The Sales Experiment

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Be Genuinely Interested in Others

Today I had an appointment with a new client.

This client is doing some pretty amazing things for children and families across the country, so it was a perfect opportunity to practice this principle from Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends and Influence People (affiliate link): Be Genuinely Interested in Others.

Truthfully, I struggle more with getting to the business point of things than I do with being genuinely interested in others.

Before I know it, I’m finding out about a prospect’s first jobs and what led them to start their current businesses or how they met their spouses and where the kids go to college.

That said, I don’t think you can go wrong by showing genuine interest… not that junk where you suggest that perhaps the prospective client likes to fish when you see four mounted large mouth bass around the office. That’s cheap sales tactics.

Being genuinely interested in someone and her story is completely different. It’s not really even about rapport-building or finding common ground. It’s about getting to the heart of things.  Being interested helps you understand what is important to that person and how you can best serve her or him. More importantly, genuine interest is an amazing learning tool.

Practice genuine interest. It’s a skill. Once you start hearing the stories, you’ll be hooked. Most people have a huge treasure trove of experience or an interesting, unique perspective on things. We’d do well to learn to listen with some interest.

I admitted that it might actually get in the way of effective selling, but over time, I think it’ll pan out.

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Influence through Appreciation

Appreciation and Leadership

One of the quickest ways to connect with someone is to appreciate him.

Appreciate where he is coming from. Sincerely appreciate her perspective. Acknowledge and appreciate his contribution.

From the most sensitive personality to the most high-charging go-getter, sincere appreciation is… appreciated.

By pinpointing where someone has made an impact, that person will be naturally encouraged to continue to make the same impact and perhaps make the impact more deeply.

We’ve all had the experience of being thanked or acknowledged for what we do and, as a result, focus additional effort on doing that thing better or more consistently.

Quality leaders get it. Leaders who consistently and verbally acknowledge solid work and pinpoint someone’s most effective contributions get more of those contributions.

It happens at work, at home, in volunteer settings.

Appreciation and Sales

Are sales and marketing efforts any different? Can we influence people who we hope to serve through our product or service via sincere appreciation (we won’t get into hair-splitting about sincere vs. insincere appreciation – we all know the difference)?

In sales, will my appreciation of a prospect’s contribution result in a greater likelihood of closing a deal?

On the surface, honestly, perhaps not. If we simply tell our potential client that he has done a bang-up job as a leader in his organization, this might smack of flattery at worse or basic rapport-building at best.

But dig into the definition of ‘appreciation’:

Understanding and fully recognizing all the implications or a certain situation.

Here we find something that can be very useful on a sales and marketing level: If we fully understand and appreciate the implications of a potential client’s decision to work with us and buy our product or service vs. using a competitors, then how more complete will our solutions and our sales process be?

When we appreciate our key contact’s internal corporate relationships, the economics of their decisions, and their current vendor relationships, we should do a better job at building out proposals that make change both attractive and easier for our prospect. We’ll also be more thorough in our sales process in order to gain the correct commitments to move the relationship forward.

When we appreciate more deeply our client’s situation, we move from being enamored of our benefits and features to being willing to walk a mile in our prospect’s shoes, to go to bed considering what keeps our prospect up at night.

When we start taking on our prospects’ concerns, we gain insight that goes beyond our own offering.

We can influence through appreciating someone’s contribution. We can bring change by appreciating someone’s circumstances.

[Tweet “We can influence through appreciating someone’s contribution. We can bring change by appreciating someone’s circumstances.”]

Consider how, today, you can acknowledge and appreciate a colleague’s contribution. And consider also how you can acknowledge and appreciate a potential client’s situation.

What can you do to encourage both to make the improvements that you see is possible? 

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Today’s reading of How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie influenced this post.

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Don’t Criticize, Condemn or Complain

So goes Principle 1 from How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

I’ve never read the book and decided it might be a good way to start 2015. Classics are classics for good reasons, and it’s always easy to see why within just a few pages.

Why Criticism is Counterproductive 

Criticism often creates self-defense. Most individuals feel as if they really never do anything all that wrong or have much to learn.

Consequently, if you point out someone’s glaring lapse in judgment, wisdom, or character, he seldom says, “Why thank you for pointing out my blind spot. It is duly noted, and I shall make haste to improve.”

Nope.

Normally, there’s a bristling and a bit of the fight or flight mechanism kicks in. The individual shuts down and goes to talk about you behind your back, or verbally counter-attacks.

The communication shuts down and nothing improves.

Isn’t Honesty the Best Policy?

Honesty’s one thing. Our attitude and choice of words and tone are completely different.

Halfway through reading the chapter, my 6 year old son came to me to admit to pulling the towel holder off the wall in one of our restrooms. He started with an, “It was an accident. You’re going to be mad.” (This preface stung a bit, admittedly).

Then he told me what happened.

Luckily, reading this book, I considered my options:

  1. I could assume he was not being careful.
  2. I could assume that the screw had worn loose and it could have happened to anybody.

I chose option 2 (after all, I’d felt it had worn loose and failed to tighten it).  I thanked him for telling me promptly because not telling me might have bristled me a bit.

He gave me a hug and told me where he put the holder so I could fix it. Boys will be boys. We shouldn’t expect stuff like this never to happen (a point driven home by Carnegie’s inclusion of A Father Forgets at the end of his first chapter)

Hopefully, the way I handled this will lay the groundwork for more prompt notifications when other similar accidents happen. And more importantly, hopefully it will be part of my developing a habit of using measured words, and calm tones in all of my communications.

What Does This Have to Do with Sales? 

Sales is all about relationships: within the sales organization, with prospects, with current clients, with vendors, with networking resources.

Developing a habit of thinking the best of each person will always lower the temperature in the room and encourage others to rise to those expectations.

If (a) it doesn’t lower the temperature with some people and (b) it doesn’t encourage everyone to up their interpersonal games, but (c) makes others assume you’re a doormat, then (d) that person doesn’t belong in your pipeline.

[Tweet “Life is too short to work with people we don’t get along with.”]

Our job is to make it as easy as possible to get along with us. Not complaining, criticizing, and condemning are great places to start.

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Some other notes from today’s reading of How to Win Friends & Influence People (Preface, Opening, Chapter 1)…

“I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody” – Benjamin Franklin

In the opening section “Nine Suggestions on How to Get the Most Out of this Book”, I loved the suggestion to repeated readings. Some books should be on the ‘annual reading list’.

Another good suggestion was to keep a daily log of appointments and interactions. Review these on a weekly basis with an eye toward honest assessment: Where did we drop the interpersonal ball? What did we do well?

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