en and the Art of
Z
BY ROBERT M. METCALFE ’68
S
elling
THE AUTHORITY ON THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY
May/June 1992www.technologyreview.com
A Better MousetrapSelling ConsciousnessSelling versus EngineeringSelling Curriculum
T
wenty-eight years ago I was anMIT reshman, and I wish some-one had sold me then what I plan tosell you now—the idea that selling is anart to practice no matter what your calling.Ater decades o painul on-the-job salestraining, I am sad to nd that the MIT cul-ture, at all levels, is still permeated withthe notion that proessional salespeopleare properly placed in the ood chain justbelow green slime.That attitude relegates too many MITstudents to bleak Saturday nights alone,because they think it unseemly to dothe bit o selling conducive to lining upa date. But there are also serious proes-sional and institutional eects as well aspersonal ones: Too many MIT proessorsare marginalized and their ideas ignored,not in technical journals or academics orscience, but where they are most needed:in the corridors o power. Too many MITadministrators, paralyzed by alse notionso academic dignity, ail to put MIT’s besteet aggressively orward to win the IvyLeague endowments that MIT deserves.And too many MIT entrepreneurs launchcompanies that give no thought to sellingand so promptly crash and burn.I can tell you rsthand that selling isone o the highest arts in entrepreneur-ship. Most companies, even successulhigh-tech companies in Silicon Valley,spend 10 times more on selling than onengineering. And i it’s proo you need,then read “How to Succeed in Business:An Interview with Edward B. Roberts,”in the February/March 1992
Thnoogy Rviw
. Roberts shows the strong correla-tion between the success o startups andthe marketing orientation—the sales con-sciousness—o their ounders.In short, nothing happens until some-thing gets sold.So now let me tell you about a anta-sy o mine to which I think MIT gradswill relate.
A Better Mousetrap
It began with my attending a meetingabout better ways to catch mice. Themeeting opened with a supercial dis-cussion o mousetraps, to which I per-unctorily listened. Having settled onone o several ideas that occurred to meduring the discussion, I spoke.The meeting ell silent as I sketchedmy concept or a better mousetrap andthen sat back. A moment o suspensepassed, and then the meeting came alivewith enumerations o the many advan-tages o the mousetrap I had proposed—all in what seemed to me like slow mo-tion. As enthusiasm built, and ater onlymy occasional corrective interjection,a consensus ormed around what wasthereater reerred to, on every occasion,as “Bob’s mousetrap idea.”For years ater the meeting, my long,contemplative weekends were too oteninterrupted by ceremonies at which Igraciously accepted prestigious awardsor my mousetrap idea and its many de-rivatives, all o which, no matter how re-mote, were scrupulously traced back andcredited to me. I was invited to posh par-ties by the most hip and happening mouseexterminators and was approached otenwith outrageous propositions rom beau-tiul strangers.Among the many checks I receivedspontaneously in the mail, I cashed onlythose rom companies whose commercialapplications o my mousetrap idea weresocially responsible, environmentally sen-sitive, and politically correct. My antasticwealth grew, and all but the modest rac-tion required to support my ascetic ex-istence in various hideaways around theworld went to support the selfess teachersand researchers at MIT’s Robert MetcaleLaboratory or Mousetrap Technology.
Selling Consciousness
I have been waking up rom this antasyor 28 years. In reality, inventors who be-lieve that better mousetraps automaticallybring the world to their door are in thelowest o the our states o selling con-sciousness: the unappreciated state. Andthey are probably alone in the bushes.I moved up to the next higher state o selling consciousness when I venturedout to hit people over the head with actsthey were too lazy or stupid to nd outor themselves—that they should havebeen beating a path to my door, buy-ing my mousetraps. In this state o con-sciousness—the argumentative state—I
tod
people to buy my mousetraps. Theyargued with me, I snickered at their igno-rance, and I expected that my clever anddecisive counterarguments would orcethem to buy. This occasionally worked,but only up to an unsatisying point.In our ree-market system, o course,people are not compelled, even byoverbearing cleverness, to buy a bettermousetrap. And so, with experience anddesire to succeed, I moved up to the thirdstate o selling consciousness: sueringools gladly. I quietly listened to con-cerns about buying my mousetraps andwas careul not to call them stupid. I ex-plained in single-syllable words why mymousetraps were superior. I ound thatpeople respond positively to politenessand simplicity. Increased sales resulted.I have observed, however, that peoplestuck in the ool-suering state o sell-ing consciousness are twisted by theirown insincerity and soon stoop to thekind o overselling and underdeliverythat have given sales its poor reputa-tion. What ultimately separates thesheep rom the goats in this eld isunderstanding that prospective buyerso mousetraps are not ools. I learnedthat they are in act experts—in know-ing what they need. When they did notbuy my mousetraps, it was either be-cause they didn’t need them or becauseI ailed to sell them competently.Now, in this ourth and highest stateo selling consciousness, I learned to
en and the Art of Selling
Z
M
ost o our rutn tos oms rom r tht i wsk or th ordr w wi tod “NO.”
by Robert M. Metcale
listen to prospective buyers to nd themaximum overlap between their mouse-elimination needs and the mousetraps Ihad to oer. I worked hard to understandmy buyer. I learned to communicate thebenets o my mousetraps, rst estab-lishing my credibility and always keep-ing in mind that it is not mousetraps thatbuyers need, but ewer mice.I learned to ask buyers or their order,to listen or their objections, to handleobjections creatively, and to ask ortheir order again … and again. I deliv-ered my mousetraps when needed andensured that buyers were satised.This was selling as a high calling,and I learned to revel in the subtletieso its practice.
