About Author
Joseph Griffiths is a Presales Educator and Coach dedicated to helping solution engineers, technical sellers, and sales leaders achieve greater success.
My career spans enterprise technology sales, solution architecture, and leadership roles where I built and implemented complex cloud and data center solutions. Along the way, I earned elite certifications such as VMware VCDX-DCV and VCDX-CMA, which give me the technical depth to match my business expertise. This combination of skills allows me to coach sales professionals on not just the how of technology, but more importantly the why — what truly matters to customers and drives business impact.
Through my technical sales coaching and presales training programs, I focus on building confidence, sharpening customer discovery, and creating measurable business value in every conversation. I help sales teams and individual contributors uncover customer priorities, frame solutions effectively, and communicate with impact. My approach blends proven frameworks with real-world experience to equip sellers to move deals forward faster and build stronger customer trust.
To understand how to sell, you first have to understand how humans “lock in” their reality. We like to think of ourselves as rational beings who update our software when new data arrives. The truth is closer to an electrical circuit with a very stubborn breaker.
Once a belief is formed, it becomes part of our identity and our sense of professional safety. Here is a breakdown of how humans actually believe things—and why challenging those beliefs is the hardest part of any business discovery.
The Missionary’s Lesson: Logic vs. Discovery
When I was 21, I served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I often saw my colleagues try to use pure logic or historical evidence to convince people to join the church. They would lay out a perfectly linear argument, expecting the other person to simply agree and change their entire life.
That approach almost always failed.
The real change never came from a “win” in an argument. It came when we stopped trying to prove a point and instead provided the steps that allowed for a self-discovery tailored to their specific needs. Each person had to have their own “Aha!” moment on why the message was valuable to their life. Unless the discovery was theirs, the belief never moved.
Sales is no different, except it’s not an individual “Aha!”—it’s a full organization “Aha!” which is significantly more complex.
The Architecture of Belief: “Good Enough” Logic
Humans are cognitively lazy by design. Our brains consume about 20% of our body’s energy, so we use “heuristics”—mental shortcuts—to save power. Once we find a process or a belief that keeps the business running without collapsing, our brain labels it as “True” and “Safe.”
In business architecture, this manifests as the status quo. If a leader believes their current workflow is “good enough,” their brain will actively filter out information that suggests otherwise to avoid the massive energy expenditure of a total systemic overhaul.
The Protective Barrier: Confirmation Bias
Once a belief is established, we don’t look for truth; we look for a reflection. This is driven by what psychologists call the Ladder of Inference. We select data that fits our existing notions and ignore the rest.
This is why “manufacturing pain” fails. When you tell someone they have a problem that contradicts their belief that they are doing a good job, they don’t see a “solution.” They see an attacker. Their brain triggers the amygdala—the fight-or-flight center—and they stop listening.
The Social Anchor: Belief as Belonging
We rarely believe things in a vacuum. Most of our professional beliefs are anchored to our “tribe”—our industry, our company culture, or our peer group. To change a belief is to risk being the outlier. If everyone in your field believes “Process A” is the only safe way to operate, adopting “Process B” feels like a threat to your standing within the organization.
Overcoming the Inertia of Belief: The Inversion
You cannot argue someone out of a belief. Instead, you have to use The Inversion:
The Blocker in Action: Real-World Examples
Example A: The Non-Stick Trap Imagine a home cook who has used non-stick pans for twenty years. Their “Safe Belief” is: “Non-stick is the only way to cook eggs without a mess.”
The Inversion: You provide an Insight into the physics of heat—the Leidenfrost Effect. You show them that heating a stainless steel pan until water dances like glass creates a microscopic layer of steam that acts as a natural barrier.
Example B: The Internal Combustion Shift A driver believes gas-powered vehicles (ICE) are the only “real” vehicles because the infrastructure is familiar.
The Inversion: You offer the Insight of Mechanical Simplicity. An engine has 2,000 moving parts; an EV motor has 20. You aren’t switching fuel; you are switching from a mechanical system to a digital one.
Why Insight Fails: The “Last Mile” Problem
Even with a perfect inversion, many prospects still won’t move. An insight provides the “Aha!” moment, but insight alone isn’t always strong enough to generate change. People often break the logic of a new discovery because the Risk of Being Wrong is too high.
Change is blocked by:
Providing Safety: Bridging the Gap
To generate change, you must provide Psychological Safety by lowering the “cost of being wrong”:
The Viral Nature of Shared Truth
When you solve for both insight and safety, the truth becomes social currency. The prospect takes that discovery back to their team because it makes them look smarter and better prepared for the future. You aren’t “selling” to them anymore; they are advocating for you.
References and Further Reading
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