Is selling science a dirty word? Or should scientists be embracing it? Peter Fiske, keynote speaker at the Naturejobs Career Expo in Boston on May 20th, tackles this issue of Selling for Scientists with the Science of Selling.
Many scientists cringe when they hear the word “selling.” In our academic culture, we are taught that our technical work should speak for itself. “Selling” implies persuasion and potentially intentional distortion with (heaven forbid!) a monetary (and not an intellectual) goal. As “proper” scientists, we feel that “selling” is not only debasing but also a bit dirty.
As a scientist, I first encountered the need to “sell” when I started my first company. We had developed a novel optical manufacturing process, and I had to meet with customers and get them to buy the our optical components. The life of our start-up literally depended on our ability to “make the sale.”
I approached the process of “selling” like any good scientist would. I researched each potential customer and their application thoroughly. I developed a set of top requirements for their application and I showed them how our optical components satisfied each and every one. I provided ample data to back up each one of my claims. When the prospective customer questioned one of my assertions I brought forth even more data and evidence to support my position. I wrapped up my presentation by asking them how many units they wanted to order.
Often the answer was “zero”. And many times I didn’t even get a call back.
I was stupefied! How could they choose to purchase conventionally-made optical components when ours were better, cheaper and seemed to satisfy all their requirements? Didn’t they understand what I had told them?
Successful “selling” turns out to be much more than marshalling technical arguments like we do in academic research. Not only must you have a valuable offer that fits the needs of the customer, or a process of matching customer needs with your product or service offerings. You have to also satisfy several “psychological” criteria so your offer seem credible.. A successful salesperson must establish authority and trust: the customer needs to believe that you understand their problem and that you have the background and experience to provide a solution.
If you think about it, academia operates on many of the same principals. As well as doing good science, developing a positive reputation and a network of friends and colleagues who believe in the work you are doing and can attest to its quality. Scientists spend quite a lot of time engaged in a variety of strategies to advance their “reputation”, including marketing (serving on review committees, serving on editorial boards), advertising (giving guest lectures and brown bag talks), public relations (giving popular or for-the-public science lectures) and, yes, customer development (writing and submitting proposals).
It’s natural to assume that most of what the customer cares about during the buying process is whether the offer fits their need. The majority of sales professionals in business believe that as well, and spend most of their efforts during sales presentations trying to convince prospective clients that their offer fits the customer’s needs. But a 2008 study of sales managers and purchasing managers by marketing firm RogenSI[1] found something different.
Most sales managers believed that 70% of the purchasing decision was based on the “fit” of the solution. Understanding their customer’s business, personal chemistry, and “politics” were believed to be about a 10% factor each. Yet when purchasing managers were polled about why they chose certain products or services, they revealed a very different weighting of issues. The “fit” of the solution mattered most, but only represented roughly 40% of the total weighting in the decision process. Understanding their customer’s business, personal chemistry, and “politics” were actually weighted about 20% apiece. In other words: the majority of the factors that influenced the decision to buy were NOT about the product, and even experienced salespeople tend to “oversell” the product features and “undersell” the other aspects critical to a successful sale.
Scientists may look as such data and throw up their hands in despair – and conclude that academia may be the only bastion of rationality left in the world. But upon closer inspection, most scientists would have to admit that factors such as trust and reliability, perceived reputation, and general likability all matter in the academic world as well, and can sometimes significantly influence the decisions on who to hire, who to promote, and who to give a grant to.
It is likely then, that these “emotional factors” are actually somehow advantageous – otherwise these processes would have been evolutionarily selected against. So, whether you agree with it or not, “subjective” factors enter into the decision-making process in homo sapiens. And learning about these subjective factors and adapting your content and delivery style to address them, will only serve to make you more successful in the work you do (in or outside of academia).
The Science of Selling
While there are (literally) books written about sales techniques, here are a few key concepts that I find have significant impact in how “sales” efforts are perceived by customers:
- Understanding the customer’s problem. The most successful salespeople actually talk a lot less than you’d think: they get the customer to do most of the talking. By asking questions and eliciting information, they find new insights into how to solve the underlying problems the customer is having. And customers feel heard and understood.
