Attunement, buoyancy, and clarity are crucial sales skills

Those who sell must be emotionally aware, able to rebound, and clear in their goals, presentation, and next steps. If you’re in sales–Pink would argue almost everyone–you’ll need to develop three skills: Attunement, Buoyancy, and Clarity (Pink, pg. 66).

Attunement simply means awareness. A salesman must be ‘in tune’ with those he sells to; to see the world from the customer’s perspective. The better a salesman is able to understand the customer in front of him, the better he can find their problems and, if he has a solution, offer them what they didn’t know they were looking for. As information overloads us all, our capacity to discover solutions outside of a Google search wane. A salesman expands the limited options offered by Google’s first ten results by asking questions and thoroughly understanding the underlying problem.

Buoyancy is about resilience in the ‘ocean of rejection’ (Pink, pg. 97). The best pitch falls on deaf ears, and the kindest salesman sometimes speaks to the angriest customers. To stay afloat, a salesman must reframe the rejection they face. This doesn’t mean he must have a perpetually sunny attitude, for every boat has some leaks which should be repaired, but he does need an attitude that distinguishes whether the volley he’s just received really does mean he’s a terrible person.

Clarity follows from attunement and means clear communication. A battery of studies presented by Pink have one common thread; each one proves that the way a product is introduced causes customers to respond differently. The applicability to the target audience, the way the message evokes empathy, and the clarity of next steps can dramatically impact the response of customers to the same product.

Relevance to Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs must sell their product or service, but they can easily fall into habits which hurt rather than help their chances of a sale. Each of the three characteristics Pink describes has a negative.

Attunement

Instead of focusing on his customers, an entrepreneur can become engrossed in the features and benefits of his product. Lost in the amazing way his new icebox works, he can fail to recognize he’s selling to an Eskimo.

Buoyancy

With waves of rejection crashing down on the entrepreneur’s idea, he can easily conclude that it’s a dud. Without checking to see if perhaps other factors might explain his customer’s reactions, he can give up before the idea has been tested with those who would benefit from it. Similarly, he can lose sight of his goal and, in an attempt to please everyone to reduce rejection, can make a Swiss Army Knife that no one can use.

Clarity

An entrepreneur who has spent months developing their business idea can become an unintelligible expert. He knows what the product is and, forgetting others haven’t spent months thinking about the problem, he can communicate the solution in a way that’s unclear and even counterproductive. Highly technical solutions are particularly vulnerable to this trap.

Application

Pink’s clever use of the term ‘sell’ to include all forms of persuasion accomplishes its purpose well; by the end of the book, my perspective on selling has changed. His selling ABC pneumonic lists unexpected and positive traits for salesmen. Was I to write the three characteristics from my experience with sales it’d UHD: Ubiquity, Hunger, and Deception. Case in point: a local gas station recently installed new gas pumps. The new pumps still have a video screen to walk me through the usual steps to pay for my gas, but now there’s an added bonus; as my car fills up the screen transforms to a video advertisement, complete with sound. Just what I wanted, thanks. In contrast, Pink’s list are all attributes that I want to grow in before they’re even associated with selling.

References