What do people want from you? The answer is that they want one million different things, and these things change every second, minute, hour, day… So there is your answer. They do not know what they want from you until you offer it. Then the dice is rolled and you can hope that you got lucky and that the stars aligned.
If you try to predict what the person you are selling wants from you before you start. You will fail… It is a fool’s errand. You won’t be able to accomplish it, and so you will never start selling.
But if you assume that your prospect wants to speak with you and that they are secretly hoping for your help, then you can at least make progress even if you fail. You may be disappointed when you find that you were wrong… They did not want what you were offering.
It is foolish to assume the worst before starting because we learn more from our failures than mistakes. Therefore it is better to make a positive assumption, fail, and learn.
“You have control over doing your respective duty, but no control or claim over the result. Fear of failure, from being emotionally attached to the fruit of work, is the greatest impediment to success because it robs efficiency by constantly disturbing the equanimity of mind.”
― Ramananda Prasad, The Bhagavad Gita