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October 6 - October 6, 2019
In 1948 Red Skelton, then one of Hollywood’s biggest names, starred in The Fuller Brush Man, a screwball comedy in which a hapless salesman is framed for a crime—and must clear his name, find the culprit, win the girl, and sell a few Venetian blind brushes along the way.
The Fuller Brush Girl, with the lead role going to Lucille Ball, an even bigger star.
People are now spending about 40 percent of their time at work engaged in non-sales selling—persuading, influencing, and convincing others in ways that don’t involve anyone making a purchase.
People consider this aspect of their work crucial to their professional success—
Most of us are movers; some of us are super-movers.
Once upon a time, only certain people were in sales. Every day, these folks sold stuff, the rest of us did stuff, and everyone was happy.
Atlassian collected that entire amount—$100,000,000.00 in sales—without a single salesperson.
“We have no salespeople,” he told me, “because in a weird way, everyone is a salesperson.”
Cannon-Brookes draws a distinction between “products people buy” and “products people are sold”—
the employees who offer support, unlike a traditional sales force, don’t tempt callers with fast-expiring discounts or badger them to make a long-term commitment.
sales—in this case, traditional sales—isn’t anyone’s job. It’s everyone’s job. And that paradoxical arrangement is becoming more common.
the company doesn’t offer sales training or march recruits through an elaborate sales process. It simply requires every new hire to read two books.
world of flat organizations and tumultuous business
conditions—and that’s our world—punishes fixed skills and prizes elastic ones.
Health care and education both revolve around non-sales selling: the ability to influence, to persuade, and to change behavior
When buyers can know more than sellers, sellers are no longer protectors and purveyors of information. They’re the curators and clarifiers of it—helping to make sense of the blizzard of facts, data, and options.
Darvish says the qualities she looks for most are persistence—and something for which a word never appeared in either of the word clouds: empathy.
the ideal salespeople are those who ask themselves, “What decision would I make if that were my own mom sitting there trying to get service or buy a car?”
When the product is complicated—credit default swaps, anyone?—and the potential for lucre enormous, some people will strive to maintain information imbalances and others will opt for outright deception. That won’t change.
the fact that some people will take the low road doesn’t mean that lots of people will.
when simple, transactional tasks can be automated, and when information parity displaces information asymmetry, moving people depends on more sophisticated skills and requires as much intellect and creativity as designing a house, reading a CT scan, or, say, writing a book.
a number of companies
have actually increased sales by eliminating commissions and de-emphasizing money.
There are no “natural” salespeople, in part because we’re all naturally salespeople.
I introduce the new ABCs of moving others: A—Attunement B—Buoyancy C—Clarity
Attunement is the ability to bring one’s actions and outlook into harmony with other people and with the context you’re in.
Social scientists often view perspective-taking and empathy as fraternal twins—
Perspective-taking is a cognitive capacity; it’s mostly about thinking.
Empathy is an emotional response; it’s mostly about feeling...
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Pushing too hard is counterproductive, especially in a world of caveat venditor. But feeling too deeply isn’t necessarily the answer either—because you might submerge your own interests.
Perspective-taking seems to enable the proper calibration between the two poles, allowing us to adjust and attune ourselves in ways that leave both sides better off.
empathy is valuable and virtuous in its own right. But when it comes to moving others, perspective-taking is the more effective of these fraternal twins.
This second principle of attunement also means recognizing that individuals don’t exist as atomistic units,
In the world of moving others, I call this ability “social cartography.” It’s the capacity to size up a situation and, in one’s mind, draw a map of how people are related.
Human beings are natural mimickers.
“negotiators who mimicked their opponents’ mannerisms were more likely to create a deal that benefited both parties.”
waitresses who repeated diners’ orders word for word earned 70 percent more tips than those who paraphrased orders—
when restaurant servers touch patrons lightly on the arm or shoulder, diners leave larger tips.
Touching even proved helpful in our favorite setting: a used-car lot.
The key is to be strategic and human—to be strategic by being human.
“The most common thread in the people who are really good at this is humility,”
That’s perspective-taking through reducing power, the first rule of attunement.
They are curious and ask questions that drive to the core of what the other person is thinking.
Most of all, “you have to be able somehow to get in synch with people, to connect with them, whether you’re with a grandmother or the recent graduate of an MBA program,” she told me.
Moving others requires interacting with others—and social situations, which can drain the energy of introverts,
several researchers have found that extraversion has “no statistically significant relationship . . . with sales performance” and that “extraversion is not related to sales volume.”
top performers are less gregarious than below-average ones and that the most sociable salespeople are often the poorest performers of all.
Selling of any sort—whether traditional sales or non-sales selling—requires a delicate balance of inspecting and responding. Ambiverts can find that balance.
Jim Collins, author of the classic Good to Great and other groundbreaking business books. He says his favorite opening question is: Where are you from?
strategic mimicry? The three key steps are Watch, Wait, and Wane:
