The importance of versatility

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Wanted: CEOs from India

: have bought, (that is, price and product were not an issue), actually did? There will always be a gap and the bigger the gap, the worse the communication problem.

Given how widespread the problem is, wouldn’t it be better if we spoke the same language as our customers—the one in which they are likely to buy. I call this language their natural buying style.

The responsibility for matching selling styles to buying style clearly must lie with the seller, not the buyer. Had we all chosen a different occupation, then perhaps things might be different.

Consider a negotiation. Here it is not unreasonable to expect both parties to shift their style, especially if both parties are agreed upon finding a solution.

Even in negotiations where no such obligation to find a solution exists, and agreeing to disagree is an option, it doesn’t provide any comfort for the sales-person. Agreeing to disagree with a customer seldom results in a sale! No sales manager worthy of the title is ever likely to pat you on the back if you return to the office announcing ‘The customer and I agreed to disagree!’

So how is the salesperson to respond to this responsibility? As individual salespeople we represent just one of four possible personality styles (these four styles will be explained in the following chapter). On the plus side, this means our selling style will match he buying style of about one in four of our customers. On the downside, of course, our selling style is alien to the other three buying styles. The outcome of encounters with these three buying styles is likely to yield less than satisfying results. In order that they are successful, we need to exercise versatility in our approach. We could, of course, lay the blame for all these missed opportunities at the door of poor sales skills; maybe we failed to identify the need, or maybe the customer was broke, who knows? Yet how many times have we identified a clear need for the product or service we were offering. Knew the customer could afford it. Yet still failed to come away with the order. given how often this happens, we could do worse than heed George Bernard Shaw’s advice:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.