The Winner's Sales Strategy Blog

Social Value and Salespeople

Much of the content in my new The Sales Mastery Program comes from extensive research I've done in the world of human social dynamics and how many of those principles can be applied to sales situations. I've been reading even more about this recently and came upon the concept of high vs. low social value. In any social interaction, the person who displays higher social value controls the course and eventual outcome of the interaction. The person with lower social value is simply along for the ride and is at the whim of the person displaying higher social value.

Think about how we, as salespeople, almost always automatically put the prospect into a position of higher social value! This is the underlying concept of many of my writings that talk about taking back your power. It's all about getting and keeping your power instead of unconditionally handing it to prospects. This concept of social value articulates what I've been saying all along; i.e., by putting the prospect on a pedestal and kissing up, you automatically have lower social value. By holding your ground and keeping your power, you display higher social value and the prospect automatically goes into the lower slot and you then have control over the situation. This is the secret by which top performers induce people to buy from them, time after time, without the use of deliberate sales techniques or "closes."

Donald Rumsfeld - advice for salespeople?

I was watching Donald Rumsfeld's testimony before the House Armed Services Committee today and his explanation of why the pictures weren't discovered sooner. I don't remember his exact words but it was something to the effect of:

"The problem is that we need to update our systems and procedures to the 21st century. We're still doing things the 20th century way, 'the way we've always done it.' That's why it took months to find out about these pictures - we're still stuck doing things the 20th century way."

Does that sound familiar? That's the message I work so hard to get across to salespeople and managers! At least 90% of salespeople are still doing things the 20th century way and yet they wonder why they don't get better results. Move into the 21st century and you'll get the sales results you want!