Selling versus Engineering
Let me fash a ew numbers by you aboutthe relative importance o selling and en-gineering. Let’s say a buyer spends $181on a Metcale Mousetrap. Right o thetop, $81 goes to distribution—the out-side people responsible or locally sell-ing and delivering our product. Believeme, they earn it.O the $100 ater distribution, about$50 goes to manuacture the mouse-traps, including $40 to buy the parts, $9or overhead, and $1 or the direct laborto actually assemble the device. Admin-istrative expenses absorb $5, taxes take$7, and shareholders receive $10 or theuse o their capital.That leaves $18 or my company’s owneld sales and actory marketing activi-ties and, nally, a mere $10 or what MITteaches best: engineering. (O course, thislast $10 is also spent on engineering sup-port and management, not strictly on en-gineering, but let’s not split hairs.)Almost all o the $81 spent on distri-bution is selling, and o course the $18or eld sales and actory marketing isselling. That pattern—spending about 10times more on selling than on engineer-ing, $99 versus $10—is true o 3Com,the $400 million company that I ound-ed. 3Com is not atypical o a successulhigh-tech company.Perhaps instead o using the old mathto make my point, I should use the new.The set o all potential buyers or mouse-traps is useully divided into three dis- joint subsets: the set o buyers (includ-ing my mother) who will automaticallybuy mine, the set o all mousetrap buy-ers who will never buy mine (parents o my competitors and the like), and the seto mousetrap buyers who will buy mineonly when competently sold.Clearly the sizes o these sets varyboth absolutely and relatively, but thethird set is much larger than many MITpeople think. Selling matters.
Selling Curriculum
Let’s say I am successul in selling theMIT aculty on the importance o sell-ing. What would be covered in a curricu-lum designed to teach it?Certainly there would be the basics o talking—and, especially, listening—topeople. Students would learn that one o the nicest things they can do or a personis to ask or advice. They would be taughthow to identiy prospects or mouse-traps, and how to “qualiy” them—to de-termine whether they need mousetrapsand have the means to buy them.There would be some instruction onmaking presentations that build credibil-ity and translate the eatures o mouse-traps into benets or buyers. Studentswould learn—this is critical—that it israrely the purpose o a presentation toshow how smart you are.Students would learn about spotting“buying signs,” asking or the order,and handling the inevitable objections.Toward the end they would learn thedierence between sales and market-ing. It would be hard to cram all thisinto the existing our-year programs,but selling, like engineering, requireslielong learning.So now, while I work on getting MITto establish the new InterdisciplinaryProgram in Selling, perecting your salesskills is something that each o you hasto do on your own. Start with the mostintimidating part o selling—asking orthe order. Most o our reluctance to sellcomes rom our ear that i we ask orthe order, we will be told no.I there is one trick to selling, it is get-ting over the ear o rejection, and I cansuggest a strategy or doing it.Decide that you are going to sell some-thing today. Start with something simple,like selling the idea o going to a partic-ular restaurant or lunch. Find a coupleo people with whom you would like tohave lunch and ask them to go with youto this restaurant. Then orce yoursel tostop talking so you can listen to the an-swer. I they say yes, you can move on tomore challenging sales situations.But what i your worst ears are real-ized, and your associates say no? This isit, the moment o truth. Smile and justask why. Listen to the objections and tryto deal with them. The way to overcomethat paralyzing ear o rejection—thewhole trick o selling—is to hear “no” asa learning opportunity. That’s the distil-lation o years o learning about selling.So, I urge you, sell something today.And i you are not convinced aboutwhy you should sell, I want to hearyour objections. Or i your rst ewselling attempts go awry, I want to hearhow. So, sell already.
RObeRT M. MeTcalfe
’68
received bachelor’sdegrees rom MIT in electrical engineering andmanagement, and a PhD in computer sciencerom Harvard. He invented the Ethernet local-areanetworking system and ounded 3Com in SantaClara, CA, to commercialize it. This article wasdeveloped rom a lecture at the MIT Laboratoryor Computer Science.Reprinted with permission o
Thnoogy Rviw
,published by MIT, Copyright © 1992.
May/June 1992
“
S
ing is high ing, nd I rnd to rvin th suttiso its prti.”
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Zen and the Art of Selling
On the importance of selling your ideas, by Robert Metcalfe. From Technology Review May/June 1992. Posted with permission of Robert Metcalfe, Polaris Venture Partners
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