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Sales Tips from Angelina Jolie
By Ian Brodie | August 6, 2008
One of the featured resources on Rainmaker Resources is David Maister’s series of podcasts. In his Business Masterclass episode “Cultivate the Habits of Friendship” he shares a lovely anecdote about building relationships that bears repeating:
The actress Angelina Jolie was interviewed on television and asked if she had to like the characters she was portraying in order to act them well. Her answer was brilliant. She said something like: “You can’t love everything about everyone. But there must be something there. The key is to find that one small slice of overlap between you and them, and focus intensely on that overlap, ignoring everything else.” I don’t know about acting, but that sounds like a perfect recipe for human relationships to me.
The reality of relationships is that everyone is different, and everyone is flawed. There will be things we like, and things we dislike (in differing proportions) about everyone.
Although it’s often said that you get 30 seconds to make a good impression - and that’s great advice for how we should present ourselves - we absolutely must not treat others in this way. Yes, our time is precious. Yes, we cannot have deep relationships with everyone and we must be selective. But we must not make that selection based on the first 30 seconds. We must take time and make an effort to establish a relationship with people before making that selection. In my life, the scouser who looked so much like a “scally” at our first meeting I feared for my hub-caps is my oldest friend; and the irascible Scot who everyone else steered clear of was the guy who gave me some of the most insightful advice on sales I’ve ever had.
Angelina’s method of focusing on the areas of overlap and ignoring the rest is a great way of starting relationship and of beginning to find out enough about people to know whether to continue the relationship rater than making a snap decision. And - as Skip Anderson points out in his Selling to Consumers podcast it’s a great way to begin to establish rapport with potential customers.
Ian
Topics: Sales Techniques |
August 7th, 2008 at 3:18 am
Wow,
Angelina continues to surprise me with her insight into the human condition. No wonder my wife has a crush on her.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Ian, what a great post. I would like to possibly link this on my blog in the future when my post comes out on “liking your customer types”. It would be a great follow-up for those in industries who struggle to relate to their customers. Thanks again for the great article!
Will Fultz
August 7th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Hi Ian,
You are so right, many sales people make the mistake of judging on short initial impressions, usually based on one odd situation from their past. The point you make about not relying on 30 seconds is so right.
What is even more puzzling is when sales professionals reach and act on impressions before they even meet the individual, either based on title or what they hear on their voice mail.
Tibor
August 11th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
There is good in everyone… or so the say… so looking for the goodness to start the relationship is a good thing, if you believe that you want to develop a relationship with someone. However, perhaps you don’t know it will be a good relationship until you try… and then again maybe, just maybe the 30 seconds is long enough.
One of the earliest lessons of my NLP training that I went through a few years ago was learning to be non judgemental. Only if you are truly non judgemental can you help people. Mike Matulavich who took the sessions had a great way of testing people’s commitment about being non judgemental… “how would you treat a child rapist… someone who has raped a 2 year old” he would ask. At the time it was a particularly prevalent and common occurrence in South Africa where I lived and did my training… it was thought, by the ignorant, that it was a cure to aids.
Most people found it very difficult to be non judgemental when given this scenario… they did not even want to try.
An extreme example of where people will choose if they want to take the time to develop the relationship rather than relying on the 30 seconds. Sometimes the bad is just so bad, it will take a special person to look for the good. However, hopefully in business, things aren’t that bad and so we can take longer.
August 12th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Ian, love the post and agree absolutely with your assertion in furthering the time to develop relationships. You have reminded me of a childhood story of mine which I think I will have to write up on my blog sometime. Thanks.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Ian, that’s a great story about Angelina Jolie…and while reading your post, I kept thinking, “That’s exactly what I talk about when I talk about SEEKING COMMONALITY with your prospect.” Then, low and behold, you mentioned my podcast. So thanks for the story and thanks for the mention, Ian. Your posts always inform and inspire.
-Skip Anderson
August 24th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Great post Ian, I also just read the followup post’s that both Will and Nesh wrote and I have to say the advice Angelina give here is brilliant.
Way to go for starting a excellent conversation across multiple blogs!
-Brad