New to Sales? No Problem
- Dan Greenberg
- Aug 16, 2023
- 5 min read
The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities. Basically, the Dunning-Kruger Effect explains that when we are brand new at something, we are aware that we are not good at it, but as we start to get slightly more proficient at it, we quickly start to perceive our abilities to be much greater than they are until, eventually, we hit a roadblock and realize that we are not actually that good. Then, as we progress along the path of gaining expertise, our proficiency, and our confidence level start to align more properly.
In most professions, and with most skills and types of expertise, this holds true. It is partially where we get the idea of beginner’s luck from, and also why we come across people in conversation who tend to be overconfident in opinions when they are lacking expertise. You can see in the chart below that confidence peaks much too early in the proficiency process before correcting.
But there is one very relevant area where this does not hold true to the same extent as in most other areas, and that area is sales. Sellers who are new to the field tend to be under confident in their skills over long periods of time. They tend to overestimate the set of skills that they need in order to break into the field and achieve basic levels of proficiency.
It is estimated that about 1 out of every 9 people in the US is a salesperson of some kind, but in reality, most of us rely on sales heavily in our jobs and in our lives. Whether it is convincing your boss to adopt your initiative, or working with your team to help them buy into a process idea that you have, or even talking your husband or kids into the dinner place that you want to try. Sales, in one way or another, is a big part of almost all of our lives.
I was listening to an interview on the podcast “Planet Money” the other day. The interview was with PJ McGee who sells various items at county fairs. He is a veteran and well-respected salesperson amongst his peers. He answered one of the reporter’s questions by saying, “The most insulting thing we hear is when someone says, ‘you're a natural born salesman’, well screw you, I spent a lot of time and effort, and a lot of energy to learn how to do this properly”.
What PJ is saying is that accomplished sellers who have developed their trade look at it as a craft. They hone their skills and improve gradually and significantly over time. They bristle at the idea that “sales is a numbers game”, because when you are good at your job it is about the skill and the processes that you develop over time. All of this is true, in order to be a highly productive salesperson, you must put in the work to develop your craft, and it will take time.
Fortunately for those who are just starting their journey as a salesperson, or even for those who have been selling for some time but have only recently committed to learning and building the skills necessary for long term success, and very fortunately for sales managers, the path is not linear.
If a person were to start learning a language, or a sport, or an instrument today, they would be pretty terrible at the skill on day one. I don’t know about most of you, but I don’t know how to play the piano, and if you asked me to sit down with an ensemble and start playing today, I might mash a few keys, and it would become evident within about six seconds that I have no business sitting down in front of the instrument with a group of professional musicians. This is the same for most skills; surgery, engineering, basketball, a new language.
However, it is not the case for sales. The reason is; and this is very important; sales effectiveness relies on three broad sets of traits; sales skills, hard work, and basic social skills.
The fact that hard work plays a central role in success and can be employed immediately is very important, and works hand-in-hand with the social acumen piece. I cannot just work really hard and therefore be a passable rocket scientist on day-one. But in sales, with basic social skills, I can blunt force my way to effective results in the early stages as I am improving my skill set.
There are not a lot of professions out there where reliance on social acuity is so integral as it is in sales. Basic skills, like listening, asking good questions, making others feel comfortable in your presence, and sensing emotions and feelings from others in the room are of paramount importance in sales. Most of us have been developing these skills since childhood, which means that we are not starting from zero when it comes to learning the craft of sales.
What you can see in the chart below is that in sales, as opposed to with other skills, we don't start at zero when it comes to gaining proficiency. Yes. It takes just as long to master selling as it does with most other trades and crafts, but the starting point is different. And, we are often better at it, than our confidence level would suggest, especially early on in the journey.
It’s not really possible or necessary to quantify how far along the path to proficiency we all start when we set out to hone our sales skills, but what is most important is that we don’t forget about the basic social skills as we develop other complementary skills over time. I have seen countless salespeople start out as decent sellers, and as they feverishly work on improving themselves, they actually get worse over time in the early stages of development. The simple reason is that they forget to be human.
As developing sellers learn discovery skills, and presentation skills, they become robotic and start to worry about checking the boxes related to the skills they are learning, but in the process, they forget what is most important. You must sell yourself, otherwise you won't have a chance of selling your product. The most likely buyers are the ones who trust their relationship with the seller, and a seller who loses touch with basic social skills will lose touch with their buyer.
The trick is to figure out how to improve at the advanced sales skills, while at the same time, not losing the basic human social skills that you have already developed just by being a person. One way to do that is to focus on perception and listening rather than talking and presenting. Here are a few thoughts on what I mean:
Learn to listen for cues that indicate your buyer’s interests. If you can pick up what is most important to them, then you will know what information to send them and where to steer the conversation.
Learn to listen to the terms and ways that your client describes their business and their problems. If you can use similar terms to what your client already uses, they won't have to do any mental gymnastics to understand the points you are conveying.
Learn to listen and perceive comfort level and intent. If you become more perceptive in reading body language and social cues, you will be more attuned to when your prospect is on the same page as you and when they need more conversation around a topic.
Learn to ask good follow up questions that are not formulaic. Follow up questions that relate to a recent answer are most effective when they feel conversational. It is less important that it be the perfect question, and more important that you open up more opportunities for the other person to talk about what is really on their mind.
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