Week 1: Enhancing Your Selling and Persuasion Skills: Knowledge,

Skill, and Discipline

Video Transcripts

Video 1 – Knowledge, Skill, and Discipline: Module Introduction

Welcome to module one. Here, we start the first step of our 10-step sales process. And this is a critical one to get
right. Here, we enter our sales process and our mindset is really focused on preparation, preparing to make
contact. Here's what we will learn and do this week. We will learn about the mindset required to achieve and
sustain high performance. We will look at what separates high-performing salespeople from low to moderate
performers. We will learn the difference between knowledge, skill, and discipline, and why we need to be very
diligent about building and fine-tuning our skills and disciplines as we accumulate knowledge.
We will learn how to think about keeping these three powerful elements in balance. We will also begin to build our
powerful Sales Toolkit. We will take a quick inventory of our sales knowledge skill and discipline, and use this as
a baseline by which to measure our growth. We will use the Vitamins and Painkillers sales tool to gain several
different ways of talking about our solutions and approaches. We'll also use the Walk & Talk sales tool to be ready
for any conversation where we have to be crisp and concise. What you will need to decide each and every week
starting with this module, module one, is which of these assets of knowledge, skill, and discipline will become
habits for you. What sales tools will you truly own? What will you make part of your sales model? If you decide to
go all in, here's what you will be able to do as a result of this module. You will prepare for customers differently
and better. You will have sharper sales language that cuts through the noise. You will talk about yourself and your
business with more clarity.
And you will always be ready. For years and all over the world, I've asked people a simple question: What's your
biggest fear of selling? And the most common answer will not surprise you. The biggest fear that people have
about selling is fear of rejection, fear of failure. Module one begins our journey to build out the tools and skills and
disciplines so we are ready. And readiness diffuses the fear of the unknown, the fear of rejection. So let's get
ready.

***

Video 2 - Knowledge, Skill, and Discipline: Purpose Benefit Check

We will begin each module with the critical discipline of high-performance selling. It's called the purpose benefit
check. In Module Four, we will talk about why this particular discipline is so important to selling. But here, let me
just demonstrate this as a way to kick off this and every module. The purpose of Module One is to begin our
journey, left to right, through the sales process. What we will learn from this module is a definition of the mindset,
knowledge, skill, and discipline required to be a magnetic salesperson.
And what we will do is begin the process of pulling our language into sharpness around the pain that we are
alleviating for customers and the ways in which we are enhancing their lives. How does that sound? That's our
purpose benefit check, and if that sounds good, let's get started with the story of an amazing salesperson.

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***

Video 3 - Origin Story of Sara Blakely

Throughout our journey together, I will occasionally tell you what we call an origin story of a business or a person.
An origin story is a story that we all have. Why we are here or why we do what we do. There are three main
reasons that I'll occasionally share an origin story with you. The first is that I believe that a particular story best
illustrates and brings to life what we are covering in the current module. The second reason is that I want you to
start thinking about stories as assets, something to collect and to make your own. And finally, the third reason is
to inspire you to see yourself as the hero of these stories. Here, as we begin module one, I want to tell you the
story of Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx. Back in 1998, Sara Blakely was getting ready to go to a party, and
she had collected and selected a pair of cream-colored pants that she wanted to wear. She wanted to wear a pair
of her pantyhose underneath her pants to get the slimming effect that the hose would give her.
But she also wanted bare feet for her look. So what did she do? She simply cut the feet off the pantyhose. And a
billion-dollar idea was born. And I mean, billion. In 2012, Blakely was named the World's Youngest SelfMade
Female Billionaire by Forbes Magazine. In the seven years that led up to her breakthrough idea, Sara Blakely had
been selling fax machines. She didn't even get any leads. She just had four zip codes that she could sell to and
her boss gave her a phonebook as her only sales tool. As Blakely herself says, "I would wake up in the morning
and drive around cold-calling from eight until five. Most doors were slammed in my face. I saw my business card
ripped up at least once a week. And I even had a few police escorts out of buildings. It wasn't long before I grew
immune to the word 'no' and even found my situation amusing." But if she thought that was a challenge early on,
it was nothing like the challenge she faced with Spanx. See, most of the mills capable of making the product were
in North Carolina.
And who runs those mills? Men. Men, who found it impossible to understand this simple, powerful idea. Men who
failed to see her genius. She even tried to find a female patent lawyer in the state of Georgia, just one, and failed.
But Blakely just kept pushing. She would not take no for an answer. As Blakely herself said, "No one would take
my calls." But over months, Sara Blakely just kept calling and even showing up. One day, three daughters of a mill
owner in North Carolina insisted that their dad talk to her. And a prototype, a brand, a company, and a billionaire
were made, not born. Why did this guy call her back? Blakely says, "My enthusiasm and my confidence in how
good this idea was going to be stuck with him." What enabled Sara Blakely to power through wave upon wave of
rejection? Mindset, knowledge, skill, discipline, and habit.
She had a mindset of resilience, even joy, at being turned away selling fax machines. She had the knowledge to
communicate the benefits of her solution quickly and concisely. And the skill to engage any kind of person in
conversation. And then the discipline and grit to knock on door after door after door. And she turned all of this into
habit, trying again and again until she got what she wanted. Until she was 10 times better than she started. ***

Video 4 – The Mindset of Great Salespeople

Selling is one of the hardest and most rewarding things you will do in your career. It's rewarding because it is hard.
Have you ever gotten to the end of the day and said to yourself, man, I am so glad that I did not get up and work
out today? Of course not. But getting up and hitting the gym or the track is hard and rewarding, because you put

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in the effort and the effort pays off. You put in the effort and the effort pays off. This is what high-performing
salespeople do every single day. Preparation is their gym, where they work the muscles and engage in deliberate
repetition. Calls and meetings with their customers are their game, every day. If I have one job in this class, it's to
make that real for you as we go through these 10 weeks together.
But to lean into this effort, to hit the gym so-to-speak, requires the right mindset. The word "mindset" actually
means a mental attitude or inclination. Your mindset is a framework for interpreting the world and understanding
what's happening to you. This is one of the many reasons that throughout this course, I'll be walking you through
the frameworks that codify what the most successful sellers do. These frameworks are meant to show us what
great looks like, of course. But I'm also hoping they influence your mindset. That you begin to interpret your selling
motions and moves in terms of these frameworks.
So why is this mindset such a critical thing for sales? And why don't we talk about mindset when we talk about
other functions in a business, like marketing or finance? Well, I think it's because selling is not only a discipline,
it's also a performance. And in the performance of selling, we often fail. And we fail in front of other people. The
first thing to consider when thinking about what mindset we hold when we approach selling is to ask, what is
selling? Here's how I think about this. All relationships start like this, face-to-face. And that's transactional, we don't
know each other.
And that's totally fine. Transactional just means those in the relationship are in it to get something in exchange
from each other. All relationships start like this. As if we're sitting face-to-face across a desk and we're in a
transactional position. But as I get to know you, I ask you a series of questions, questions about what problems
you're trying to solve, what pain those problems cause, what you've tried to do as a result, and many other
questions. As I listen to you and really seek to understand, I build trust.
And as I build trust through this conversation we are having, I am essentially moving around to your side of the
desk. And guess what? Now we are looking at this problem shoulder-to-shoulder together from the same
perspective. Selling is helping people solve their problems. It's creating a strong long-term relationship with people
based on great work together. This is selling. And this is why it's the best profession in the world. ***

