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Can you sell?

Writer's picture: Dr Kiran ChittaDr Kiran Chitta

Updated: Oct 28, 2024


"Can you sell"?


This was a question that a senior partner in a global consulting firm once told me was the most important question to ask oneself, for anyone aspiring to play a senior role in his industry.


I started my own career in a sales role. This was in a company which has prided itself for much of its long history on its exceptional ability to market and sell its consumer products globally, Procter & Gamble. I wanted to be at the sharp end of a business, working with customers. I believed at the time, and still do, that selling is a core competence that anyone working in business should learn. P&G certainly knows a thing or two about it.


After completing my undergraduate studies, on arrival at P&G's gleaming offices just outside London, after an invigorating summer break in 1996, I was given the keys to a Vauxhall Cavalier (2.0 16V). The first time I drove after my driving test (passed first time, naturally, but in 1992, so four years earlier) was to drive from P&G's offices in Weybridge, England, to Aberdeen in Northern Scotland. That long drive was the first step in a baptism of fire. I was sent to Aberdeen to sell P&G's health and beauty products to independent retailers across Northern Scotland. My role took me all over the Highlands, to visit retail customers up and down the coasts of Scotland, and its rugged islands.


Bracing myself against the wind and rain of a Scottish winter, I spent every single working day for six months, on the road visiting my customers, driving through magnificently haunting landscapes, seeing the results of my work every day, running what I felt was my own business. My customers were mostly pharmacies and quirky department stores, nestled on the refreshingly well-preserved high streets of small towns and villages. My role was relatively risk and damage free. This made it a great way to learn the basics of a very big global business. There was not a Starbucks to be seen.


Throughout this period I was coached in person and on the job by an incredibly friendly, experienced, and patient field sales manager. He took on a kind of older brother role. I'll never forget how calm he managed to be when customers started being obstructive, dismissive, or just rude. More often than not, however, my customers in Scotland were warm, friendly, and generous with cups of tea and biscuits, even if they were slightly amused that P&G had sent me up there.


My line manager was a wonderfully poised, approachable and skilled individual, who would pop up from London from time to time and shadow me on my sales visits, then give me extremely helpful feedback. I owe her a debt of gratitude for putting up with my tendency as a slightly impetuous twenty-two year old, to try to overtake anything and everything on the road. I blame the punchy Cavalier engine.


Having survived this initial test, I went from working out of the back of a car in Northern Scotland, living in a spare room as a tenant in Old Aberdeen with a very kind and generous hearted pensioner called Bert, to a job at head office in Surrey, and to rent a house in SW London with four friends. This required a commute down the A3 to P&G's sleek, award winning office campus, next to the Brookland's race track in Surrey, where I eventually worked in P&G's UK customer marketing organization, still selling health and beauty products, but on a rather larger scale. Now my customers were the UK's biggest retailers.


I only spent three years at P&G before deciding that I would return to university to study for a full time masters degree before heading into consulting. But the things I had experienced and learned, especially by working in 'the field' in remote parts of Scotland, in those first six months of my working life, became a foundation for much that I did subsequently, even to this day, working as a psychologist in business, educator, facilitator and coach.


One thing I learned at P&G in those first few years of my career is that persuasive communication is not just for sales professionals. It is for everyone. Anyone in any kind of managerial or leadership role in any business function has to communicate their ideas and plans to people, on a very frequent basis.


What many of my clients today seem to find challenging, especially in so-called 'enabling' functions such as finance or HR, is formal presentations and proposals they need to make to their senior business stakeholders. This requires an approach to communication which is collaborative, and inquiring, to understand the business context well, while being sufficiently purposeful, compelling and assertive.


If you are in HR or finance or legal or IT in a big organization, you are not just a 'business partner'. You are a business leader. You are part of the business. You have a right to exist if you contribute to the value chain of the enterprise, and help it fulfil its mission. Communicating about your plans or proposals to senior decision makers in your own function, and in other functions is a central pillar of the job.


In business we all benefit from communicating in ways that are anchored in psychological evidence, which address both operational and strategic needs, which are compelling, and which focus on outcomes and impact. Make it easy for your stakeholders to trust you, by demonstrating your legitimacy and your credibility. Above all, you need to believe in your own legitimacy as a business leader. In this sense, the first person to convince is you.


Persuasive communication should be one of the core competences of any professional career in business or indeed in government or the 'third sector'. Even if you don't like the idea of 'selling', even if you aren't in sales, you might benefit from simple tools and methods, which help you communicate in ways that influence the agenda.


It's important to put your best foot forward when and where it counts most. This doesn't mean you need to become a narcissistic self-promoter like half the people posting on social media. It doesn't mean you should stop listening to feedback and try to steamroll people into submission - quite the opposite. It does mean you need to do justice to the topic or issue at hand, and your own expertise. It means you can have purposeful, open and intentional conversations with decision makers, which also support relationships of trust, credibility, and mutual respect.


Communicating persuasively is about making best and highest use of yourself as an instrument of change. You don't need a Vauxhall Cavalier or a box of product samples for that.

 


CUSTOMISABLE TRAINING AND COACHING WORKSHOPS IN PERSON OR VIRTUAL


PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS FOR LEADERS AND MANAGERS: HOW TO DEMONSTRATE CONFIDENCE, BUILD TRUST AND MAKE AN IMPACT


For first-line leaders, middle managers, and emerging leaders.


Targeted business outcomes: inspiration of staff about corporate strategy, mission and purpose, ability to drive change and improvement through stronger communication.


-        Learn to use powerful well-researched methods for effective persuasive

internal communication.

-        Approach key business interactions with greater confidence and impact.

-        Increase the effectiveness of presentations and proposals.

-        Help line managers be clear and compelling in their approach to

strategic communication.



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