Introversion and Selling
Selling is a field predominated by those with an Extraverted orientation. The Atlas of Type Tables (MacDaid & others, 1994) reports roughly a 70 percent representation of Extraverts in the field of sales, to just 30 percent for Introverts. There are three main reasons for this. One is the conventional view that “selling is telling.” Two, sales selection surveys used by many organizations in recruiting consider behaviors and characteristics associated with Extraversion as assets for sales success. Finally, there is a self-selection phenomenon in sales management, whereby Extraverted sales managers (who dominate the field statistically) tend to recruit and promote individuals with style preferences similar to their own.
Contrary to the view that Introversion is a handicap in selling, our work at PfP Consulting suggests that Introverts have a natural gift that contributes to their sales effectiveness: they tend to be excellent listeners. This is particularly important in complex and major account settings, where successful selling always begins with good questioning and effective listening.
Selling is a field that is viewed by many as a competition between the sales person and the prospective customer. Prospects are considered adversaries, or game, and words become the ammunition a sales person is trained to use in shooting the game. Indeed, “hunters” and “farmers” are metaphors commonly used to distinguish sales people who are good at bagging new prey from those who are more skilled at cultivating existing crops in the customer service function.
Old School selling promoted bromides like clever closing scripts and masterful objection handling. Even those organizations embracing a more contemporary consultative approach to selling, still focus most of their training resources on the words sales people will say in their presentations.
Whether Old School or Consultative, the underlying assumption in both approaches is that “selling is telling”. To succeed, the “hunter” needs to spot the prospect in the pipeline, line it up in the cross hairs, and then fire a sales pitch (read “value proposition”) with its supporting slides and marketing pieces.
In Successful Selling to Type SST® (www.tildensst.com), our sales model that applies Jungian principles to the selling process, “telling” is closely associated with the Extraverted orientation. This is one reason why Extraverts are attracted to (or recruited into) the field.
The bias toward choosing Extraverts for sales positions is clearly evident in so-called sales aptitude tests. Along with factors like “Motivation”, “Goal Orientation”, “Planning” and “Team Player”, #1 Sales Aptitude Test (salestesting.com) actually assesses “Extroversion” as a scale to determine whether or not a candidate can sell. According to them, the lower your “Extroversion” the lower your sales aptitude.
In its Sales Aptitude Test, Pegasus International includes what it calls an “Involving” scale. The language used to describe this scale sounds much like an Introversion-Extraversion description: “The Involving scale is associated with social energy, social activity, and willingness to interact with a wide variety of people.” If an applicant scores low on Involvement he or she may not naturally be cut out for sales.
To put it another way, according to #1 Sales Test and Pegasus, being an Introvert is as undesirable as having low motivation, lacking a goal orientation, not having a plan or being a bad team player. For reasons we outline below, we seriously question the predictive validity of these instruments and doubt that they satisfy American Psychological Association standards for educational and psychological tests.
The third reason Extraverts are heavily represented in selling is that Extraverted sales leaders recruit and select them. Whether conscious or not, sales managers tend to make comparisons to people who have succeeded in the past; including themselves. It is not uncommon for us to hear a selection explained by a sales leader observing that a successful candidate reminded him or her of himself or herself.
From the candidate’s side, they are assessing comfort level of the work environment and fit with the team. As countless studies with the MBTI and Strong have shown, “Birds of a feather flock together”. As a field, selling attracts, recruits and selects lots of Extraverted birds.
The problem with this state of affairs is that selling is a lot more than telling. Especially at the major and complex account level, the twin investigation skills of asking good questions and listening are indispensable. Neil Rackham’s (1988) research should set the record straight here. His monumental study of 35,000 sales calls found no statistical correlation between success and skills we associate with Extraversion and “telling”. In fact, he found the more a sales person attempted to close the sale, the less likely he or she was to succeed.
What he did find was that the exemplary performers in major and complex sales actually demonstrated skills more closely associated with Introversion. They asked good questions and they listened to understand the needs and challenges of the prospect or client.
In our work as consultants to organizations seeking to improve sales performance, we frequently conduct “Exemplary Performer Analyses”. In these studies we analyze and compare practices and characteristics of exemplary performers to average performers. Often, we find that the stars are not the otherwise highly visible Extraverts. Rather, many of the exemplary performers are the quieter Introverts who have naturally developed superior listening skills. After all, when the Extraverts are talking, Introverts get a lot of practice at it.
In sum, those who subscribe to the conventional wisdom that “selling is telling” do a real disservice to Introverts when they discourage them from pursuing sales careers. Often, Introverts are more naturally gifted at the twin skills of questioning and listening than their Extravert counterparts. How can you tell? Do as we do. Look at the sales performance results, and ask their customers.