If any of you have ever seen the show White Collar, you would know that Neal Caffrey is a very good salesman. Originally, he worked as a professional con-artist, having to sell whatever his new identity was to whoever he needed in order to execute the con. After becoming a consultant to Peter Burke in the white-collar division of the FBI, his selling consisted of selling both himself to Peter and all of the other agents in the division that he could in fact be trusted or selling himself to the people in their cases as whatever person he needed to be for them to close the case. In either situation, Neal uses a combination of charm, wit, confidence, and personability that helps him to truly connect with people and build relationships.
The first thing that Neal does very well is know a little bit about a lot things. While this seems somewhat trivial and unimportant, I think this can actually be very important. Neal has very broad knowledge about all kinds of things, which helps him to find random points of connection with either the people he is attempting to con or with the other FBI agents. In this same way, a salesman who has a broad understanding of a lot of different topics is in a better position than one who doesn’t, since those small points of connection can really help the salesman to build rapport with their customer.
The second thing that Neal has done very well is completely master body language. After many years of cons, Neal figured out just how much of a conversation with one of his marks was done subconsciously through non-verbal communication. Learning the basics of body language can help with confidence, but it can also really help with trust, which is a foundational aspect in sales. Pink explains in his book that a certain level of mimicking in body language can go a long way, and Neal is a perfect example of this.
On the other hand, something I think that should be pointed out in terms of Neal as a bad salesman is his lack of humility. He does a relatively good job at playing of his cockiness as merely confidence, but the underlying pride still remains and is evident simply in his tastes and style. This can be really bad for a salesman. One of the most important parts to sales that has been talked about in class is how important humility is and putting yourself below the customer, which is something that I don’t think Neal Caffrey is very good at.
Overall, though, these and a lot of other aspects make Neal very good at selling himself to people, which in turn makes him an excellent con-artist. I’m not recommending that any of you use your sales techniques to become professional con-artists, but I am saying that you might learn something from examining one of them.
RMcIlwain