The Sales Solution: Persuasion That’s Relational, Not Transactional

When we were born.

We were the best salespeople in the world.

If you think about it, as young children, we get to the grocery store and our parents or mom or dad are checking out at the cashier and you've got your buggy full of groceries and you're unloading the groceries and you looked at your mom and you go, hey, mom, I want those M&Ms.

Let me have those M&Ms.

And mom says, no, no, it'll ruin your dinner.

But mom, mom.

I tell you what, I won't eat them until after my dinner.

Now, you're not getting that M&M's.

Well, if you get me those M&M's, I'll have them for dessert.

And then I'll go, I'll get my bath and I'll brush my teeth and I'll get right into bed.

So you begin literally trying to negotiate to get those M&M's.

And somewhere along the line, we fight.

lose that or we stop.

I'd say one reason why that happens is because we don't like rejection.

That's true.

Our level of resilience and our ability to persist dissolves.

Because there's that reluctance to get a no.

To embrace sales, you have to be willing to get a no.

You know, I always tell people, there's nothing wrong with a no. It's either no, yes, or maybe, but that's it.

That's right.

No, it's just the response.

Yeah, it's okay.

And I know you were talking about in human resources, we do sell.

We do sell ideas, concepts, even in the coaching, the different perspectives.

But a big part of what we do that truly is more like a sales function is recruiting people.