“If you will please people, you must please them in their own way.”

—Lord Chesterfield, 18th Century British Statesman

Image from Unsplash by Sebastian Herrmann

Are you a sales person? If you answered YES because of your job, you fit with one in nine people, based on Dan Pink’s book, To Sell is Human. Surprising to many of us is the fact that the remaining eight out of nine of us are also “in sales” when we try to influence others to our way of thinking.

If you happen to be a parent, how effective are you at getting your kids to do their homework, their chores, eat their veggies, or go to bed on time?

A current client asked me to review a few of his recent business proposals. He wanted to know what I thought might be the reason for his low level of acceptance. The overly simple answer we discovered was that the proposals were focused primarily on what he and his organization was selling. They were not focused on the deep desires of his potential customers. He did not sell them on their own YES.

EXERCISE:

How would the idea that people participate and buy into things that they help create improve your sales and influence in your professional and personal communities?

How could pleasing others in their own way open many more doors to your own success?