Reflecting over this past semester and the practical pieces of sales wisdom to take moving forward, I think buoyancy sticks with me the most. Buoyance, as described by Pink and discussed in class, is the ability to move forward despite obstacles. Elements regarded in this aspect of sales were interrogative self-talk, positivity ratios, and explanatory style. For me in my journey of PeeWee Packs, I think all of these have applied in a few disheartening circumstances.
While at E-Fest in Minneapolis, Ross and I had the opportunity to meet with acclaimed business mentors to get feedback on our business. It was a 10 minute session that went terribly wrong for us. We assumed it was a casual setting, and gave about a 2-3 minute summary of PeeWee Packs, hoping to glean maybe one or two pointers in how to move forward with our company. After describing the product, one of the mentors looked us straight in the eyes and said, “Who is your sales person on your team, because you’re not it.” Both of us were stunned and speechless. Seeing as the two of us are the ONLY sales people on our team, you can imagine how discoursing this was to hear! In that moment, we were not thinking of positivity ratios because both of us were very much on the negative. Afterwards, however, we debriefed the situation with “explanatory style” and described ways to utilize effective interrogative self-talk questions before another mentoring session like that. We came away from the situation buoyant, rather than defeated, which was an incredible learning experience in and of itself.
BoweryJE22