How to Sell

I work for a big technology company. I know this is supposed to be a technology blog, but I recently took an awesome sales class and thought I'd share what I learned. Even though my day job has little to do with selling a product, I found this class to be extremely useful and practical. Whether it be selling an idea, point of view, or oneself for a raise/promo, we all engage in selling in one form or another. And after I learned how to sell, I then took a Negotiation class to figure out how to get the most in return for what I'm selling! A powerful combination indeed.

In a nutshell, the key to selling is politics. Every major buying decision is a political decision. Different people are striving to advance their particular agendas. This is a key point I'll return to later. The political power base of an organization is often not what it appears to be. It transcends the formal org chart and structure. Identifying pockets of informal influence and positioning yourself for political advantage is even more important than the objective merit of your idea.

Any organization with more than 1 person has politics. A person's authority in a company is usually obvious from an org chart. A person's standing and influence in an organization is more subtle and requires investigation. Adding value by doing good work is not enough to earn influence within an organization. To become influential, one must be recognized by powerful people. Therefore, to sell effectively to someone entails understanding their personal agenda and helping them advance that agenda.

One particularly effective tactic that smart people use is to socialize ideas first before formally proposing them. Its effective for two reasons:

1. When people are bought-in to your idea, they'll defend you.
2. It prevents someone from surprising you with something you hadn't thought of at an inopportune moment