The Big Idea: Even if you’re not a “salesman”, you probably have to sell or persuade people all the time. Therefore, learn how to sell.
- Everyone sells.
- Physicians sell patients on treatments. Lawyers sell juries on verdicts. Teachers sell students on coursework. Entrepreneurs sell investors on visions. Writers sell producers on scripts. Coaches sell players on plays.
- Before the internet, sellers had all the information on their product so they were able to deceive and manipulate.
- Today, buyers have more information and leverage, so the balance has shifted.
- Instead of Always Be Closing, the new ABC is Attunement, Buoyancy, and Clarity.
- Attunement
- Show empathy
- Be humble
- Mimic strategically
- Put yourself in their shoes
- Be ambivert not extrovert
- Ask others “where are you from?”
- Buoyancy
- Instead of stating “I will ___,” ask yourself “how will I ___?”
- 3:1 ratio of positive to negative emotions is better than infinite positivity.
- Develop an optimistic explanatory style to deal with rejection: rejections are temporary not permanent, specific not universal, external not personal.
- Clarity
- The ability to move people hinges less on problem-solving than on problem-finding.
- Problem finders tend to be more successful than problem solvers.
- Problem finding is about asking the right questions and being good at curating information.
- One of the most essential questions is “compared to what?” Frame your offerings in ways that contrast its alternatives and clarify its virtues.
- 5 Frames: less frame (paradox of choice), experience frame (experience vs physical), label frame (names matter), blemished frame (include a negative), potential frame (potential is more powerful than actual)
- “On a scale from 1 to 10…” “How can we move that up?”
- Books: Influence, Made to Stick, Switch, Mindless Eating, Nudge
- Ask 5 Whys
- How to Pitch
- Don’t present a pitch end-to-end. Start your pitch and invite the others to create it with you.
- 1. The One Word Pitch. Simplify everything to one word.
- 2. The Question Pitch. “Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?”
- 3. The Rhyming Pitch. “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
- 4. The Subject Line Pitch. Utility first. Curiosity second.
- 5. The Twitter Pitch.
- 6. The Pixar Pitch. “Once upon a time…Every day…One day…Because of that…Until finally.”
- Learn from improvisational theater. Listen closely. Make the other people look good.
- Service is at the core of sales.
- To serve, make it personal and make it purposeful. Eg. Radiologist viewing photos, hospital hand-washing to protect others, fundraisers reading stories about alumni who received scholarships.
- Be grateful. Always act like the other guy is doing you the favor. No matter what.
- Look at all your signs and ask if they are emotionally intelligent and well-designed.
- Treat everyone well.