Good morning, Team! It’s Friday!

In between the politicians in DC last week, the conference included a keynote by Daniel Pink, author of “Drive!” He was shamelessly plugging his new book [you can look it up] but it may have saved me the time to read it and the cost to buy it…or perhaps it piqued my curiosity.

He has been studying the sales process and broke it down into the ABC’s:

•Attunement
•Buoyancy
•Clarity

Attunement is described as getting out of your head and into others.

I like to remove my shoe (especially the days I’m wearing loafers) but it’s more dramatic when I have to untie and retie a laced shoe. “Put yourself in my shoes” (if even for a moment) I comment. Now ask yourself as the proverbial customer, client or audience of your presentation-What am I concerned about, what do I need, what will make my life easier? Take that information to heart because I don’t care what you’re selling – if I don’t need it or don’t believe I need it, I won’t be buying it.

Buoyancy…Daniel highlighted the Fuller brush salesman, Norman Hall, who he visited in San Francisco and shadowed for some time. Mr. Hall says he faces an “ocean of objection” every day he goes to work and after 40 years, describes in the book how he stays afloat.
From my perspective, drowning in an overwhelming amount of rejection requires Herculean strength to overcome. Ignorance is bliss … but who wants to be ignorant? Self and situational awareness are hallmarks of emotional intelligence. The burden of such intelligence requires that you not let the tidal waves or the undertow catch you off guard- or you should just stay on shore.

Clarity-Pink describes this as curating information. We have made a shift from too little information to too much information. Whether buying a car, a service, a home or any consumer good, we now have tremendous amounts of information at our fingertips. Today, information is the true currency. We now have to sort through, prioritize and leverage the data and information to make the appropriate assessment and act on it.
If we are selling in this tectonic shift in the marketplace, we have to make it easy. Give your customer an off ramp, says Pink.

No matter your title, we are ALL in sales. These salient points are good reminders that selling today is different than what it was when Norman Hall started out forty years ago but I’d submit the landscape today has changed dramatically in the last four years with the proliferation of smart phones and Facebook and probably noticeable even in the last four months.

Challenge: What will you do to change your sales pitch now that you’ve been enlightened with some of Pink’s research?

Have a blessed weekend!