CREATIVE SELLING:
MODERN PARADIGM

FOREWORD

Excerpt:  "A Green Island in a Black Sea: A Novel of South Africa during Apartheid" James R. Fisher, Jr.

“Predator-prey is an apt metaphor for the business of selling.  It is not rocket science.  It may surprise you that it is more difficult than rocket science!"

That created a buzz with Devlin’s audience.  He continued saying that the predator-prey is the counterpoint of the seller-buyer dynamic where the flux is constantly shifting from predator to prey and for seller to buyer, and vice versa, unlike the irrefutable consistency of the laws of nature. 

 “As each of us has a constant warfare between predator and prey instincts in the choices we make, there is a similar shifting of predator-prey within each buyer and seller as well as between them.  Should the prey of either buyer or seller show itself, the predator instinct pounces on its prey at that moment to master the contest.

“It is a jungle, my friends, and operates precisely as does the jungle of our animal cousins.  The hunter and the hunted are involved in the dynamic, and so it is with us all.

“ If we can calm our demons, and accurately calculate predator-prey instincts, the two parties can reach a common ground benefiting both.  Conflicts within and between predator-prey dissolve, as things are seen in the same light.”

Creativity and confidence ebb and flow as we cycle between self-creation and self-obstruction.  Chances are, we are always somewhere on this continuum.  Confidence is a self-control mechanism that comes into play to put the mind in concert with the will, so that self-creation triumphs over self-obstruction.

Nowhere is this more dramatically demonstrated than in sales.

OVERCOMING OUR CONDITIONING

Our habits of thought and education place the emphasis on analysis and judgment at the expense of design and creativity.  We pride ourselves on our critical skills, which deal with what is known, the antithesis of creative thinking — not allowing ourselves to be surprised with the opportunity to learn something new.

Instead, the sales person launches into action as though heading for a college final examination; loaded for bear, with an arsenal of arguments for overcoming objections, disincentives to delay, and rehearsed closings, having no concept of the buyer’s needs or problems, obsessively determined “to make the sale.”

Yet, we cannot be in control, much less confident and creative, if we do not embrace the enduring conflict between buyer and seller.  It is the obstacle; and it's not "out there".  It represents a gap between perspectives that must be traversed, to a plane of equals. Otherwise, competing values will sabotage progress beyond the predator-prey dichotomy.  It is an essential step for achieving constructive two-way conversation, where mutual respect and understanding foster cooperation.

THEATRE OF COOPERATION

Within this theatre, the leading roles are played out.  The resultant dialogue determines many things, including whether you are buying or selling, whether you have something of value for the other, or he or she convinces you that you do not.  In this context, every sales conversation has a successful outcome.

In this era of the world-wide-web, many business people do not believe this; do not believe in the value of personal selling. But in truth, as seductive as the Internet may be, over 80% of all business transactions are still conducted directly, person-to-person, business-to-business.

When accomplished professional sellers make it their business, invest their energy to become students of their customers’ business; they become de facto partners with those businesses.  They see clearly what their clients need, and why, then guiding those self-same customers respectfully along a path, until those needs are equally apparent to the customer.  That takes confidence, mutual respect and creativity.

CUTTING THROUGH CONFLICT AND NAVIGATING THE SALE

Creative Selling is dedicated to managing conflict by employing confident selling strategies; right brain approaches.  Although customarily less prevalent in sales than left-brain thinking, it is nonetheless the path to creative selling.  Thinking that originates from the right brain is receptive, conciliatory, responsive, cooperative, intuitive (affective), synthesizing, conceptual, non intimidating, inclined towards the social or soft sciences and spiritual or mystical.  Right brain thinkers are known as feelers, conscious of the environment with everything in it speaking a silent but provocative language.

Thinking that originates from the left-brain is insistent, aggressive, competitive, rational (cognitive), analytical, intimidating, often ruthless, inclined towards the physical or hard sciences, materialistic and cynical.  Left-brain thinkers are known as concrete thinkers, self-conscious to a fault, but unconscious of their environment, which is taken for granted.

Since creative thinking is conceptual and nonlinear, it tends to be holistic or systemic, but can be provocative and sometimes contradictory, as it pursues the mental geography of the unknown, but knowable.  Creative Selling is likely to be a departure from the expected.

Cutting through the natural wall (i.e., conflict) between buyer and seller may be likened to negotiating the darkness without the aid of night vision goggles, but with the aid of intuitive confidence. 

Critical thinking can erect barriers that aren’t there and then attempt to avoid these fantasy obstructions.  Creative thinking studies the terrain (the buyer’s situation) to understand if real or imagined barriers exist and then to act accordingly.  It is the difference between arrogance (I have the answer!) and intuition (I sense a problem!).

Intuition is not unique, everyone has this sensing capability; nor is it the opposite of logic.  It represents the complement of left-brain analysis with right brain conceptual discernment.  It is the creative selling process. 

Intuition makes information available to us when we need it, and uses any and all available means to advantage.  It does this by dissolving our self-doubt and cutting through any mental blockage that distorts our ability to see the situation clearly.

Our inherent intuition is capable of being aware of everything in the customer environment as a place is felt before it is perceived.

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Cognitive biases shaped by hidden fears and negative experiences may block out such perception.  If we accept our human shortcomings, if we let our reptilian brain function, our intuition will soar and insight will penetrate the blockage.  The problem is not intuition; the problem is we don’t trust our insights afraid to take the risks warranted. 

When we deny our cognitive biases, the subconscious can have a stranglehold on our minds.  As a result, we feel unable to act, or unable to act wisely.  Unconsciously, our old programming of fear-based decision-making tends to negatively shape our lives to undermine personal progress.

