Sales intelligence: The forgotten intelligence

Charles Handy in his tremendous book on change in the work place “The Hungry Spirit” (Hutchison Random House ISBN 0 09 180 1680) talks about the various types of intelligence we as humans have developed.

In fact as we have become more educated and sophisticated the specific number of these intelligences has increased. Handy suggests there will be other intelligences identified.

Handy states we are all born with basic intelligences such as:

Factual Intelligence

The facility of knowledge remembrance and recall we are traditionally schooled in.

Analytic Intelligence

The ability to be able to reason & conceptualise.

Numeric Intelligence

Being at ease with numbers of all sorts.

A combination of these three will get us through most tests. But there are other types of intelligence we have developed that can help us in specialist ways. Handy identified the following intelligences:

Linguistic

The facility to make our self understood.

Spatial

The capacity to see patterns and trends.

Athletic

The capacity to be physically superior.

Intuitive

An aptitude to sense & see what is not obvious.

Emotional

The capacity to be persistent, zealous, self-aware, in control and self-motivated.

Technical

The ability to understand physical data.

Practical

The capacity to operate with common sense.

Interpersonal

The ability to get things done with and through others.

Musical

A skill that involves rhythm, sound and form.

But is there another skill that the world has forgotten, taken for granted or just chosen to ignore?

All these skills mentioned above alone will not make much commercial impact unless we add the value of the neglected intelligence.

 What of the binding glue of Sales Intelligence in the world? This is indeed a rare ability and vital talent to bring buyer and seller, protagonist and antagonist and negotiator and purchaser together?

This unique skill is most evident in the sale of intangibles (insurance), concepts (wealth creation), ideas (aged care) and ideologies

So often in our society academics, bureaucrats, legislators and consumerists fail to understand that there is a real demand for Sales Intelligence.

So often people don’t want to face reality and purchase the product that solves their problem. Case in point: Insurance. Yet our capitalist economy depends on it to keep the wheels of industry, commerce and society rolling.

Sales Intelligence is absolutely essential to the success of our corporate, business and personal life. Yet, scant regard is given to this skill by those who wish to frame our consumerist laws and social mores today.

Sales Intelligence draws it strength and resilience from across all the intelligences. Yet people who are illiterate, blindly ignorant, stubborn, deaf and dumb, devoid of analytically skills and numerically challenged can be make tremendous sales people. Perhaps that irks the intellectuals?

So what are some of the components of this Sales Intelligence? 

Compassion

Solving problems

A competitive spirit

Enthusiastically wanting to achieve

Empathy

Single minded focus to see as others do

Goals definition

High rewards for effort

Emotional strength

Record keeping/Self analysis

Skills practice

Call persistence

Profitable productivity

Self belief

A sense of humour

Resilience

Persistence

Diagnostic analysis

Sharing “war stories”

One of the remarkable things about Sales Intelligence is that you never stop learning. There are always new challenges and there is always a constant and universal demand for the skill. 

Yet many of our educationalists retire to the hallowed halls of academia and never create anything new. Do they practise any of the above skills?

Yet sales people must respond to the market and succeed no matter what the state of the economy, the budgetary condition of their prospects or the expectations of their principals.

Academics and management are aware of the explicit need for sales intelligence. But why do they allot so little of their budget for real sales training?

There have been those who have been uprooted from their normal life, moved to foreign countries, been displaced, retrenched, made redundant or generally been spurned by the nice side of life who, as a last resort have turned to their native Sales Intelligence to finally succeed above all the odds. Why is this so?

This attribute not only serves those who are successful, but it is a final last resort for many of those with nowhere else to go. They are able to achieve phenomenal results, simply because they must! They have nowhere else to go.

So if you live by your wits, intuition and native cunning through sales be very, very proud of it. Sadly in our well-ordered society today many commentators get fed, not for supporting those that create the wealth and opportunities that Sales Intelligence delivers but for putting obstacles and negative attitudes in their way.

Sales Intelligence allows the persistent, the perseverant and the economically desperate to succeed against all sorts of odds.

So next time you read about or hear some commentator sermonise about the way you are remunerated, the size of your pay check or how you are rewarded, remember this.

You are rewarded for the courage to ask people for the order every day, despite the negatives, the procrastination, the armchair critics and the sidelines experts.

You have the belief to continue on. Your reward is convincing and helping people do for themselves that which they know is morally, socially and economically correct, even when they are reluctant to act.

I wonder if your critics would have the intestinal fortitude to do what you do every day to not just survive, but thrive!

This article is reprinted with permission from Jim Prigg CEO and founder of Knowledgemaster International (KMI) Pty Ltd. KMI is an online resources company that delivers practical communications, interaction, sales and soft skills tips, tactics, techniques THAT WORK.

Learn more about winning business programs by calling Jim at mobile 0408 520453 or [email protected].

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