Are Salesmen Sociopaths?
sociopath [( soh -see-uh-path, soh -shee-uh-path)]
Someone whose social behavior is extremely abnormal. Sociopaths are interested only in their personal needs and desires, without concern for the effects of their behavior on others.
Yup, I think that sums it up pretty nicely. Other definitions include references to lying, changing personalities and delusional thinking. Check check and check.
In traditional sales training you are taught to mirror your prospect, act like they act, be what they want to see. You’re told that you should match their body language, tone, and pace of speaking so that their brain reacts as though you are a friend or ally. You’re asked to withhold information in the interests of making the best deal for you, not the best deal for the client. You’re told that “buyers are liars” and that you have to not believe anything they say. Sales is set up as a battlefield and you are fighting for every inch you can get to survive.
No wonder we rank slightly above lawyers and slightly below the guy who gives us parking tickets in most people’s minds.
Even the good ones out there do some things that the general public would find distasteful. Steve Jobs, one of the master salesmen of our times, spends each of his keynote speechs marveling in wonder at his own genius. He spends an hour or more extolling the virtues of the shiny piece of awesome that he is allowing you to experience in exchange for your paycheck. He even has the temerity to use the oldest sales trick in the book – the famous “One more thing”. The Apple iTribe suspends all productivity during these speeches and tech blogs generate bajillions of pageviews every time this happens.
And yet, the same techniques applied by someone like you or I brings scorn and disdain. Jobs puts on a hell of a show, and has raised a tribe of believers around him that Seth Godin would write books about – but is he any less dishonest, deceptive, or sociopathic than the rest of us?