LIVING IN ALIGNMENT WITH CREATIVE CONFIDENCE

For our minds to be aligned, we must be in charge, which represents a shift from intuitive blocking to intuitive enhancing awareness.

Awareness is a matter of consciousness.  Consciousness breaks down to (1) the subconscious mind, (2) the conscious mind and (3) the super conscious mind, or in popular culture, the body, mind and spirit.

The super conscious mind and subconscious mind are driven by experience, the geography we carry with us wherever we go.  It is the psychology that operates between the buyer and seller in sales, which fuels competing or possibly antagonizing perceptions of the world. 

The conscious mind is a roving mind with a prehensile awareness of the situation.  Like an athlete, who moves without thinking, the conscious mind has no memory.  It simply is. 

The super conscious mind is reptilian.  It is gut level awareness.  The subconscious mind contains fight or flight information relative to survival.  The conscious mind contains no memory, knows nothing, but is agent of the free will, and therefore may confront or retreat.  All are in play in sales calls.

The conscious mind is relational and operates like a motion picture in your head with flickering on-again and off-again lens, which compute with images, meanings, and movements.  These can be spliced like film and replayed in another form.

My grandson recently told me of his uncle, who owns a scooter shop, “When uncle Mike is in a good mood, he sells a lot; when he is in a bad mood, he doesn’t sell anything.”  He was expressing the multi-levels of the mind in play.

RIDING THE CURRENTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

My son prides himself on being rational.  He doesn’t see himself as being plagued by wide mood swings, yet the dominance of the subconscious mind in his attitude is apparent.  The more loving and super conscious your view, the more accurate your intuition on the conscious level.  Change your views; your attitude, and your perceptions will change, which leads to a more self-enhancing intuitive world.

When the mind turns to love, caring instead of fear, intuition occurs naturally.  Creativity flows, detached from worry, freed from self-consciousness or left-brain dominance.  We escape the shoulds and should nots to give ourselves permission to love what we do.  We are less driven but accomplishing more because we are listening to the super conscious mind that is telling us to slow down, let go, let flow, and let our intuition take over.  Paradoxically, that is when we accomplish more.

Creative Selling rides the currents of consciousness, descending into lower then ascending into higher levels of consciousness, as circumstances seem prudent.  We materialize and dematerialize, manifest and dissolve, involve and evolve in a typical day.  You don’t think so?  Consider the times in a day that you space out, your mind wanders, then suddenly comes back just as you are entering the driveway to your home.

Indeed, during a sales call, we can rock into clarity, then confusion, plunge into apathy, recover our specific purpose, and then expand into waxed eloquence.  We do this as the tempo and temperature rises and falls as our conscious mind processes information.  Should the customer, turn his seat around to show you his back, and commence clipping his nails, we may suffer a panic attack, or allow our subconscious mind to kick in, which finds us saying, “Clearly, this is a bad time.  I’ll set up another appointment with your secretary.”  Then before the customer can react, we are gone.  Intuition found us in survival mode with our circuits open with us in charge by doing a hasty retreat to regroup and challenge on another day.  The omen here is always respect yourself and allow no one to violate that self-respect.

With confidence, our personality can filter all the congruent data in real-time with synchronicity and natural efficiency.  If we trust the endings and beginnings of our sales efforts, what transpires in between will sponsor intuitive confidence and creativity.  How so?  Consciousness guides us through our major and minor goals so that each call is a measure of success to an ultimate sale.

RUNNING ON EMPTY

What we see in our mind’s eye is what we are.  It is the descending phase of the creative cycle if there is no sense of accomplishment at every sales call.  We must never be stuck on “must have.”

When obsessed with a sale in which the groundwork is missing, it is likely that our energy is consumed, our confidence wanes and our creativity deserts us.  We are running on empty.  It is a state we all experience.  But, alas, we fail to realize emptiness is liberating.  Our culture places a negative value on emptiness whereas Buddhists consider it divine.  Why?

It is the welcoming phase of the creative cycle.  We backtrack from our debilitating loss of direction and inability to sleep.  Energetically dead, running on empty, we stop; we let go; we let flow.  We take the pause that refreshes, a “time out,” and regroup.  It is now okay to not do or not do right now.  It is okay not to think. 

A strange thing happens, I know because I have been there, not once but several times in my life.  These are called “watershed moments.”

Each time the world looks so black that we think our life is over, each time we tell ourselves (as a cop out) we weren’t cut out for this kind of work, each time we step back in retreat with no idea why or what is to come, that spring that we thought had dried up is found to be overflowing with possibilities. 

Krishnamurti says,

When you cease to think, to do, and to form complex plans and simply let go, being is immediately present. 

He also says:

In oneself lies the whole world, and if you know how to look and learn, then the door is there and the key is in your hand.  Nobody on earth can give you either that key or the door to open, except yourself.

The problem is that we get caught up in chronological time when the only real time is psychological time.  By opening ourselves to reality, to what is, we immediately feel our super conscious turning the unknown into the known.

Psychological time gets under the, “Yes, buts” to unlock what may be blocking our success whatever the field of endeavor that shadows our experience.  It is in that black bag that our feelings are stashed that often blocks the door Krishnamurti describes.

Creative Selling is a personal journey, a hero’s journey, as well as mainly a counterintuitive departure from sales and motivational literature, developing conventional themes in unconventional ways, along with case histories that illustrate the partnerships that are the natural connection between buyers and sellers.   

Intuition is fluid but highly personal. Our minds are open and relaxed; our character comes to the fore trusting and sincere. Our emptiness is filled with everything around us, as we are super conscious.  We still use but have escaped the limitations of the square world of logic and its obsession with ends.  We are connected through confidence to our creativity.  This allows us to be listeners instead of tellers, learners instead of knowers, open to new experience and new knowledge.  We are ready for Creative Selling.

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© December 10, 2012