When The Art Of Selling Meets The Science Of Strategy
How both work together to drive progress and success
Selling is an art, strategy is a science, one must learn to master both in order to excel in all facets of life. More often than not, when people hear the term “sell” their minds are instantly drawn to visions of sales people, whether they are trying to hawk a product or service from a store, door to door or across the phone. While yes, this is selling in its purest form, the underlying skill of “selling” goes much deeper than that. Those that understand this, understand that everything is in essence a sale. When applying for a job you are selling yourself, when suggesting a weekend activity you are selling your idea, and when working for someone else you are selling your value. These are actions many people perform on a daily basis, few think twice about it, whereas the “sale” is crucial as this is their point of leverage. This is where strategy comes into action, those who are able to strategize effectively, know how to leverage the sale to better position themselves in the long term.
The art of the sale
Mastering the art of selling involves recognizing what value you hold or can create, which is your leverage, and how you can utilize that value to achieve a desired outcome that you have predetermined. In most cases what it is that you are actually selling is not the key measure that will win your target over, so long as you are delivering sufficient value to the recipient. The sale resides on three elements:
The open: Potentially the most important element of the entire sale. “The open” traditionally refers to when and how you introduce your sales topic to a prospect. However, the real open begins much sooner than this, it involves copious research of your prospect, looking into their background, their contacts, their interactions and their interests. While this may seem somewhat invasive and over the top, it is essential in order to place yourself in a position of likability where you can develop instant rapport and chemistry. Once you are well enough informed, you can proceed to reaching out and making the initial contact.
The pitch: This is where the majority of people unfamiliar with the true art of selling make a crucial mistake. “The pitch” is not centered around yourself or your offer. To be truly impactful your pitch must address your prospect and their needs and demonstrate how you are creating value for them.
To demonstrate this, take a barbershop owner, reaching out to well known influencers to promote their store. The owner can take two different approaches when making their pitch to achieve the same outcome. The first approach involves the owner making contact, endorsing the quality of their shop’s cuts and requesting a promotional “shout out”. The second involves reaching out to the influencer indicating their awareness of them, and displaying a level of genuine interest in their work, coupled with an offer to give them five free haircuts at the shop. This level of recognition caters to the influencer and provides immediate value for seemingly little output. Once the influencer is hooked and a rapport is built the free haircuts will pay dividends in the form of continued support, both direct and indirect, by harnessing their loyalty.
While the former illustrates to the influencer the quality of work produced in the barbershop, it does little to incentivize them to promote or communicate this to their following. The latter however, not only provides value in the form of free haircuts, it organically fosters a relationship between the store and the influencer generating the traction required to reap long term benefits.
The follow up: This is an underestimated and underutilized tool, it is not uncommon for those you reach out to, to ignore or simply miss your initial contact. This could be a result of them having visible value which makes them susceptible to numerous contact attempts by others as well as yourself. The “follow up” to less aggressive and assertive individuals may feel exceedingly overbearing, this is far from the case. In today’s world where the art of the sale is highly utilized one must be pragmatic in their approach. If the initial pitch followed the blueprint laid out earlier, this allows for your follow up to come across as sincere, opposed to merely trying to gain attention to further ones own interests.
The science of strategy
Strategy can be broken down and defined as a plan designed to achieve an overall aim. Strategic planning requires foresight, the ability to think many steps ahead. While short term strategizing can be beneficial, long term strategy is where real value is realized. In order to do this successfully, one must be able to choreograph the outcomes that will occur as a result of their actions. Shrewd attention to detail is required, as well as a deep understanding of what exactly one is hoping to accomplish and how this can be achieved as efficiently as possible.
Complications can arise when a strategy requires external factors to work in your favor, such as when you need a person or company to execute an action that is that has no impact, or worse, is disadvantageous to their own goals. This is when it is essential to strategically create value for the recipient while concurrently leading them to take actions that will further your own agenda.
The art and the science
Bringing both the art and the science together is a powerful combination. Those that can master both aspects have advantageously positioned themselves to not only excel, but to craft their own future. The ability to strategically target a prospect, no matter the context allows oneself to cater to that prospect’s needs and build a relationship while simultaneously working towards one’s own goals. Doing so necessitates meticulous planning to identify who must me reached out to, and how they can be best contacted in a manner which will garner a favorable response. Once this is complete the science of strategy behind the art of the sale can be realized and exploited to achieve overwhelming success.
