Kettle Thoughts... #5 Curiosity didn't kill the cat.

A couple of months ago at an event, a speaker ( Will King ?????? , Founder King of Shaves ) asked the audience whether they knew the second half of the proverb "Curiosity killed the cat". I couldnt quite remember but could recall that it wasn't the full line.

"Curiosity killed the cat. But satisfaction brought it back."

A quick search on Perplexity or Chat GPT will tell you that the second half of the sentance was added later, but regardless the full saying shows that there's more to curiosity than just "keep your nose out of other people's business".

This got me thinking about curiosity, understanding and building relationships.

After spending 10 years agency side, now clientside at JLR , I now know what its like to be cold called, sold to, pitched to and asked for work. Being on the other side of the fence I have been surprised, even shocked at how vast the gap is between good sales people and bad sales people. At various conferences, events and even more recently on cold calls to my personal mobile... I've had various sales people try to ram their product, service, or consultancy offer down my throat. I even had a 30 minute meeting with a very senior consulting exec where I think I spoke for all of 3 minutes. I have also seen the exact opposite. Masters at building relationships, understanding challenges, who are not only prepared to listen but to cocreate, to spar on issues and offer advice through a deep understanding of the challenge.

It's important to consider the idea that we are ALL sales people. You are selling to your boss, your team, to your customers. Even the CEO is selling to the markets/ their shareholders. Politicians sell to their consistuents, husbands sell to wives, kids sell to their parents. Sales, in my view, is crucial in life, not just in business.

The key to sales my friends, has nothing to do with how well you can sell your stuff, it has everything to do with asking the right questions. It is about seeking to understand, building relationships with your customer (whoever that is) and about curiosity - not just for your own gain but for mutual benefit. It is an art, and requires practice - but I can promise you the "satisfaction" that this approach will have over the hard sell.

There's a lot of research on curiosity, many books on business psychology, even more on sales.

HBR: 4 Phrases that Build a Culture of Curisoity

Heck, I'm not even the first person to write about it on LinkedIn!

Mike Wilkinson: Value Selling through Curiosity

And yet I'm still shocked at how few people are interested, rather than interesting.

Yes, this approach is excellent for sales - if you can truly understand customer needs, on an emotional level - you can meet them far better than with a surface level understanding. However it's more than just this - realising that...

• Relationships are the source of results (shout out C Space ),
• You don't know everything,
• You never stop learning,
• Diversity of thought breeds creativity (HBR)
• Likely your assumptions are wrong,

Will also help you in life, as well as at work. Trust me, you'll be more satisfied, and there will be less dead cats.