was ahead of my step goal?

And how I said, "Tune in to the next TL;DR when I eat my words"

om nom nom nom

I'm at 352,138 steps, which now puts me at 98% of my target for Feb 3rd (360,000)

I blame the bombogenesis that put Boston on French Toast Five.

But that's scarcity thinking.

Abundance thinking celebrates that I've walked over 163 miles in 30 days.

Guess I should buy some new shoes.

Doing an extra loop around the park,

Dan from Learn to Scale


Opt-out from the newsletter | Unsubscribe from all emails | Update your profile | www.learntoscale.us, Boston, MA 02119

PS. You should eat that deviled egg on the windowsill.

Dan Newman

Entrepreneur, Professional Learner, & Proud Failure. Writes about sales, marketing, and entrepreneurship from the eyes of a learning and development nerd. Lead teams, manage people, scale a business, and learn better through the biweekly irreverent newsletter, the TL;DR.

Read more from Dan Newman
an entrepreneur who has accepted his failures and is brainstorming how to move forward with refreshed offerings

A bi-weekly roundup of insights from six years of failure September 20 - October 3 Stitching A New Birthday Suit Next week, Learn to Scale turns six years old. I've been a professional failure for almost six years. I don't know about you, but birthdays make me reflective. It's a special event that connects you to previous versions of yourself: the person who used to believe one thing is the same person that you are today, but you've changed what you believe. And every year, the Dan from...

Man in purple sweatshirt between two pathways, one leads to a small factory, one leads to a tall skyscraper.

A bi-weekly roundup of how 1.9 billion AI queries are mostly about dating advice September 6 - September 13 Hey ChatGPT- how does my hair look? New research that came out this week from OpenAI and Anthropic shows some mind-bending facts about how the world is utilizing this new hotness they're calling "AI." I published a deep dive on this new research in a new blog post, Are You Using AI for $10 Tasks or $10,000 Decisions? The fact from this research that's still living rent-free in my head:...

two people sitting on chairs, looking seriously into each other's eyes with the text above, "It's never just one problem."

A bi-weekly roundup of ways culture eats strategy for breakfast August 23 - September 5 Breathing a Big Sigh Of Strategy You know the scene that's in countless superhero movies where the good guys look each other in the eyes as they finalize their grand plan to beat the big baddie? This turning point also tends to be the catharsis of their interpersonal conflict, with an incremental "Put our differences to the side and save the world" head nod. So dramatic! The stakes in those stories (and...