- Establishing credibility. The most successful salespeople have a background and professional experience that the customer believes is highly credible and relevant to their business. Scientists often have a big advantage in this regard: they are generally viewed as highly intelligent, analytical and credible.
- Understanding the “big picture”. The most successful salespeople spend as much time researching the organization as a whole as they do researching the specifics of the customer application. They seek to understand how the organization makes and approves purchasing decisions, what values are important to the organization, and what past experiences (both good and bad) influence how the organization makes purchasing decisions.
You can apply these same concepts equally well in academia as in business. In fact, as you look around to the most successful researchers in your organization, you may be surprised to discover they already use these exact strategies.
Peter Fiske is the the Chief Executive Officer of PAX Water Technologies, Inc. He is also a nationally-recognized author and lecturer on the subject of leadership and career development for scientists and engineers. He will be doing the keynote speech at the Naturejobs Career Expo in Boston on May 20th 2014.
[1] Perfect Pitch: Findings from the 2008 RogenSI Global Pitch Survey
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This is very useful guidance to scientists who are making invalid assumptions about selling. I will add to your three points about the science of selling in ways that, based on my experience, follow directly from those points. “Understanding the big picture” is the point with the most significance and, as such, it has direct implications for actions taken with respect to the other two points.
On the first point, the “customer” with whom one most frequently interacts, as a scientist or as someone employed as a salesperson, is an institutional buyer or representative of the end user or consumer. It is equally important for this intermediary to understand the consumers for whom they are buying. This typically involves a mostly implicit translation of needs into a more or less presumptive solution. This translation typically is influenced by the buyer’s awareness of potential solutions and, unfortunately, often only legacy solutions. This is an opportunity for the “seller” to educate.
The communication between buyer and seller can be more like collaborative investigation (i.e., scientific inquiry) than like education narrowly considered (i.e., telling). In a changing market or context of use, collaboration is as necessary as it is problematic to achieve. It requires mutual trust and management of conflict of interest, even the appearance of conflict. It requires relationships such as those in vested outsourcing between companies and their suppliers or broader value network (e.g., https://www.vestedway.com/).
Vested relationships between buyer and seller that enable collaborative inquiry are difficult to achieve in commodity buying but they are powerful when the complexity of the service sought is high and the number of apparent suppliers is low (https://1.usa.gov/1laqJq8). The buyer and seller learn together. The seller can become the buyer’s friend by facilitating “strategic sourcing,” and the buyer can simulate development of new offerings in the seller’s organization or broader community of practice (see e.g., https://bit.ly/OI1ai0, https://bit.ly/1lasFPj).
On second point, as implied above, a mutually edifying and beneficial relationship between buyer and seller enables both to learn about each other as well as the demand and supply they are trying to match. This should be familiar to scientists in their role as teachers, mentors, and sponsors of students from whom they gain almost as much as they give. As indicated in the article, it also should be familiar to scientists in their service role within a community of practice (i.e., a community of shared responsibility and self governance).
Scientists have deep skills and experience that can help them become superbly valuable sellers. In doing so, they will be comforted to know that a sale is an outcome and that selling may or may not result in an immediate sale. It is a way of being, of constant teaching and learning, with respect to which one must take the long view. The inter-temporal relationships are characterized more by the familiar patient progress rather than compromising tradeoffs.
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Gary –
Great points – thank you for your comments!
Your comment about the “Big Picture” is spot on. Quite often, the “buyer” is him or herself needing to turn around and “sell” your proposed solution to their organization. This means you not only need to convince them, you need to educate and empower them to formulate the arguments on your behalf. A common question that salespeople are taught to ask is: “Who else needs to be part of the buying decision?”. For scientists, understanding the “Big Picture” of wall the people (and steps) required to arrive at a decision is crucial.
Many scientists don’t realize that some of the most successful “salespeople” are really just excellent teachers.
Thanks again for that comment –