Making assumptions in business

21st October 2021

By Emma Kirkham

Are you making assumptions that everyone already knows what you do and how you can help them?

For the past few weeks I’ve been travelling on a Monday and Tuesday to assist with glassmaking-

which is a 60 to 90 minute drive depending on the time of day you leave.

This unexpected time in my day has led me to be able to reflect and look at different things that are going on in my life.

It’s basically given me time that I wouldn’t normally have blocked out to sit and ponder-

the latest drive was no different.

When driving it’s all about what’s going on around me.

My recent drive over to Stourbridge was a particularly manic one.

I wasn’t late.

I’d set off at the usual time, but there was traffic, literally heaving on the roads and coming at me from all directions.

Having driven less than 10 miles, I’d used my horn more times in the 70 minutes than I’d done in the last two years- Because of people assuming.

The assumption of the other drivers was t0 put the indicator on, then they could make the move into the next lane.

Without needing to wait!

This meant that I would brake really hard to avoid hitting them.

It got me thinking about how many assumptions are made every day

We make assumptions that people know-

What you do
how you can help them
where to buy from you
how they can contact you
where to find you

These assumptions are made on a daily basis, when we don’t show up online and share .

Then I started to think- how often do I assume people know what I do and how I can help them?

When you think about your social media and all the new connections being made, be really clear and never ever assume.

People don’t always see your posts on how to join your programme, group, how to work with you or where to buy your products.

In fact, they might not even know what you do.

A good way to test this is to ask on your profile if people can comment what it is that you do-

If everyone get’s it right you’ll know you’re doing a good job of sharing what you do- consistently.

So my lesson from this drive to Stourbridge was to never make assumptions-

and to act like people don’t know what you do, or EXACTLY how you can help them.

Don’t be like the people in the Mercedes, Audi’s and all the other cars that decided to just indicate and pull in front of me- assuming I would just shift out of the way!