Asymmetrical information creates all sorts of headaches. If the seller knows much more about the product than the buyer, the buyer understandably gets suspicious. What’s the seller concealing? Am I being hoodwinked? If the car is so great, why is he getting rid of it? As a result, the buyer might be willing to pay only very little—or perhaps forgo purchasing the car altogether. But Akerlof theorized that the problems could ripple further. Suppose I’ve got a used car that I know is a peach, and I decide to sell it. Buyers still treat me the same way they treat any seller—as a presumptive lemon peddler.
A—Attunement B—Buoyancy C—Clarity-
Attunement, buoyancy, and clarity: These three qualities, which emerge from a rich trove of social science research, are the new requirements for effectively moving people on the remade landscape of the twenty-first century. We begin in this chapter with A—Attunement. And to help you understand this quality, let me get you thinking about another letter.
As a result, the ability to move people now depends on power’s inverse: understanding another person’s perspective, getting inside his head, and seeing the world through his eyes. And doing that well requires beginning from a position that would get you expelled from the Mitch and Murray always-be-closing school of sales: Assume that you’re not the one with power.
“I do this in every sales situation,” says Dan Shimmerman, founder of Varicent Software, a blazingly successful Toronto company recently acquired by IBM. “For me it’s very important to not just have a good understanding of the key players involved in making a decision, but to understand what each of their biases and preferences are. The mental map gives a complete picture, and allows you to properly allocate time, energy and effort to the right relationships.”
The answer, though, isn’t to lurch to the opposite side of the spectrum. Introverts have their own, often reverse, challenges. They can be too shy to initiate and too timid to close. The best approach is for the people on the ends to emulate those in the center. As some have noted, introverts are “geared to inspect,” while extraverts are “geared to respond.”. Selling of any sort—whether traditional sales or non-sales selling—requires a delicate balance of inspecting and responding. Ambiverts can find that balance.
Amazon, like most organizations, has lots of meetings. But at the important ones, alongside the chairs in which his executives, marketing mavens, and software jockeys take their places, Bezos includes one more chair that remains empty. It’s there to remind those assembled who’s really the most important person in the room: the customer.
What’s more, explanatory style predicted performance with about the same accuracy as the most widely used insurance industry assessment for hiring agents. Optimism, it turns out, isn’t a hollow sentiment. It’s a catalyst that can stir persistence, steady us during challenges, and stoke the confidence that we can influence our surroundings.
Ask yourself: “Can I move these people?” As social scientists have discovered, interrogative self-talk is often more valuable than the declarative kind. But don’t simply leave the question hanging in the air like a lost balloon. Answer it—directly and in writing. List five specific reasons why the answer to your question is yes. These reasons will remind you of the strategies that you’ll need to be effective on the task, providing a sturdier and more substantive grounding than mere affirmation.
“The quality of the problem that is found is a forerunner of the quality of the solution that is attained . . .” Getzels concluded. “It is in fact the discovery and creation of problems rather than any superior knowledge, technical skill, or craftsmanship that often sets the creative person apart from others in his field.”
Someone who can help me achieve my main goal—clean floors—in a smarter, cheaper way is someone I’ll listen to and perhaps even buy from. If I know my problem, I can likely solve it. If I don’t know my problem, I might need some help finding it.
Using a mix of number crunching and their own knowledge and expertise, the Perfetti salespeople tell retailers “what assortment of candy is the best for them to make the most money.” That could mean offering five flavors of Mentos rather than seven. And it almost always means including products from competitors. In a sense, Chauvin says, his best salespeople think of their jobs not so much as selling candy but as selling insights about the confectionery business.
Second, in the past, the best salespeople were skilled at answering questions (in part because they had information their prospects lacked). Today, they must be good at asking questions—uncovering possibilities, surfacing latent issues, and finding unexpected problems.
This is why curation is so important, especially in a world saturated with options and alternatives. Framing people’s options in a way that restricts their choices can help them see those choices more clearly instead of overwhelming them. What Mies van der Rohe said of designing buildings is equally true of moving those who inhabit them: Less is more.
…we adapt quickly to material changes. That spectacular new BMW that so delighted us three weeks ago is now just how we get to work. But that hike on Canada’s West Coast Trail lingers in our mind—and as time goes by, we tend to forget the small-level annoyances (ticks) and remember the higher-level joys (amazing sunsets). Experiences also give us something to talk about and stories to tell, which can help us connect with others and deepen our own identities, both of which boost satisfaction.
The researchers dubbed this phenomenon the “blemishing effect”—where “adding a minor negative detail in an otherwise positive description of a target can give that description a more positive impact.”
…researchers tested two different Facebook ads for the same comedian. Half the ads said the comedian, Kevin Shea, “could be the next big thing.” The other half said, “He is the next big thing.” The first ad generated far more click-throughs and likes than the second. The somewhat peculiar upshot of the research, the scholars write, is that “the potential to be good at something can be preferred over actually being good at that very same thing.”
Professor Koh told our class one spring afternoon. He said that in an attempt to understand the law—or, for that matter, just about anything—the key was to focus on what he termed the “one percent.” Don’t get lost in the crabgrass of details, he urged us. Instead, think about the essence of what you’re exploring—the one percent that gives life to the other ninety-nine. Understanding that one percent, and being able to explain it to others, is the hallmark of strong minds and good attorneys.
The purpose of a pitch isn’t necessarily to move others immediately to adopt your idea. The purpose is to offer something so compelling that it begins a conversation, brings the other person in as a participant, and eventually arrives at an outcome that appeals to both of you. In a world where buyers have ample information and an array of choices, the pitch is often the first word, but it’s rarely the last.
Emma Coats, a former story artist at the studio, has cracked the Pixar code—and, in the process, created a template for an irresistible new kind of pitch. Coats has argued that every Pixar film shares the same narrative DNA, a deep structure of storytelling that involves six sequential sentences: Once upon a time ______________________________. Every day, _______________. One day _________________________. Because of that, ___________________. Because of that, _______________________. Until finally
Your Twitter pitch could include an online link to an artist’s rendering of the bridge along with a list of its benefits and entice people to click it with: See what tomorrow’s Beeston and Arborville can look like & why we need to create that future. If you’re sending information to your fellow Beeston citizens, your subject line pitch could be: 3 reasons why Beeston families support a new bridge. Your rhyming pitch? Opportunities are wide on the other side. Your question pitch could help people think through their own experiences: Should it be such a pain to get to Arborville? And your one-word pitch could explain the reason for your efforts (not to mention an indispensable lesson of this chapter): Connect
About half of the people in the second and third groups—the “self-interested” and control groups—recycled their papers. But in the “self-transcending” first group, nearly 90 percent chose to recycle. Merely discussing purpose in one realm (car-sharing) moved people to behave differently in a second realm (recycling).
Call it servant selling. It begins with the idea that those who move others aren’t manipulators but servants. They serve first and sell later. And the test—which, like Greenleaf’s, is the best and the most difficult to administer—is this: If the person you’re selling to agrees to buy, will his or her life improve? When your interaction is over, will the world be a better place than when you began?
“But the successful seller must feel some commitment that his product offers mankind as much altruistic benefit as it yields the seller in money.” An effective seller isn’t a “huckster, who is just out for profit,” he said. The true “salesman is an idealist and an artist.”
“Salespeople are no different from engineers, architects, or accountants. Really good salespeople want to solve problems and serve customers. They want to be part of something larger than themselves.”
Treat everyone as you’d treat your grandmother, but assume that Grandma has eighty thousand Twitter followers.
If the person you’re selling to agrees to buy, will his or her life improve? When your interaction is over, will the world be a better place than when you began?