Video 5 - Fixed vs. Growth Mindset

Let's continue to explore our mindset as we approach sales. In her fantastic book, "Mindset," Carol Dweck talks
about the difference between a growth and a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset is one where we believe that we are
born with a certain level of intelligence and our smarts and personalities are fixed, they're baked in and cannot be
changed. The fixed mindset drives us to find situations where we can look smart and avoid risks and challenges.
It causes us to ignore or avoid feedback because that feedback threatens that view that we have of ourselves. As
you can plainly see, this is a very dangerous mindset to carry with us into sales. Contrast the fixed mindset with
what Dweck calls "the growth mindset." The growth mindset is one where we believe that life is a journey of
learning. And with each thing we learn, we change and we get better and better. It's a mindset that acknowledges
that it takes effort to continue to stretch and learn, but one that looks forward to that effort because we know it will
pay off. The growth mindset is one that strives for mastery.
And in order to reach mastery, it readily embraces feedback. Dweck is also careful to say that we are not
completely one or the other, but that we can be of different mindsets in different situations. As you go through this
course and learn and do the things that I will ask you to do, my first ask is that you strive to adopt the growth

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mindset as much as possible. So, what does that mean? For us, salespeople, I believe that the growth mindset
means the following. We are curious. Rather than demonstrating our product knowledge or industry knowledge
every chance we get, we demonstrate curiosity instead by staying in the question with our customers. We ask
about them. We ask about their pain and their challenges and we seek to listen before we tell. We are open to
feedback. We seek feedback from our peers, our bosses, and our customers even when we don't want to hear it.
And then we take action on that feedback to grow our knowledge, skill, and discipline. We are scrappy. We achieve
a unique balance of persistence and graciousness in the face of rejection. We push for what we believe is a winwin,
but when we are rejected, we see rejection not as a rejection of us but rather as a reflection that now is simply not
the right time for our solutions. We face rejection graciously, offering to stay in touch and continue to try to add
value even if now is not the right time. When you get knocked down, mindset is the thing that causes you to get
back up. We are trusted. We strive to be advisors and partners to our customers, not vendors. We acknowledge
that trust is built on the strength of every one of our actions, meeting by meeting and day by day. These are just
some of the things to keep front and center in your growth mindset, and we will explore others as we progress
through our journey. ***

Video 6 - Debunking Myths about Growth Mindset

In order to keep you in the growth mindset as much as possible, let me also warn you that there are several
seductive myths that surround sales and salespeople that, if we're not careful, can pull us back into the fixed
mindset. The first myth is that great salespeople are just naturals, they've got the gift and they are born with that
gift. This is a common myth and it's also dangerous. It's not only dangerous because it's wrong, it's dangerous
because it makes us lazy. If I haven't been born with all these traits of great sellers, then why put in the effort?
There's no such thing as a born salesperson.
Now, you might be saying, "Wait a minute, Craig. What about those people who just have that natural charisma?
What about them? They're always going to be better at sales than someone who doesn't have that natural gift."
My response would be, natural gifts are great and, yes, some people are born with gifts like charisma. But I would
also say that, just like natural talent in athletics, it's not enough. There are dozens of high draft picks or natural
talents, football players, baseball players, golfers, with tremendous natural talent who flopped when they tried to
go pro or win on a bigger stage. Let's take a closer look at the supposedly natural gift for salespeople, call it
charisma or call it extroversion. Introverts and extroverts draw energy from different sources. Introverts gain energy
from being alone or quiet. Extroverts, on the other hand, gain energy from other people.
And thus, they are comfortable in social situations and thrive in conversations even with strangers. Most people
think that these natural gifts of extroverts are critical to success in selling. In fact, a study by Michael Mount at the
University of Iowa found that companies actually select for extroversion when hiring. Yet, when Mount looked at
the actual sales performance, the actual data in those companies, he found that there's no statistical difference
between introverts and extroverts. That is, extroverts are no more effective at sales than introverts. Adam Grant,
a psychologist, professor, and author, also looked at this same issue. In his research, he found that people who
measured in the middle range between introversion and extroversion, had the highest results in sales. What these
studies mean for us is that we need to be aware of our traits.
And, most importantly, we need to get good at calibrating our skills and disciplines to fit different situations. If we
are extroverts, we need to be really disciplined at really listening and skilled at selectively asking the next best

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question. If we are introverts, we need to be disciplined in a different way, to strike up more conversations than
we would normally be comfortable with. And skilled at asking those questions that move the conversation forward.
The other dangerous myth about salespeople is that they are great manipulators. They will take your money out
of your pocket and you won't even see it coming. This myth persists, like many myths, because of the power of
popular culture. In movies and books, salespeople are often portrayed as mercenaries, out for themselves and
ready to lie and manipulate to get what they want. Just like there are salespeople born with charisma, there are
also salespeople born with a desire to take people's money. There's no question about that. Of course, this is true.
But there are bad apples in every profession and fewer than you think. There seems to be a higher standard
applied to salespeople than that is not applied to marketers, finance people, and doctors, simply because
salespeople sell. As we all know, every profession has its bandits. But when it comes to salespeople, this
stereotype seems to be only the next movie away. To illustrate the staying power of this myth, I simply point to
your own data. Yes, yours. This week you participated in a quick word association exercise. The purpose of this
assignment was for you to quickly assess your own mindset when forced to choose words that are most associated
with two types of professionals, salespeople and advisors. What's so interesting about this is that when I do this
exercise in class for 10 years, here are the words I typically see associated with "salespeople": used cars, snake
oil, fast talker, telemarketer, slick, relentless, ambitious, friendly, persistent, aggressive, words like that.
Alternatively, these are the words people say that come to mind when they see the word "advisor": trusted,
consultative, helpful, relationship, knowledgeable, wise, and smart. What's happening here? What's happening is
a reflection of our stereotypes of salespeople. I've run this little experiment all over the world in many different
cultures for over a decade, and it's always the same. There's always a positive-negative split in associations for
salespeople. Yet, strictly positive for the word advisors. This division happens every single time without exception.
So, why does this happen? You already know why this happens. Even as salespeople, we carry some negative
stereotypes of our profession around with us. But folks, it's our job, and it's the job of this course, and it's the job
of the Kellogg Sales Institute to do away with these myths. Salespeople are advisors, the best of them, and in the
best sense of this term. So, our job is to adopt the mindset that combines the best traits of both of these lists, take
the great traits of the best salespeople: gritty, scrappy, tenacious, well spoken, persistent, friendly, and marry them
to the greatest traits of the world's top advisors: trusted, knowledgeable, partner, helpful, wise, and you will be
unstoppable. We salespeople are the bread and butter of every company. We get it done and we get it done right.
A final thought on mindset. The right mindset generates positive energy. Positive energy creates magnetism. That
energy is infectious. And this is what causes separation between you and all other people, your competition and
anyone else who is interacting with your customers. ***

Guest Star Video: Dan Pink on High-Impact Selling Skills

Craig Wortmann: I'm here with the amazing Dan Pink, author of six books, including the runaway bestsellers,
"Drive," "A Whole New Mind," and of course, "To Sell is Human." Dan also is the creator of one of the mostwatched
TED Talks of all time on the science of motivation. And I cannot sit here with you and not mention that you are a
Northwestern alum.
Dan Pink: Hail to purple! Hail to white!
Craig Wortmann: Go Wildcats!

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Dan Pink: Yeah.
Craig Wortmann: Fantastic. Thank you so much for being here today.
Dan Pink: It's a pleasure, Craig, thanks for having me.
Craig Wortmann: I've been so looking forward to this conversation. Let's start, let's start at the top.
Dan Pink: Okay.
Craig Wortmann: I became a follower of yours, Dan, and a fan when I read the book, "A Whole New Mind." So,
several books ago. And in the "A Whole New Mind," if I have grasped that correctly, you talk about how the sets
of skills are changing for people. And it used to be sort of a traditional path, you get these skills, and now, when
you wrote "A Whole New Mind," it was more the acquisition of creative skills.
Dan Pink: Right.
Craig Wortmann: And some of those things. And I wonder, as we sit here today, and we talk about sales, think
that, help us think that through. So, what's changing? What's the same? How do you think about that?
Dan Pink: Right. Well, I mean think what's going on in white-collar work, in general, is this: There's a shift in
emphasis on the skill. So, if you go back to, say, the middle of the 20th century, late 20th century, the skills that
mattered most in white-collar work were logical, linear, SAT spreadsheet kinds of skills. And today, those abilities,
and this is important, Craig, those abilities are absolutely necessary.
Craig Wortmann: Yes.
Dan Pink: They're just not sufficient. And it's a different set of abilities, abilities that we, in this country, we've often
overlooked and undervalued: creative kinds of abilities—artistry, empathy, inventiveness, big-picture thinking.
Those abilities have become the first among equals. And the reason for this is actually a very hardheaded analytic
reason, which is that the SAT spreadsheet abilities are becoming, have become, relatively easy to outsource and
automate. Therefore, they're less valuable. The artistic and empathic skills, at least for now, are harder to
outsource and harder to automate and they become more valuable. And sales is a great expression of this. What
we see throughout the sales function is that sales abilities that are just purely kind of transactional, that are
essentially mechanical, those are not valuable anymore. The most valuable skills in sales are abilities like, can
you get inside the other person's head, understand where they're coming from? Can you come up with creative
solutions? Can you see around corners and find things that they haven't anticipated? And so sales is an
expression, I think, of what's happening throughout the white-collar workforce.
Craig Wortmann: So, that's great. So, so you and I both have kids.
Dan Pink: Yes.
Craig Wortmann: Are we, are we prepared, and when I say "we," I mean sort of the, the economy, our universities,
writ large. Are we preparing them for these kinds of skills, or are we still back in the spreadsheet era? What do
you think?
Dan Pink: It depends, it depends. I mean, I think that in many cases, you know, I just, it's a cliché of sorts. I think
that most institutions fight the last war.
Craig Wortmann: Yeah.

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Dan Pink: So, so certainly in elementary and secondary education, to some extent in, in higher education, we're
still putting too much of, I don't want to say too much of an emphasis. We're putting a sole emphasis on these SAT
spreadsheet abilities.
Craig Wortmann: Right.
Dan Pink: Which are important.
Craig Wortmann: They are.
Dan Pink: They are essential.
Craig Wortmann: Of course.
Dan Pink: If your kids or my kids don't have those, they're in a world of hurt. The problem is that those SAT
spreadsheet abilities are necessary but not sufficient. And what we really need to be doing is educating the whole
mind so that we have people who are equipped not to be good thinkers in a broad way, not only good analytic
thinkers, that's important, but good creative thinkers, good empathic thinkers, good whole-minded thinkers.
Craig Wortmann: So, in "To Sell is Human," you talked about attunement, and, and I want to explore that just a
little bit with you. At the, as you know, at the Kellogg Sales Institute, we think about, we often say, from mindset
into knowledge, skill, and discipline, and into activation of habits, high-performance selling is created. And one of
the ways we often talk about selling is that selling, of course, starts like this. I meet you, and it's more transactional
because I'm face-to-face with you. But what selling actually is is me asking you a series of questions and listening
and getting around the table to you, shoulder to shoulder, so we're trying to solve the same problem. Dan Pink:
Right.
Craig Wortmann: And the moment, the nanosecond, I realize I'm not a good fit for what you need on this desk, I
tell you.
Dan Pink: Right.
Craig Wortmann: So, that's sort of our working definition, if you will, of sales. It, it sounds, when I read "To Sell is
Human," I loved this notion of attunement. And I just wonder if you might talk about that. Is that, how do you get
that? How do you foster? If I'm a salesperson watching us right now, how do I think about that? And then most
importantly, how do I act on it? How do I, how do I do it?
Dan Pink: Well, I mean, if you look at how the sales function has changed, there are a lot of forces that are
changing it. Among the most important forces changing it is the change in the information advantage. Most of our
memory of sales of any kind— sales, persuasion, influence—has come from the world of information asymmetry,
where the seller always had more information than the buyer. That's a big deal, and that endured for a very, very
long time. It's why we have encoded in our laws, encoded in our customs of commerce, the principle of buyer
beware.
Craig Wortmann: Yes.
Dan Pink: Buyers have to beware because a seller has an information advantage. But in the last 10 years,
especially, that information asymmetry that defined the sales relationship has become something closer to
information parity. And so, this is essentially the trigger for a reassessment of the kinds of capacities that
salespeople need.

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Craig Wortmann: Yeah.
Dan Pink: And as we, when you, and here's a, this is a long-winded way of getting into the answer to this question.
When you have an information advantage, you can be somewhat coercive, all right. But most of us, in all of our
persuasive encounters, including sales, we do not have very much coercive power. So, when you lack coercive
power, you need almost the converse of that, which is attunement. Can you get out of your own head, into someone
else's head, see things from their point of view? And this is, in some ways, one of the central persuasive abilities
today. And the challenge is that human beings are not natively good at that.
Craig Wortmann: That's exactly where I wanted to go.
Dan Pink: And, but there are some things that we can do to get a little bit better at it. But I really think- Craig
Wortmann: So, why are we not good at it?
Dan Pink: Well, because we're mostly in our own heads, you know. I mean, we have to get, we, like if you just
think about our brains, you think about our whole being, right? We are literal, I am literally, right now as I talk to
you, seeing the world from my point of view. I have to make an extra effort to see it from your point of view.
Craig Wortmann: Yes.
Dan Pink: You're looking this way, I'm looking this way. I feel that the whole world must be looking this way
because that's how I see it, but it's not. And so, it requires sort of stopping, deliberating, and taking corrective
action. Now, the good news here is that even if it's not something we're natively good at, we can get better at it.
But the path to getting better begins with the recognition that attunement is in some ways the keystone ability
today in sales.
Craig Wortmann: And underlies persuasion, influence, power. And I mean power in a good sense. Talk if you
would, Dan, a little bit about the how. So, if I'm watching you and listening to you and saying, man, that makes all
kinds of sense—empathy, creative, you know, the being, being creative, being attuned to someone— what's in
their head, what's their point of view, how do I get there? What do you? How do you get there?
Dan Pink: There's no, there's no magic bullet on how to get there. It is, you know, in, in some ways the way that
you think about sales writ large, it is a recognition of what you need and then the development of skills and habits
that allow you to get there. Now, among those tactical things that you can do, there are many. So, for instance,
as, as elementary as it sounds, listening. Most of us are not very good listeners. And in fact, if we think about our,
our schooling, when we're in school, especially elementary school, secondary school, they teach us how to read,
they teach us how to write, they don't teach us how to listen.
Craig Wortmann: Isn't that striking?
Dan Pink: It's incredible. And so, getting better at listening, as, as elementary as that sounds, is important. And
one of the, actually the smallest things that people can do is actually when you listen to somebody, wait, one beat,
two beats, it's like playing touch football in Columbus, Ohio, in 1974, you know. One Mississippi, two Mississippi,
three Mississippi. Wait, you know, two Mississippis before you respond and make sure you've actually heard. A
lot of times when we should be listening, what we're really doing is waiting. So, so simply taking that beat before
responding. Another thing, again, it's very elementary, is summarizing what the other person is saying. So, instead
of responding immediately, so let me make sure I have this straight, Craig. What you're asking is how are we going
to be better at these kinds of things when they, when they seem to be very difficult. Is that- No, that's not what I

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mean. So, so summarizing, that sort of things. Then it ends up, then there are a whole array of other sorts of
tactical things that we can do to get better at it. But it's again, it's not something, it's not like a light switch. It's not
saying, oh, let me get this, turn on this light or let me get this spec off my jacket. It is, it is basically building this as
a habit of the heart that, that attunement is part of who you are as a human being and who you are as a
professional.
Craig Wortmann: I love this. I'm going to be self-conscious now talking to you for the one Mississippis. I love this
distinction you just made between listening and waiting.
Dan Pink: Oh, yeah.
Craig Wortmann: I'm, you know me. I'm a pretty hopeless extrovert. And I'm way high on the scale. And that's a
good thing and a bad thing. And I wonder, is there, are there, are there differences, I, I have to be really careful
when I, when I go into a networking situation because I draw energy from people. And so I'm just like a pinball
bouncing around. I have to be very conscious of that and be very conscious of my listening and pausing. Is there
a difference between introverts and extroverts? So, how do you think about that?
Dan Pink: When it comes to listening?
Craig Wortmann: When it comes to selling.
Dan Pink: Oh, well, this is an interesting, this is a really interesting point because, again, this is a really, really
important point. Again, let me go big and then we'll go into the actual question that you asked.
Craig Wortmann: Perfect.
Dan Pink: So, so one of the things we know more and more about selling and persuasion is that, is we have
evidence, we have data, we have research on these questions. And so a lot of our practices, a lot of our beliefs,
have been guided by things, essentially by folklore. We have certain kinds of shared traditions and stories that are
passed down from one generation of sellers to the next. And we take those in as if they are the gospel, as if they
are the truth.
Craig Wortmann: I was an IBMer, I mean, I was the product of that. This, the Lord- And it was wonderful. The
Lord came down.
Dan Pink: Right. And, and again, there's a, there's an event, I don't want to dis folklore too much, there's an
advantage to folklore. But folklore is not evidence, okay. And we would never want to like, I don't, I'm not going to
take one of my kids to the doctor and if I find out the doctor is like, oh, I'm an expert in folklore. I actually don't
know anything about evidence-based medicine, but I have been a very conscious receptacle of the folklore of
curers. Huh-uh. So, and this is really important now in sales, is that we have certain folklore, but we can test a lot
of those things empirically. And this is where we get to the introversion and extroversion point. And the belief, the
folklore, is that strong extroverts make better salespeople, right. And what we see- Craig Wortmann: That's the
folklore.
Dan Pink: And you, and when you look at the evidence, what it shows is this: extroverts are more likely to go into
sales jobs, extroverts are more likely to get hired in sales jobs, extroverts are more likely to get promoted in sales
jobs. But when you look at the evidence about performance, who actually sells stuff, the advantage to extroverts
goes away.
Craig Wortmann: That's right.

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Dan Pink: Now, there's a nuance here. What? So, there's a great piece of research from the University of
Pennsylvania on this, and where they looked at the introversion/extroversion scores of a bunch of software
salespeople. Then they went out and sold software for I think six or nine months. Then they came back and said,
who sold more software? We know who the introverts are. We know who the extroverts are. Who sold more
software? And what they found out is that strong introverts were terrible, terrible salespeople. What's interesting
that was that very strong extroverts were only a little bit better. They were not very good either. The people who
were the best were people who are ambiverts, ambiverts. And part of the problem in all these issues is— are the
vocabulary used to describe these things. We have been conditioned somehow to believe that it's,
introversion/extroversion are binary. They are not. It's a scale. And so ambiverts, which is a term that's been in the
literature for basically 100 years, describes people who are somewhat introverted and somewhat extroverted.
They're not strongly one way or another. And it turns out the most effective salespeople are ambiverts, okay. So,
the nuance here is this. We believe that strong extroverts are better at sales, not true. Empirically false. This is not
true. It's a very dangerous belief to hold.
Craig Wortmann: It is.
Dan Pink: Strong extroverts are not the sales superstars. But that doesn't mean the strong introverts are the ones.
They're actually a little bit worse. What it means, and what we know from the research, is that ambiverts are the
best salespeople. Why? They are more attuned, they're more versatile. If you think about even just the prefix,
ambi- vert, all right. Think about it, ambi- dextrous.
Craig Wortmann: Right.
Dan Pink: They can go left, they can go right. That's what the power of being ambidextrous is. These folks, when
it comes to attunement, are ambidextrous in that sense. They know when to push, they know when to hold back.
They know when to speak up, they know when to shut up. And so the best news of all is that, again, if we look at
the distribution of introversion/extroversion in the population, most of us are ambiverts. If we think about it in the
spectrum sense rather than the binary sense. So, what it suggests, I think, I think the ultimate takeaway is that
most of us have the native abilities to be, the native disposition, at least, to be reasonably effective at sales. And
so what we shouldn't do is focus on, say, falling into the trap of folklore and saying, you know what, the reason I'm
struggling here is that I'm not gregarious enough, I'm not extroverted enough, I'm not slapping enough backs here.
Huh-uh, that's not it. Chances are you have the native personality to do perfectly fine in sales. What you want to
focus on are the other sets of abilities that we know are material to the success in the sales profession.
Craig Wortmann: I'm just going to link this ambivert to listening and waiting that you said a few minutes ago.
Because I do think, and I'd love to know whether you agree or disagree with this. I think, I think you're exactly right.
And I think one of the things that we're trying to do with this course and one of the things we're trying to do at
Kellogg is help people understand, you know, know thyself. I'm a high extrovert. That means I have built-in
advantages and disadvantages. And being aware of that, knowing myself, when I enter a room of 100 people,
saying to myself, getting to the level of consciousness, Craig, slow down, listen, pause, ask one or three more
questions than you would normally do because you like to talk. And I think, I think part of this secret of finding that
ambivert inside all of us, because I fundamentally agree with you that we have these sales, we have these abilities
in us. And, but being conscious of that and being able to calibrate ourselves is important. Would you agree with
that? And would you define that as sort of, is that close to your definition of attunement?
Dan Pink: It's connected to my definition of, of attunement. And I think that you're right. So, again, let's go back to
the whole notion of introversion/extroversion. Introversion/extroversion is part of what psychologists call "the big

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five personality traits." And these are the traits that seem to be, according to this line of argument, the ways that
human beings are different from each other at the personality level.
Craig Wortmann: By the way we're wired.
Dan Pink: Yeah, and the— and introversion/extroversion is a reasonably stable personality trait. That is it's
certainly, it's partly innate, biological, hereditary. Not entirely. There are some changes over time. But it's not, it's
not massive. And so, and so the reality here is that if you have somebody who's a, who's a relatively strong
introvert, that person overnight is not going to become a strong extrovert. Not going to happen. But so, but what
you can do though is you can do a few small things to move a little bit to the middle. And exactly as you say, Craig.
If you're more on the extroverted side, talk less, ask more questions, pause more, do the one Mississippi, do the
two Mississippi. Now, if you are, if you are more, but again, it's a, it becomes a habit. There are a lot of things that,
it's not that hard. There are so many things that are harder to do than, than that. By the same token, if you are on
the other end of the spectrum so that you are more of an introvert rather than extrovert, there also are some things
that you can do. So, for me, I'm actually much more on the introvert side than on the, than on the extrovert side.
So, for me, it's really a matter of saying, going into that party and saying, or going into that gathering of 100 people,
and instead of saying, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to find somebody I know and talk to them the
whole time, which would be my instinct. My other instinct would be to walk into that gathering, look at 100 people,
and say, I'm going to get a drink and get the heck out of here. But basically saying, you know what, at this particular
gathering, I'm going to introduce myself to three people. And again, it seems a little bit hard, but it's really not that
hard. Go introduce yourself to three people, and so move a little bit more to the center. And so again, I mean, I
think, I think what we want to do is we want to know the evidence. We want to know like how, with as much humility
as possible, how does the world work? What do we know? What's our evidence? And then be able to take very
small steps to get a little bit better based on that evidence.
Craig Wortmann: I totally agree with you. If I may, let's explore one more thing.
Dan Pink: Yeah.
Craig Wortmann: And I want to bring us more up-to-date with your work. You looked at moments. You looked at
in your book, "When." And I wonder what, if you think about a sales process. I meet you for the first time. You're
a potential customer. We determined fit somewhere in the middle, and we're either successful or, I'm either
unsuccessful or successful creating a win-win with you, creating some value. Are there, are there moments that
matter? How should we think about this, Dan, in terms of presentations, in terms of how we show up, in terms of
how we run meetings? Is there something we can take from your work with "When?"
Dan Pink: There's, there's all kinds of things. Because that book "When" looks at the science of timing. And when
we make our decisions about when to do things, from when should I make this sales call, when should I start a
project, when should I abandon a project that's not working, when in the day should I do this kind of work, when
in the day should I do that kind of work? We're making these decisions by instinct. We're making those decisions
by default. That's the wrong way to do it. Because we have this mountain of evidence across many, many
disciplines of science that gives us evidence about how to make those decisions better. So, circling back to the
idea of, of sales. There is some interesting evidence that time of day can have an effect on decision-making, and
particularly, in a sales encounter. We know that when anybody is being approached in a sales encounter, that
person being approached has a default answer. And the default answer typically is "no." When we make a request,
when we seek assent from somebody, the other person has in their back pocket a default answer. And the default
answer is "no." No, you can't have a raise. No, I won't go on a date with you. No, I won't buy your product or

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service. And that's cool. However, we have some evidence that there are different times of day when people are
more likely to overcome the default. And it, in general, it tends to be early in the day and immediately after breaks.
So, now, does this, does this mean that if you do all your sales, time your sales calls so that you're immediately
after someone's break, you're going to be a roaring success? No, because the effect isn't huge. So, let's say that
I'm trying to pitch you on some, something.
Craig Wortmann: Okay.
Dan Pink: And in a normal circumstance I have a, an 8% chance of getting the deal. And if I pick the right time, I
have a 9% chance, okay. Even if I pick the right time, I have a 91% chance of getting a no. But that delta between
the 8% and the 9%, that one percentage point increase, if I'm doing something repeatedly, it's going to make a
difference. And, and so we can do things like that. There's also some interesting effects of sequence. If you're, if
you're in a serial competition, SERIAL competition, not like Kellogg's versus General Mills.
Craig Wortmann: Right.
Dan Pink: If you're in a serial competition, other, other vendors are pitching. Do you want to go first? Do you want
to go last? Do you want to go in the middle? And the question is, it depends. So, if there are a small number of
candidates, you're better off going early. If there are a large number of candidates, you are unquestionably better,
better off going toward the end.
Craig Wortmann: Why is that?
Dan Pink: I think we have to be humble about the why on a lot of this. I think we can speculate on the why. I think
part of it has to do with essentially memory, and even this, what, what psychologists have known for a long time:
the recency effect. We're more likely to remember something that happened more recently than something that
happened, that happened far away. I think the other thing going on here though which is actually really important,
is this. Is that, sometimes in certain sales experiences or certain kinds of persuasive encounters, so you're the
decision-make, say. A lot of times you begin, and your criteria are not perfectly set in your own mind.
Craig Wortmann: Right.
Dan Pink: You're not sure exactly what you're looking for. So, you use the first few people, first several people,
basically to figure out what you want. And then, so those people are, those people are toast because they're
essentially laboratory rats for your own mental experiment. So, and this is another reason why if the criteria are
not fixed, it's better off to go later than earlier.
Craig Wortmann: That makes sense.
Dan Pink: Again, we're talking about though, just to be clear, we're talking about gradations. We're talking about
dialing up your probabilities a percentage point or two. But you know what? If I'm doing something 100 times in a
week, that's going to matter.
Craig Wortmann: Absolutely. Dan, I cannot thank you enough for doing this. This has been super insightful and
helpful.
Dan Pink: Thanks for having me.
Craig Wortmann: And wonderful. Thank you for having me. Last question.

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Dan Pink: Yes.
Craig Wortmann: Should people go into sales?
Dan Pink: I think so. I think that sales is actually, and I'm glad that you asked that, Craig, because, because one
of, so I'm not a, I was never in sales, and I started doing research on sales for a couple of reasons. One of them
was that I got a sense that, I had a hunch that, essentially everybody's in sales. Even if they're not in sales, they're
in sales. And, and we did, and we did some research showing that if you look at the ground truth of how people
spend their time, they're spending their time persuading, influencing, convincing, selling. That even if it's not in
their job title, even if they're not carrying a bag, they're doing it. So, that's, so that's one thing. The second thing
that got me intrigued in this topic was this. We have this stereotype about, about salespeople, fashioned from a
world of information asymmetry— slimy, sleazy, duplicitous. And what was interesting to me as someone who's
been writing about business and organizations and work for so long is that when I met people who are in sales,
they weren't like that. They were like some of the smartest people, most capable people I knew. And there was
always this kind of weird disconnect. And so that's what got me into it. And I think what we're seeing right now in
a world where the, we have information parity, where the transactional side of sales is easy to automate, where
customers are able to accumulate a huge amount of information on their own, is an even greater
professionalization of sales. And I think this is particularly true in B2B sales, in business-to-business sale.
Business-to-business sales today is not sales. To my mind, it's management and consulting. And work 'cause
what you have to do is you have to go in, you have to know the customer and its problem better than in some
cases the customer itself, you have to analyze their situation, you have to be able to anticipate things that are
coming down the path that they might not anticipate, you have to be able to surface problems they don't even
know that they have. It is a high level, intellectual job. And so, a lot of B2B sales is becoming purely transactional.
But a lot of B2B is, is essentially becoming a form of management consulting. I think that it is intellectually
challenging. And I think, I think it's an, it's an intellectually challenging profession. And I think it's a profession,
unlike some other ones where you actually have an impact on people's lives. If you believe in what you're selling,
and they buy what you're selling and your proposition, your promise, is true, then you actually improve their life.
So, it's a combination of some, doing some good and actually doing something that is sophisticated and
intellectually challenging and often super interesting.
Craig Wortmann: What could be better?
Dan Pink: Right.
Craig Wortmann: Thank you, sir.
Dan Pink: Thanks.
Craig Wortmann: Thank you so much, Dan.
Dan Pink: Thanks.
Craig Wortmann: Appreciate it.
Video 7 - The Foundation of Knowledge, Skill, and Discipline

We've been discussing mindset, and how our mindset guides our approach to the world and fuels the energy we
bring to our sales role. But we also need to look at the foundation on which we stand; the foundation of
highperformance selling.

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For this course, for all of sales, and I would even say for all of life, there is a very simple and powerful foundation
on which we all stand. I call it knowledge, skill, and discipline. Our ability to perform in any given situation depends
on the proper balance of these three critical elements.
Think about it this way - when they build a tall building in any city in the world, the first thing they do is they clear
the lot. The second thing they do is they dig down into the earth to set columns or pillars such that in many cases
they connect these pillars to the layer of bedrock under the ground. These pillars provide the structural integrity
for this tall building, so it's solid and it maintains its integrity over time. This is a metaphor, of course. You, we, are
standing on this very powerful foundation of knowledge, skill, and discipline when we walk into any room, join any
call, or talk to any customer.
But notice that I emphasized the word "balance". Our ability to perform in any given situation depends on the
proper balance of these three critical elements.
Now, here's where I'm going to start to really challenge you. When you are selling, whether it's selling yourself in
an interview or selling your large or small company's products or services, you have too much knowledge.
Wait. What are you thinking? "Did he just say we have too much knowledge?" Yes, I did. You have too much
knowledge.
What I mean is that oftentimes as salespeople we over-manifest knowledge. You know this to be true. We talk too
much about ourselves, or the product we are selling, or someone asks about our company, and we just talk, and
talk, and talk. Knowledge is a wonderful thing, of course, and I hope to share a lot of that with you here. What I
always say is that knowledge isn't bad until it is. It's only bad when we are out of balance. What will make you a
true high-performing salesperson is how you combine your knowledge with tremendous skill and discipline.
In other words, you will be a true star when you raise the level of skill and discipline to your existing level of
knowledge.
A quick thought experiment: Just for a second, reflect on everything you know about your business and your
product. It's a lot, right? Just think about bringing five pieces of that knowledge into a room with a customer and
telling him or her about it. It's pretty easy, isn't it? It doesn't take long to come up with five facts about your company
or product to share. But as we will see, it's not as easy to name the selling skills and disciplines you are bringing
in to every room.

***

Video 8 - Knowledge, Skill, and Discipline of a High-Performing Salesperson

As we moved into our discussion of the foundation of high-performance selling and the pillars of knowledge, skill,
and discipline, I suggested to you that it's pretty straightforward to come up with five facts about your product or
company to share.
But now I'm going to change the game on you. Think now about walking into that room with a customer and now
name the five skills you are demonstrating in that room. This is a little more challenging, isn't it? They don't jump
into your mind as easily as facts, do they?

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And finally, think about the five disciplines you exhibit in that room. Can you quickly think of five? Most people
can't. This is why we do this course. If high-performance lives in the balance of these three elements, then we
have to be as fluent and agile with skill and discipline as we are with knowledge.
A high-performing, finely-tuned salesperson might answer like this, "The five pieces of knowledge I bring into a
room with a customer, well, I'd certainly know that person's background. I'd know any recent big news that her
company released. I'd have a sense of the key metrics that she's measured against. And then how my solution
might help her against one or more of those metrics. And finally, I'd probably know or have knowledge of some of
my own details like pricing and implementation.
As far as five skills, that's easy. I would start with conversation skills, like asking a combination of discovery and
impact questions. And then layer in handling objections skills, so I'm ready for any objection. I would be sure I'm
telling a story or two that connects to her situation. And I'd be careful to read and adjust to the body language in
the room. Finally, I might even use the skill of listening at different levels to make sure I truly understand what
she's saying.
Then disciplines: I would be very prepared for this meeting in advance, of course, and I'd use the purpose/benefit
check meeting opener to gain control of the meeting. Then, I would be sure to use the discipline of the pivot to
move through the three most important subjects that need to be covered. I would end the meeting a few minutes
early to give her some time back, and then follow the meeting by writing her a handwritten thank you note and I'd
pop it in the mail.
In my experience working with dozens of sales organizations, most salespeople rate about a six or seven out of
10 in knowledge, but only a four in skill, and may be a two in discipline. Is this overly harsh? Perhaps. But here's
the thing: most salespeople and sales leaders have a really hard time naming the skills and disciplines that they
need to acquire. And if we can't name them, we have a really hard time working on them and making them better,
making ourselves better.
It would be like a coach saying to an athlete, "Just get better at basketball or tennis by reading a book and watching
game film." This would help with the athlete, this would help the athlete accumulate knowledge about the sport,
certainly, but not skill and discipline. Acquiring knowledge is the easy part, but now the coach must help his or her
athlete learn the skills and disciplines over time. Or an executive recruiter saying to a candidate, "Just read a book
about persuasion and watch others present."
Sales is a contact sport. Again, like athletes, we must practice our expert moves over and over until they become
habits. But like any sport, there are many, many distinct and different skills and disciplines used in different
situations, and these all require us to achieve mastery to become great.
And just as there are expert moves of sales, there are also expert traps. One of the common expert traps is
overreliance on knowledge. Many sales organizations are ones where knowledge reigns supreme. But this does
not in any way make these organizations high-performing.
What makes salespeople, sales teams, and companies high-performing is taking that knowledge and building skill
and discipline through practice and continuous feedback, such that skill and discipline are held high and with the
same regard as knowledge.

***

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Video 9 - What Is Knowledge?

What is knowledge? Think about it for a second. It's a strange question, I know, and the first of many that I'll ask
you to consider throughout this course. On one level the answer is obvious. Knowledge is what you know. It's what
you can recall and remember such that you can explain, summarize, or compare. Your knowledge is the sum of
facts, stories, frameworks, concepts, heuristics, opinions, formulas, and belief that rattle around in your head at all
times.
Knowledge is abstract until we put it into action. According to Benjamin Bloom's famous taxonomy that he
developed back in 1956, knowledge is the necessary precondition for putting skills and abilities into use. We take
knowledge down from our brains and we turn the abstract into concrete through speaking, drawing pictures, acting,
telling stories. Until it is transformed into something concrete, a skill or a discipline, knowledge will make no
difference in your performance.
In his research on the highest performers in the world across many domains, Anders Ericsson talks about one of
the necessary preconditions for getting great at anything is developing what he calls mental representations of
what great looks like. These mental representations, or what are sometimes referred to as mental models, are
simply the things you know about your chosen profession.
So, you likely have a mental representation of a great sales meeting or a powerful presentation. You likely have a
mental representation of a demo of your software, for instance, or the culture of your company. But these mental
representations make no difference until you can act on them. Until you can tell a story of why your company
culture is amazing. Or until you can run a high-impact sales meeting or crush a high-stakes presentation.
I know it sounds strange but I also think there are three mistakes we make with our knowledge.
First, we over-rely on our knowledge, and this can cause us to overwhelm, annoy, confuse, or simply bore our
customers. Over-reliance on knowledge can cause us not to listen as closely or fail to stay curious.
Second, our knowledge can get stale or be flat-out wrong. We all carry knowledge around that's either useless
because it's expired or it's just plain wrong. This is why mindset is so important. Because with a mindset of curiosity
and a focus on growth, we continue to learn new things as well as re-evaluate what we know.
As a professor, one of the things I have to be vigilant about are the examples I use to illustrate certain concepts I
want the students to know, to learn. For instance, when I teach about sales discipline, I might use examples I
learned from IBM back in the 1990s. But is this really the best I can do? Not really. If I really want to influence how
my students learn, then I need new knowledge, current examples that aren't so dated or otherwise just expired.
This is simply the need to acquire new knowledge. And that's wonderful.
Our knowledge can also be flat wrong. Just like hiring managers favoring extroverts for sales positions because
they are better. This is just wrong. There is no evidence to support this. But don't we just know that these extroverts
are better? It's not true.
The third mistake I think we make with our knowledge is that we hold it up as all important. And, look, knowledge
of course is incredibly important. There are many things we need to know, and we should always be learning new
things. But of the three pillars of our foundation for high performance, knowledge, skill, and discipline, it's actually
the easy one. Knowledge is great and important, but there's so much more to do to put it into action, to make it
concrete.

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What I'm hopeful for here in this course is that you gain a new perspective on what you already know about sales
and that you pick up some fresh thinking, and then you add both of those sets to your inventory. ***

Video 10 - What Is Skill?

There is a big difference between knowing and doing. If knowledge is what you know, skills are knowledge
embodied. And they are acquired only one way: through a continuous cycle of deliberate practice and feedback.
A skill is an ability acquired through deliberate practice, sustained effort, and continuous feedback in order to
accomplish a complex task with an idea, a thing, or a person. If a skill you are acquiring involves an idea, we call
them cognitive skills. If it involves a thing, it's a technical skill. And of course, it involves a person, it's an
interpersonal skill.
Because sales happens mostly in conversation with people in communication, most of the skills, the expert moves
we will learn, are interpersonal skills. There's a simpler definition of skill: the ability to do something well. In this
course, we will look at lots of selling skills and what great looks like.
One of the great lessons we've learned from the work of Anders Ericsson is that potential is an expandable vessel.
What Ericsson has shown us is that as you practice your mind is actually being rewired to encode new skills and
abilities.
This is exhilarating to hear, but it comes with a warning. Ericsson teaches us that once we learn a new skill and
reach what we deem as an acceptable level of performance, if we don't continue to focus, practice, and get
feedback on it, our performance actually degrades over time.
This is why lifelong learning is so incredibly important and one of the many reasons I'm thankful to you for taking
this course. In sales, as in any career, there's no such thing as set it and forget it.
My friend Andrew always asks a great question, he says, "Do you know what the three most dangerous words in
business are? I've got this." If you catch yourself saying those words, you are in danger. You have likely stopped
learning, and sales is something that requires you to continue to strive to get better and better.
We will cover many skills in this course, like telling great stories, asking impact questions, and using your body
language in a powerful way. I will ask you to look at your current inventory of skills and perhaps refine some you
already have, as well as acquire new ones. ***

Video 11 – What Is Discipline?

What is discipline? It's funny how such a simple word is hard for people to define. When I ask sales leaders and
sales teams for a definition, they usually give me a description instead. They will say, being consistent or organized
or self-control. And these are good descriptions, nothing wrong with them. But my favorite definition of discipline
is choice. Choice.
Psychologists tell us that we make hundreds of choices every single day. But most of them are unconscious to us.
We aren't aware of the many choices we are making because they have become habits: some good, some bad.
You probably brushed your teeth this morning. But it's very likely that you didn't consciously think about it. Just like

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if you've driven a car recently, you weren't conscious of the choices you were making, signaling to turn, turning
the steering wheel, alternating between the gas and the brake pedal.
In order to be incredibly high-performing salespeople, we have to understand the disciplines or choices we can
make at each and every stage of the sales process and then make them consciously. And as salespeople, we
repeat these disciplines over and over, as we should.
Discipline is binary, you either have it or you don't. You either make good choices or you don't. One of the things
that distinguishes disciplines from skills is timing. If a selling move is made expert by its timing, when we make
that move and how we make that move are critical. Discipline is whether we make the move. We either ask an
impact question or we don't. We either make a hundred calls or we don't. That's discipline. But how and when we
ask the question when we are in a sales conversation is skill.
The reason I tackle discipline last is due to the fact that disciplines or choices are only made possible when you
have both components of knowledge and multiple skills to choose from. Otherwise, discipline can't exist. If I only
know one thing or have one skill, there's nothing to choose. I go with what I have.
Once you have choices, then your discipline moves to the foreground. And as salespeople, we must be as vigilant
of discipline as we are of accumulating our knowledge and practicing our skills. Why? Because you will often be
working against your own human nature.
Here are several examples of discipline, or choice, in a sales meeting. Do I just get ready to say my next piece
while you're talking, or do I really sink into what you are saying and try to understand it at a deeper level? Do I stay
in control of this meeting by starting crisply, pivoting, and ending early? Or do I let the meeting wander all over the
place? Do I give you a long list of facts, or do I take the time to craft a story that will truly help you understand? Do
I jump right to the response to an objection? Or do I stay in the question and earn your confidence?
Discipline can be hard to see because it's often invisible. You are making choices above. But people can't see you
make those choices.
The expert moves we will be learning throughout this course are often made up of all three components of
knowledge, skill, and discipline. The act of learning itself is a combination of all three. You must know first what
you want to learn. You must choose or discipline yourself to stay focused on that thing. And then you must try to
acquire the skills required to be good and then great. In this course, we will make granular the knowledge, skill,
and discipline required to be a high performer. We will put those granular pieces into expert moves and codify
them into sales tools.
You bring the right mindset, and then use this course to build upon your knowledge, skill, and discipline such that
you make that foundation unshakeable. Then, towards the end of the journey, you will decide which of these
attributes to turn into habits. It's the habits we activate day after day that determines our identity, our personality,
and our success. ***

Video 12 - Vitamins and Painkillers

An age-old question in venture capital goes like this, "Are you selling a vitamin or a painkiller?" Venture capital
loves to invest in painkillers because presumably, people pay more and move faster for urgent needs, pain, rather

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than longer-term benefits associated with vitamins. But the truth is that you can sell either as long as you know
how to be crisp and clear about why what you are selling matters to the customer.
So, as you prepare to make contact with customers, I want you to simply think through how to simplify and tighten
your message by thinking through several different angles of how you might talk with prospective customers about
their needs, what's important to them, and why it matters.
First, let's do the easy one: the who, what, where, why, how, and when. I've reordered these a bit but they are the
first step in achieving a message that is tight but descriptive. What are you selling? Who is it for? How does it
work? Why does that matter? And finally, when and where does it pay off?
These questions should have one sentence answers, or even less. For instance, if you are selling yourself in a job
interview, you of course are selling you. The who is it for in this case is your target hiring manager or the person
for whom you would like to work. The how in this case is your work ethic. How will you get the job done? The why
here might be the impact your performance would have on the organization as a whole. And finally, the when is
now and the where is at work.
Next, we widen out our language just a bit to start thinking about what I call the problem/need/value. Identify a
discrete problem, the need that takes action on that problem, and the component of value attached to solving that
problem.
Needs can be functional: filling this need will grow revenue. Or it can be social: filling this need will make me a
better teammate. Or needs can be emotional: filling this need will make me a better person. Think through and
then list each discrete problem you solve for your customer, the associated need, and the value that accrues to
the customer in solving that problem. You should end with a table that allows you to get much more crisp about
attaching value to the problems and needs.
Now, take that table you just created and capture several from/to statements that will again cause you to think
through the words you used to describe the pains and gains. The pains you are helping customers alleviate, and
the gains you are helping them make against the challenges they face.
Finally, narrow your language all the way back in by clearly stating both progress made and pain eliminated. When
you help people make progress, you are increasing positive results. For instance, my hope with this course is that
I help you increase your power, influence, persuasion, confidence, revenue, and impact. And when you help
people eliminate pain, you are decreasing negative outcomes. This course is designed to decrease your losses,
uncertainty, wasted time, fear, and stress.
What this vitamins and painkillers sales tool enables you to do is develop several ways of talking about your impact
and the impact your solution will have. As we progress from here, we will use this language in our sales
conversations to be more clear and concise, and thus faster and more effective. ***

Video 13 - Walk and Talk

"People will not work to understand your message. You have to work to be understood." When I first started as a
Professor at Chicago Booth, I heard my colleague, Dr. Waverly Deutsch, a woman who would go on to become
my friend and mentor, say this to a room full of people, and I had an immediate positive reaction. She is so right.

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We often use lazy or complicated language to describe what we do when what we really need to do is work hard
to sharpen the language, so customers can immediately see the value in our approach or solution and so they can
quickly grasp how your vitamin helps them make progress against their challenges, or your painkiller eliminates
their pain. This seems like such a simple idea but it's much, much harder than it looks.
Mark Twain was purported to have said, "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." It
takes work to both be descriptive and concise. And as an entrepreneurial salesperson, you need to be ready to
be both at a moment's notice. One of most common expert moves of selling is simply being able to talk about
yourself and what you do, no matter where you are or when or how you're asked.
I have found in my work with salespeople, entrepreneurs, and leaders of every stripe that it's often hard for people
to be crisp and concise when faced with this very frequent question, "Tell me about you and your company or what
do you do?" Even Sarah Blakely, the billionaire founder of Spanx, said that as she made her initial approaches to
the mills to manufacture her prototype and the initial department stores to sell the product, she said, "I had a hard
time explaining why this product was important." There are two main reasons that this is so difficult.
First, this is one of the many places in our sales process where the curse of knowledge kicks in. It's so strong.
Because we know so much about ourselves and our companies and our solutions, we say too much, and we bloat
our explanations with detailed knowledge that is actually useless and can be confusing to the person we're trying
to persuade. The other main reason this is so tough is that we simply haven't practiced. This is very strange since
telling people about our product or our company is something we do all the time. These are some of the first words
we say to people. How is it possible that we haven't got these practiced and perfect?
So, let's do this. Imagine that you're walking down the hall with a customer and she says, "Tell me about yourself
and your company." What will you say? In this very moment, you need a sales tool that I call the Walk and Talk.
Some of the language in your Walk and Talk should come from the good work you did in developing different ways
of talking about the Vitamins and Painkillers of your solution.
Start by imagining a long hallway, such that you have one minute to tell her exactly what she needs to know. No
more, no less. What will you tell her about you, your solution, and your company? Now, imagine the hallway just
got shorter. So, now your walk got cut in half. What will you tell her in 30 seconds? What stays in? What gets cut?
Now, she just walked up to you in the elevator lobby, and you're actually heading to different floors. You have only
15 seconds. Cut your content in half one more time and say only what needs to be said. And now you are ready
to create what I call your Sales Trailer.
Your Sales Trailer is the movie trailer of you and your business. It's a one- maybe two-sentence statement that
answers one of the most common questions you will ever be asked. You know what that question is, right? Once
you get out of school, there's one question that you get asked almost more than any other question for the rest of
your life, "What do you do?" When you are asked this question, what do you say? And do you say it the same way
every time? Think about this for a moment.
Sadly, most people race to the bottom on this. They'll say things like, I'm a Salesperson for XYZ. Or they say, I'm
a Project Manager or Professor or Consultant. Best case, these responses are super boring. Worst case, they're
empty, vague, or they can even feel off-putting. We can do so much better. Why not grab people right off the bat
by saying something interesting?
Take the work that you've done, thinking through your Vitamins and Painkillers, and then look at the content you
have left in your 15-second Walk and Talk, and now get creative. Don't try to do too much. Remember, this is just

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one or two sentences that will serve as your on-ramp to a much fuller conversation. Say something crisp and
catchy that will pull your listener in.
My Sales Trailer that I use every day is this. When someone asks me what I do, I say, I run a company called
"Sales Engine", and what we do is help companies build and tune their sales engine. It's a simple metaphor that
gets me immediately into the conversation I want to have.
Maya Angelou, the famous poet, has another great way to say this. She says, "I try to pull language into such a
sharpness that it jumps off the page." I love that. With your Sales Trailer, if you can work to achieve this sharpness
of language, you will begin to differentiate yourself and your business in literally some of the first words you speak
to people. Finally, take your Sales Trailer and distill it one step further into a hashtag. If you had to give yourself
or your business one hashtag, what would it say? Now, you're ready to walk, talk, and be understood. ***

Video 14 - Knowledge, Skill, and Discipline Value Benefit Conclusion

Congrats! We've reached the end of Module One. Before we move on to Module Two, let's do four quick things.
First, let's take a look back on what we've learned and done. Second, let's take an inventory of the knowledge,
skill, and discipline we've unpacked in this module. Third, let's look at the results we should begin to see as we
move forward. And fourth, let's determine whether we are ready to move to Module Two and the next step of our
sales process.
Here's what we learned. We learned about the mindset required to achieve and sustain high performance. We
looked at what separates high-performing salespeople from low to moderate performers. We learned the difference
between knowledge, skill, and discipline and why we need to be very diligent about building and finetuning our
skills and disciplines as we accumulate knowledge. We learned how to think about keeping these three powerful
elements in balance.
And here's what we did. We began to build your powerful sales toolkit. We created a Baseline Inventory of your
Sales Knowledge, Skill, and Discipline to make it much easier to measure our growth over time and track our
progress. We built the Vitamins and Painkillers sales tool to gain several different ways of talking about our
solutions and approaches. We locked down the Walk and Talk tool to be ready for any conversation where we
have to be crisp and concise.
Here's a quick inventory of the knowledge, skill, and discipline we unpacked in Module One. Some of the
knowledge we gained: a sense of your mindset and how you approach the act of selling, self-awareness of where
you are already strong and weak with the knowledge, skills, and disciplines of selling, and understanding of the
definitions of knowledge, skill, and discipline and the distinctions between each of these foundational pillars. And
some of the skills we tried on: more ways to talk about and frame your solution and approach, talking about yourself
and your business with more clarity, applying what you are learning. And some of the disciplines: being better
prepared for customers, having sharper sales language that cuts through the noise, and a higher level of
readiness.
Remember the distinctions between these three pillars. Knowledge is what you know. Skill is an ability acquired
through deliberate practice, sustained effort, and continuous feedback in order to accomplish a complex task with
an idea, a thing, or a person. And discipline is a choice. You either do something or you don't.

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So I'm just going to select one from each of our growing inventory above and illustrate why I've categorized it this
way. Working through your Vitamins and Painkillers gives you more knowledge of the various ways to talk about
your solution and connect to your customers' pains and gains. But being able to talk about yourself and your
business with clarity is a skill. It takes practice and is acquired over time. And finally, being better prepared for
customers is a discipline. You either prepare or you don't.
In every module of this course, you and only you will decide which sales knowledge, skills, and disciplines will
become habits for you. What sales tools will you truly own? What will you make part of your sales model? As you
apply what you've learned and done, you should now begin to see these results from Module One. You are digging
to a deeper level of preparation. You are equipped with sharper sales language that cuts through the noise. You
are talking about yourself and your business with more clarity. You are feeling much more ready.
A final discipline I would like to leave you with as we wrap up Module one is this: as you move through your sales
process, always be asking yourself, what things have to be true to move this prospect and this opportunity to the
next step in my sales process? If we are disciplined salespeople, we are thorough in each step of the process.
And here we are completing step one, the step we call pain.
So, as we move out of Module One and step one of our sales process, here are the questions we should be asking.
Am I aware of my mindset and the knowledge, skill, and discipline required to be an incredibly highperforming
salesperson? Do I have more clarity on how my solution or approach alleviates the pain people are feeling and
creates the gains people are striving for? And have I pulled that language into a clear and concise package? Am
I able to deliver this new language at a moment's notice? Am I ready? If you can answer these questions with an
emphatic yes, you are ready to move on. So, let's move.
***

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