It is very hard to get a good sales book. I decided to try “Sell Like A Spy: The Art of Persuasion from the World of Espionage”. Spies are the ultimate salespeople. They must be believable, collect the necessary information, and recruit others to become spies. Their motto: spies convince, thugs coerce. The book does not disappoint. It is a nice mix of war stories and lessons learned from special forces such as Green Berets, FBI, hostage negotiators, kidnap insurance, and piracy in Somalia.
Know your target
The first lesson is to get to know your target. Become a psychiatrist. Practice radical empathy, build rapport and genuinely connect. Using vulnerability. Create intimacy. Built the relationship. Use the research and intellectual curiosity (or intelligence if you want to use the language of a spy) to create the talk triggers. It also reminds me of the Mackay method. Find out as much as possible about your prospect, including hobbies, school, children, favourite sports, birthday, etc. and use that to develop trust and credibility.
Be authentic
Lesson two is that you need to be authentic, know who you are, and approach sales with a clear mind.
The art of conversation
Lesson three is the art of conversation. How to listen better, get answers without asking questions, and connect quickly. Using elicitation (the act of drawing out or bringing forth emotions, opinions, facts, etc.), triggering the tendency to correct, use professional pride, tap into gossip (the person leaking sensitive information is not one of the key decision-makers but rather one of the associates, assistants, and administrators), use flattery, create psychological comfort and
Listen
Most importantly, use active listening. The human mind works four times faster than our verbal comprehension. Most of the time, we listen on a superficial level to hear certain words, or just long enough to get the gist of what someone is saying. Once we think we know where they’re heading, our attention shifts inward, where we silently compare what we heard to our logic and worldview.
Conversations tips
- Use the name of the person in conversation.
- Make strong eye contact, but only for three or four seconds at a time.
- Quiet your body (try yoga or meditation).
- Mirror (verbal and physical)
- The language used is an expression of culture (which you can research)
- Study the cultural context.
- Look for micro-expressions and body language.
- People wear their identities and often tell you who they are. That makes evolutionary sense. When cavepeople were roaming the plains, we learned to make quick judgments about other people, animals, and situations.
About atmosphere and intangibles
The environment in which we’re connecting and influencing should directly impact the approach we’re taking to connect and influence. Spies understand this and utilize their surroundings to their advantage. Be mindful of all the atmospheric and inter-relational details. It’s all there in our haircuts and facial hair (or lack thereof), our choice of glasses, watches, jewellery, and other accessories; it’s apparent in our choice of clothing and how we wear it. It is further described in our body language and tone of voice.
The rare find
The book makes a side step. When you apply for a job today, your résumé is likely to first go through a software program that will use AI to screen you out if you, for instance, don’t have the requisite number of years doing a particular type of job. Because of their narrow definition of who is right for the job, that team will miss out on people who can bring their own unique background, a point of view that, by virtue of being different, could provide so much. CVs do not capture the intangibles. Read “The rare find“.
About note taking
Take notes like a spy. Spies are expert note-takers. No agent gets recruited without extensive notes on the target. Often, an agent’s recruitment begins with an extensive dossier of information on the target with notes on their particular situation. This is a huge weakness in most sales organizations, a huge detriment considering that sales have one of the highest turnover rates amongst white-collar jobs. Salespeople regularly leave jobs or get laid off, and because organizations do a rather poor job of instituting note-taking requirements for their team, they leave with precious institutional memory. Think about the huge advantage of having years of notes on a client, its key contacts, the way the client company has fared during the ups and downs of its history, the way the relationship between your firm and the client company has navigated the inevitable ups and downs of any relationship.
- What are the key individuals like at the client?
- Do they have kids?
- Where do they vacation?
- Where did they go to school?
- What sports teams do they follow?
- When are their birthdays?
- Any and all details essentially on the key people who are influential at the client company.
- What is the client office like (value or premium sell)?
- What are they like as a group in their office?
- Do they behave differently when you get them out of the office for a meal or a drink?
- Are there any charities they support?
Leadership and sales
The author also makes a reference to General McChrystal and the importance of leadership in sales. McChrystal couldn’t just command everyone to do his bidding. On the contrary, you could give almost no direct orders; anything that mattered was done through influence. Read “Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World”. Sometimes, people live in different ecosystems, assuming that people on that side have a similar frame of reference to see things the same way.” Too often, leadership’s priorities and perspective of the market and its challenges are somewhat unclear to those below them. You need to figure out that common frame of reference,” as General McChrystal puts it.
The hierarchy of loyalties
The book covers ethics. The need for ethical guidance for case officers is more important than ever as technology rapidly advances. The author introduces the hierarchy of loyalties. For an organization to be truly ethical, all its members must understand the core values that guide it and the specific ways in which those values are expressed in their daily work.
Some other tips from the book
- Be a coach, not a player.
- Don’t get even, get your way. We’re not in the business of winning the argument. You win by getting the person to do what you want.
- Learn to avoid taking offence in your business and your life.
- Focus on likability
- Always engage
- Allow everyone to save face and maintain some level of dignity.
- Separating angry people into two categories: 1) Nice people who could be acting like assholes but, if treated with the right level of respect and understanding, will ultimately comply with well-utilized de-escalation strategies. Fuck this. And 2) Difficult people who seem likely to have these interactions regularly and seem to have the potential to turn violent. Fuck you.
- Map the motivations. Instrumentally motivated (tangible goal), expressively motivated (emotion) and high risk (unreasonable).
- Make it easy for the opposition to agree with you. At the same time, you make it difficult for them to disagree. Making it easy to agree requires maintaining a problem-solving negotiation approach, while making it difficult to disagree requires exercising your force.
- Counterattacking with an offensive action is counterproductive.
- The best general is the one who never fights.
- Context is everything. One-on-one conversation is a bedrock of social interaction. However, the context in which this interaction takes place varies widely.
- Go deep but stay broad and remain relevant in any conversation.
- Prepare.
The book covers detecting deception, blocking behaviours, verbal and nonverbal disconnect, storytelling, spotting, networking, getting a warm introduction, access agents, and the use of disguise. CIA takes the idea of disguise so seriously that there is a position within the Agency called chief of disguises. Basically, the tip is to fake it until you make it.
Be human
Finally, it is all about the human connection. Show an interest interest—discuss with knowledge, dynamism, and personal flair. Those are your conversational superpowers, and you deploy them well when building rapport. Despite all the technological developments and challenges they bring, spies still operate firmly within the realm of the human palette. Lean into your humanity and develop new ones, cultivate intellectual curiosity, and take inspiration from spies and other remarkable government professionals working with that human palette.
