Dear prospective customer,
Apologies for the many times we salespeople have sat in front of you - selectively (not) listening, interrupting you and telling you what you needed, before you had finished your sentence.
Image by Aoki Tetsuo
I asked Steve Callender, President of Effective Learning for Growth for his perspective on ADD and AD/HD in sales.
Steve has worked with salespeople who have ADD/ADHD for years. He reads widely, from neuroscience to mindfulness to positive psychology, and brings it all to his executive coaching practice.
“All salespeople have ADD or AD/HD behavioral traits to some degree. The question is whether the “D” is a “disorder” or a survival skill essential to success in sales.
People with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and AD/HD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) will identify with many of these reasons and are often well suited to sales.
Steve Callender suggests that "with the right training, disciplines and tools, people with ADD
and AD/HD have the potential to become outstanding salespeople.
"Lets look at how these traits manifest in salespeople:
In the past AD/HD was treated with drug-therapy. Today therapists prefer to explore Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Mindfuless approaches to unhook from the negative behaviors and the constant stream of self talk that keeps ADHD sufferers from achieving their potential.
I have just completed a first read of "The Confidence Gap" a guide for overcoming fear and self-doubt. My Amazon review follows.
Outstanding. I have just finished listening to The Confidence Gap on Audible and am ready to restart and to do all of the exercises with pen and paper in hand.
It debunks many myths from the self-help business and lays out the method for practicing mindfulness and controlling that never-ending stream of self talk and self criticism generated by our minds.
This is a must for salespeople and especially for salespeople with ADD or AD/HD.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a powerful and drug-free way of managing the negative AD/HD behaviors. This book is a manual for CBT and relevant to anyone wanting to overcome self-limiting beliefs and behaviors.
This book is not about motivating ourselves.
It's about learning to recognize what values are important to us, the goals we strive attain and the rules we are prepared to live by.
Finding the balance between work, love and play using mindfulness is a way to live a better life.
Outstanding!
Mike Bosworth author of What Great Salespeople Do, suggests that listening is a major issue for most salespeople and people with ADD and AD/HD.
Recently I attended one of Mike Bosworth’s Storyseekers workshops as a coach and what I observed was one of the triggers for writing this article.
The coaching exercise for the 4-person group was a round-robin, where everyone got to tell a personal story and to listen to someone tell their personal story.
The goal of the exercise for the listener is to truly listen, connect and empathize with the storyteller and reflect back the emotions they are feeling – this is story-tending.
In my group, all four salespeople struggled to connect. In fact is was comical to see four salespeople exhibit exactly the same behavior. They were listening to the words the person was saying - they could retell the key facts in the story, but they failed to establish rapport and empathy and totally mismatched the person’s emotions.
I asked Mike for his feedback and insight on what went on in my role-play coaching session.
“Many salespeople only have two modes: talking and waiting to talk.
I founded Story-seekers because I saw that salespeople were failing to connect with buyers and customers and struggling to build trust.
What you observed is typical of salespeople in our workshops. It’s usually a revelation for salespeople when they become aware of how poorly they listen.
Once they accept that they are not connecting emotionally, there is room for coaching and for salespeople to develop and drastically improve their listening skills."
Steve Callender suggests that “people with ADD need to have systems that work for them—and everybody’s different in what works for them. Finding a way to plan priorities and tasks, manage time, set reminder signals about tasks, calls, meetings, getting some sort of consistent, easy-to-use “to do” list—these are essential.
Simplifying and cleaning helps—when things start to get disorganized, it snowballs into chaos pretty quickly.Learn to tell and to listen to (tend) other people’s stories.
This can help all salespeople, including those with ADD and AD/HD to overcome one of their biggest challenges – listening.
The Story Seekers PULL strategy (get the book) helps all salespeople to engage through story and provides a system for learning and coaching connective listening: