Over the last few years, much has been made of the human side of selling. It should have always been front and center, because those of us who found it accidentally and those who learned it purposely have long known that it’s one of the key ingredients of a successful selling recipe.
Every time you go to a conference, seminar, sales meeting or other gathering of sales guru’s, you hear about the importance of recognizing the traits and quirks of humanity.
Is it really that important ? Of course it is. What is salesmanship if not the science of human nature ? What are prospects, customers and salespeople, if not human beings ? How else could we hope to influence them, if not by using our knowledge of human nature ?
I really am delighted that the science and art of human nature and reading it are coming into the spotlight. I’m glad salespeople are paying attention to the signs that those around them are leaving for them.
The simple fact is this: The more thoroughly a salesperson will learn and use the principles of human nature, the more successful he will become.
The biggest difference I’ve found in my couple of decades of selling is that the successful salespeople are those that can control, influence and persuade people thru the use of human nature.
Those that can’t read the signs or see the openings never make it as salespeople. Never.
Seemingly, there are a chosen few who just instinctively know what to say and when to say it.
They create a confidence in others, they suspend their disbelief and they make them comfortable.
That’s all there is to selling. That and a worthy product or service.
We call those chosen few “ Natural Born ” salespeople. Whether they were born with it or picked it up quickly is beyond such a simple being as me. I really don’t even care.
All I know is the more traits and quirks I recognize, the more I sell. The more I sell, the more I make. The more I make, the more I like it. The more I like it, the more I do of it. The more I do of it, the more I make, etc, etc.
Most salespeople have to acquire the ability to read human nature. Some do it quickly, some take years.
Those that quickly learn to read human nature, seem to understand that it’s a matter of looking for clues and reading the signs that people leave behind when they show us their pettiness, their predjudices, their preferences, their inconsistencies, their heroics, their cowardice and a hundred other traits.
After you learn all of that, then you have to test, track, experiment, lose, win and remember.
Then and only then, will you be able to use that vast knowledge to your advantage.
If you do immerse yourself in the study of human nature and how to use it to your selling advantage, you’ll never have another hobby as rewarding. I gave up a lot of hobbies as I got deeper and deeeper into my life’s study and now I set up marketing campaigns and help others tweak their sales process for sheer fun much too often for my bank accounts liking.
How do you learn the art of human nature ?
That’s easy to answer and tough to do.
Your textbook is open to you every day. Go out and read those that you come in contact with.
Prospects, customers, suppliers, vendors, family, friends, anybody you come in contact with.
One of the best salespeople I know told me that he practiced on his family until he was confident in his ability to read people.
Now, he can sell anything to anybody … within reason.
But you can’t be out and about all the time, so what can you do while you’re in front of a computer monitor to help you learn the art of human nature ?
Read the next 100 or so posts that I write in this series. Subscribe to my RSS feed and follow along as I tell story after story with lessons in reading human nature.
As always, I welcome comments, corrections and complaints. One of those will be tossed, two of those will be cherished.
Who knows, I may turn this into an ebook and use the comments, Trackbacks and additions to the conversation as part of the content.
Like I said, subscribe to the RSS feed and hang on. We be jammin’.
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