Which matters more? Judgment, or experience?
At first, the answer seems easy: good judgment! Good judgment wins over experience any day. If there were a third option, though, and it were judgment that comes from experience, I would choose that one.
How this Affects Your Marketing
Over the past few weeks I’ve met with some wonderful women with 20, 25, and even 30 years experience under their belt. We laughed at the idea that they want what I want, and I want what they want. When I bring up the fact that they can say, “I’ve got 25 years of experience doing such and such,” and how powerful that is in marketing, they bring up the fact that they don’t know what I know.
If you don’t have a ton of experience, but you have good judgment, you can make things happen.
- You can teach. Teaching skills are coveted. If you can offer a class or two, free or paid, on a subject you have mastered, you will appear even more knowledgeable. And then you can add the fact that you’ve taught a course on your subject to your growing list of experiences.
- You can demonstrate. A design company I recently worked with on a project does a good job of mixing up their portfolio with real client work and design concepts. Even though they are a young company without much real world experience, they made up for it in their portfolio by displaying what they could do, if they were hired.
- You can convince. Without experience to fall back on, you’re left with your personality, tenacity, and what other people say about you. Use all of these things to your benefit, to convince your prospective client that you truly understand their needs and have the tools to do the job well.
What do you think matters more? And what do you suggest people who have very little experience in their fields do to get noticed?
Love this… for young people I think that judgement wins out… but as we progress in our careers it is essential that this judgement be refined by the experiences we encouter each day… don’t let those valuable experiences go by without learning from them!
Well, I think experience helps only when it’s combined with ration, if you take rash decisions experience can’t really help, although having the experience should stop you from taking those kind of decisions.
Being a manager, your job practically is taking decisions and so I think that pondering the factors and weighing the possible outcomes has to be your number one priority, and this doesn’t allow any room for rash decisions.
Hey Alex – You’re so right. Especially in management; judgment, which includes good ability to be rational, it’s key!
Ok, so at 18 I would have chosen experience because I had none so anyone with experience in anything I would look up to. I didn’t have the experience or judgement to make a good decision at that age.
Fast forward, er, 20 years and I know fully well that judgement wins almost every time.
Life has taught me that experience counts BUT judgement rules. I have been training myself since I figured this out.
My husband has some of the best judgement I will ever see. He started a business 10 years ago with no experience in business affairs but his judgement is right on. He has done very well.
Tia!
You nailed with : “If there were a third option, though, and it were judgment that comes from experience, I would choose that one.”
Yep. That is the balance that needs to be struck. I know very, very, experienced and educated people that have VERY poor judgment. They just don’t have a powerful internal guiding system. In which case they must rely on experience based judgment to make good decisions.
I’m loving this 30 second MBA series. Super cool!
Right; same here. Sometimes, experience alone is just that. But judgment along with experience is awesome. Even if the experience is just a little bit, that is okay. Or, having the good judgment to relate even only moderately connected experiences and use them to woo clients. Judgment is so crucial!
Thanks, Marlee. I like this series, too!
I catch what she’s saying, and I think there’s a lot of truth in it. However, to be a true expert, you really want to have both good judgement and experience. Both things add credibility.
Oh I just love this one! Judgement all the way. If I had relied on experience when we started our business it simply would not have happened! I was clueless to the intricacies of trade but had to set up and run the business end. Back in the day communicating was not so easy. I could not just call or text to get an answer thus leaving me no choice but to make a judgment call. Things happened.
One last thought, not being afraid to use good judgment without having experience is part of it when I think about it. Be confident, think it through, and then do it. Others will notice.
Exactly! The only thing we should be faking is confidence, right?
So I suppose that if you do have good judgment, you’ve got to press on until you get the experience under your belt.
I have a call on Friday for a potential big client and I’m going to need all of the confidence I can get!
Have a great day, Kathy!
30 seconds indeed and I have to admit that I would have probably “voted” for a third option if there were any. Sound judgment based on good experience is solid and if there is only two choices to make, while it is debatable, I will have to go for judgment too. Very provoking title I must say
Hey!
Yeah, this is a hard question and a third option is really important. But it’s true that if we only have two options, judgment wins. Someone can be experienced, but who knows – maybe their experiences have been all bad. LOL So, experience alone is not enough.
Thanks for your comment!
Hi Tia:
Thought provoking questions you pose here. I think the best thing the less experienced can do for themselves is to research their industry. Follow that up with the “what I can do to make it better” attitude. It’s imperative that people have vision and I think having a vision of the future shows a mound of potential.
Cheers,
Lisa
Hey Lisa – Sorry for the delay in response!
That’s a great way for inexperienced people to break into the business. If they bring a new spin or a new tactic that no one else can bring, notoriety is going to be on their side.
Thanks for your comment!
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