In reading more of Daniel Pink’s book, something caught me by surprise: extroverts are not actually the best sellers. This completely blows up the assumption that I held coming into this sales class that as an extrovert I would just naturally thrive in sales. But Pink explains that introverts are not the best sellers either. It turns out that ambiverts, what I’m calling the “sellers in-between”, are in fact the best sellers.
What originally surprised me made a lot more sense as I read more of what Pink was saying. Ambiverts have a great balance that they are able to exploit for their selling. They are generally better at listening and paying attention to customer needs, but they are also extroverted enough to know when to speak up, when to state benefits, and when to ask for the close. Pink explains that we should all “get in touch with [our] inner ambivert” (90). This means if you’re an extrovert, you practice talking less, asking more questions, and listening even more. If you’re an introvert, then you should practice speaking up and having courage to not back down or get flustered.
Personally, I am an extreme extrovert, and I absolutely understand what Pink is saying about extroverts talking too much, since that is something, I felt would be weakness in a field like sales. I definitely like to talk, which isn’t inherently a bad thing, but I’m hoping to learn throughout this class how to adjust the amount of talking that I do to balance it out to the amount of listening I should be doing. Maybe that’s one of the main reasons that the phrase “two ears and one mouth” really resonated with me. It’s a great reminder that we were naturally created by God to have a better capacity for listening then for talking.
Where do you feel like you fall on the introverted-extroverted scale? If you want to find out, Pink suggested an online test you can take that will give you an idea of where you fall, which you can find here. I think knowing where you are on that scale will be very beneficial because then you can learn to use the strengths of where you’re at and balance out the weaknesses to find your inner ambivert and become one of the sellers in-between.
RMcIlwain
This is very neat. It’s very interesting that these ambiverts are some of the best salespeople. I wonder if this combination idea is why some salespeople would work in teams of two (i.e. Jim and Dwight). I’m unsure of how long this “ambivert” ideology has been around, and its implications on selling in the past and future. Very intriguing article!