You Are Working in Sales! Who Knew?

While meeting with a coaching client this week, I was reminded of a book I read a couple of years ago.  I went back to this Daniel Pink read titled: To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth about Moving Others.  We were discussing how to develop strong influencing skills.  I remembered Daniel Pink’s book because his premise is that regardless of our title or profession, we are ALL “in sales”.  I wanted to share some of his ideas, because I think they are spot-on.  

First, Pink says we are all “in sales”.  Pink says, "Like it or not, we're all in sales now. Those in leadership and management in particular spend an incredible amount of time selling to, or persuading, other people. But it’s not the deceptive, used-car-salesman kind of sales. You are selling, but the cash register is not ringing. You're selling, but the denomination isn't dollars, euros, or pesos. It is time, attention, effort, energy, commitment, those kind of things."

His book debunks many of the widely accepted ideas we have about effective sales.  His concepts appeal to me because much of what he describes as most effective in selling (influencing), closely resembles good ol’ emotional intelligence skills.

Extroverts and Introverts

We have always envisioned the back-slapping, social, talkative, extroverted types as best at “selling”.  Not so, according to Pink. In fact, he claims there is no evidence to support this idea.  “The conventional view that extroverts make the finest salespeople is so accepted that we’ve overlooked one teensy flaw: There’s almost no evidence it’s actually true”.

Pink describes a recent study “When social scientists have examined the relationship between extroverted personalities and sales success — that is, how often the cash register rings — they’ve found the link to be, at best, flimsy. For instance, one of the most comprehensive investigations, a meta-analysis of 35 studies of nearly 4,000 salespeople, found that the correlation between extroversion and sales performance was essentially zero (0.07, to be exact). Pink says, extroverts can talk too much and listen too little. They can overwhelm others with the force of their personalities."

At this point you are likely scratching your head with the obvious question.  How could introverts be stronger in selling situations?  The answer is they are not. “Introverts have their own challenges. They can be too shy to initiate, too skittish to deliver unpleasant news and too timid to close the deal.” says Pink.  So the real answer is that those middle of the road folks who are neither extroverted or introverted, fare best when we measure effective sales performance. We call these folks “ambiverts”.  Ambiverts, a term coined by social scientists in the 1920s, are people who are neither extremely introverted nor extremely extroverted.  These ambiverts, strike the right balance.  Pink describes these folks,  “They know when to speak up and when to shut up, when to inspect and when to respond, when to push and when to hold back”. The good news is that most of us fall into this middle zone, neither extremely extroverted or introverted!  That is good news, because for most of us effective influencing or “selling” is very much within our reach. 

Pink redefines the old ABC’s of selling.  The cliché acronym for the “ABCs” of effective sales was Always Be Closing.  Pink challenges this by describing a relationship that creates much more of a dialogue.  Because information is so readily available to all of us these days we “sellers” are less likely to be the only ones “in the know”. “Research shows that when there’s information parity, sellers need different kinds of knowledge,” says Pink. “You need to be able to see things from the buyer’s perspective. Be attuned to who they are, what they need, and what will motivate them to get it. There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach. You also need greater self-knowledge. What are your strengths and how can you use them to your advantage? What are your weaknesses and how can you improve?” 

Whether you're pitching your boss or a customer, you'll need to master the new ABCs of selling: Attunement, Buoyancy, and Clarity.

Here's what Pink recommends:

Attunement:  Get out of your head and learn to see things from your customer's perspective.

Buoyancy:   In sales, you face a lot of rejection--"not a pond, an ocean," said Pink. Try to quickly get over it and move on.

Clarity:  To convince someone to buy your service or product, identify the problem they're trying to solve then explain how you can help.

"A shift from the skill of problem- solving to the skill of problem finding-- that's really what innovators do," said Pink. "They find problems that other people didn't realize were problems."

So next time you want to influence someone, consider them your “Customer” and close the deal!

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