How to embrace double life of all successful sales people

Selling is both an art and a science, and the process keeps crisscrossing these spheres. File 

By John Kageche

In Summary

• Selling is about weaving through human relationships and dealing with human beings who are scientific in concept.

Last week, I completed an enlightening session with a team of scientists who wanted to learn how to sell.

These scientists treated plants biologically through the use of beneficial insects that ate harmful insects leaving the plant intact and excellent for the export market.

Their job required one to understand the science behind how insects work on specific crops, in varied weather across different soils.

Yet even with such a great product it was becoming increasingly evident that the delighted farmers were not signing the dotted lines even after a witnessing a demonstration. From the session these things came to the fore.

First, selling is about relationships. The scientific mind deals in logic — one and one equals two — and much to the irritation of the scientist, the artist’s mind reasons differently — one and one could be seen as eleven, or as an equals sign. Nothing is entirely absolute in the artist’s mind; absolute facts, however, excite the scientist.

And therein lies the first challenge the scientist faces when selling. He must approach an artistic situation with a scientific mind.

Human beings are biological (scientific) creatures. On the other hand, human relationships are emotional (artistic).

Next, getting the farmers to accept a demonstration is an art, the demonstration itself is a science and then, getting the farmers to buy is an art again.

This weaving in and out of art and science, reads “double life” to the scientific mind. And double life is not black and white and, therefore, doesn’t resonate with the scientist.

Yet this “double life” is what the scientist must embrace if he is to sell. For the delegates, the scientific fact that these insects are good for your plants was reason enough for anyone to buy — but people were not buying.

But what really ate at them were the objections. After all why should an intelligent person object to what is tried and tested? He might as well object to the fact that the sun rises in the east.

When the demonstration has worked and you can see it is of benefit to you, why do you object to the pricing, scientist’s credibility, service, paying on time and ten other things?
That is because objections are about human interactions, not human beings.

But these challenges are not limited to scientists. A human resource consultant tells me that he finds himself having to sell despite his illustrious track record of high profile placements.
He says, “After I send my profile (scientific), I must still call and follow up (art).”

And his explanation epitomises the sales process, which has an art component in it (handling objections for instance) and what most salespeople prefer to deal with as it is comparatively easier, the scientific component (for example, dishing out brochures).

Kageche is lead facilitator Lend Me Your Ears, a sales and speaker training firm
lendmeyourears@consultant.com