Why the loud, outgoing people aren't the best salespeople
“You’re in sales? You must be real smooth talker then?” If we’d had a dollar for every person we’ve met that believes salespeople are masters of spin and can talk the leg off a wooden chair then we’d be gazillionaires.
That perception comes from a historic view of sales where salespeople have been hired for their extroverted nature and ability to talk to anyone. Often portrayed as bold, outgoing, social creatures – we have all formed an idea of what ‘sales’ looks like. Sure, we can see sense in hiring salespeople that are able to start a conversation with anyone and are comfortable in any social situation but being great at sales is a lot more complex than that.
In reality, there are very few people who inch close to 100% introversion that get into sales or enjoy sales roles. Due to the requirement to be around and connect with people all day, sales roles can be a real energy sink for introverts.
How many times have you been at a work event or social gathering and you get trapped in the corner by the talker? “Enough about you, let’s talk about me! Here’s what I think .. When I was …. In my opinion…”. You know that person who just wants to talk about themselves and how great they are? It’s painful. Embarrassing. Boring. You look for any way to escape. But because they are super talented at talking it’s next to impossible to get a gap.
No one likes to be talked at. Most like to converse. It’s engaging when there’s a balance between asking, listening, learning and sharing.
If you’re the salesperson, the focus needs to be on the client, and working hard to understand their world and context. The best way to do this is by being an exceptional “questioneer” – asking great questions about them individually, their business, their role, and their needs. Remember MMFI – Make Me Feel Important. Hiring salespeople for their ability to talk is a fallacy that just won’t go away - but it needs to.
Dan Pink provides evidence that extroverts are not all that when it comes to sales. In his work “To Sell is Human” he references two specific studies that tracked the sales performance of extroverts.
Firstly, he points to a meta-analysis of 35 studies with a sample of almost 4,000 salespeople. The results show the correlation between extraversion and sales performance is practically zero (0.07, to be precise).
Meanwhile, he also writes how research from Adam Grant, at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Management showed that extroverts perform only marginally better than introverts. This was undertaken on a sales team at a software company. The team were tested for their level of version (intro or extro). Their sales performance was then tracked for 3 months. The results?
Not an introvert, not an extrovert, instead great salespeople are ambiverts.
Ambiverts are essentially people who have characteristics of both an extrovert and introvert and draw their energy from others AND by having solo time. They’re also adaptable as a result.
Grant’s study clearly shows that those that are in the middle zone of the scale did best overall all, but why do ambiverts succeed?
The truly amazing salespeople can build rapport, think deeply about topics and ideas relevant to their customers, ask insightful and direct questions, be comfortable with silence whilst the customer processes and answers a question, are able to work as a part of a team and feed of that energy but also be comfortable working on their own and be in their own company. They are able to set goals, focus on what matters, manage their territory and time, and pick themselves up when things don’t go as planned.
The most interesting thing perhaps is that the majority of the population are ambiverts. Rather than us thinking that many career options don’t exist as we’re ‘not extroverted’ or don’t enjoy ‘selling’, there is potential for most people to excel in sales.
The star performers have five essential competencies, this is just the first one.
To find out if you are an ambivert take the test at Dan Pinks’ website here.