3 keys to selling anything | Samrat Parasnis | TEDxDTSS College of Law

Key Concepts

• Universal Sales: The idea that everyone, regardless of profession, engages in selling.
• Trust as Currency: Trust is the fundamental basis for all relationships and transactions.
• Trust Fall Effect: Accepting vulnerability can build trust and enhance one's standing.
• Selling the Unsold: The act of believing in and advocating for an idea or product that others initially dismiss or don't yet comprehend.
• Conflict Resolution as Sales Skill: The ability to mediate and resolve disputes by selling mutually acceptable solutions to opposing parties.
• Authentic Value: The modern sales approach focusing on genuine help and value rather than manipulation or gimmicks.
• Snake Oil Salespeople: A historical term for deceptive sellers, now used to describe those who sell unreasonable or ineffective solutions.
• Human-Centric Sales: The enduring importance of human connection, trust, and belief in sales, even with AI advancements.

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The Ubiquity of Sales

The speaker begins with a confession of being in sales, immediately challenging the common perception of a salesperson as someone pushing insurance policies or life-changing courses. He argues that "all of us are in sales," citing everyday examples from childhood (asking for an extra toffee, bargaining for curfew) to professional life (negotiating salaries, going on dates). Sales, he clarifies, is not merely about deals, price negotiations, products, or services; it's fundamentally about "moving people, getting them to believe in something, telling them the value of something and making them believe and trusting you." This universal nature extends to all professions: an engineer sells their skills in an interview, an HR professional sells the value of a job, and a finance person negotiates better vendor terms. Even historical figures like Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi "sold a dream." Drawing from 25 years of selling experience, including 10 years building a successful business, the speaker identifies three "invisible truths" applicable to both professional and personal life.

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Invisible Truth 1: Trust - The Ultimate Currency

The first invisible truth is that "it's all about trust." Trust is presented as "the ultimate currency of life in general and sales in particular," forming the bedrock of all relationships—marriages, companies, and nations. Transactions, the speaker asserts, only follow once trust is established.

Case Study: Speaker's First Deal in London In his first sales job in London, the speaker, new to the country and intimidated by the local accent and a "colonial hangover," faced a critical moment. A customer told him, "Young man, there is something wrong with your solution and your numbers." Instead of confidently denying, a younger version of himself might have, he chose vulnerability, stating, "Yes, sir. I will look into it and come back to you. But I need it tomorrow morning. I have to present it to the board." He then mobilized his senior CXOs in India overnight, working until 5:00 a.m. to revise the proposal. Weeks later, they won the multi-million dollar deal. The customer later revealed the reason for choosing them: "You first accepted that your solution was weak and you worked on it all night to come out with the revised solution. I know how much work went into it. You won my trust, hence the deal." This illustrates the "trust fall effect," where accepting vulnerability elevates one in the eyes of others.

Case Study: Tylenol Crisis (1982) Another powerful example is the 1982 Tylenol crisis, where capsules were found laced with cyanide, leading to fatalities. Johnson & Johnson, instead of denying, deflecting, or delaying, immediately withdrew all capsule packages from shelves nationwide, incurring "significant losses." They subsequently relaunched the product with tamperproof packaging. This decisive action not only restored trust but "enhanced" it. The speaker emphasizes that "trust is fragile," taking "years to build, seconds to destroy, and sometimes forever to rebuild."

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Invisible Truth 2: Selling the Unsold - All About Belief

The second learning revolves around "selling the unsold," which is about believing in something that nobody else is willing to believe. This process is described as "exhausting, frustrating and lonely," yet the world is built upon concepts that were once "unsold." Examples include the light bulb and air conditioning.

Historical and Modern Innovators

• Voyagers: Early explorers who ventured onto high seas with rudimentary tools like magnetic compasses and paper charts believed they could find new continents and civilizations. They had to "sell the idea" to monarchs for funding, to sailors for participation in risky journeys, and to their families for their return. Crucially, they "sold the unsold to themselves," driven by the belief in finding civilizations for trade, scientific exchange, and potential rule.
• Mark Zuckerberg: Believed people would socialize over a website, leading to Facebook.
• Steve Jobs: Believed people could run their lives from a mobile phone, revolutionizing personal technology.
• Jeff Bezos: Believed people would buy at scale over a website, creating Amazon, one of the world's largest platforms.
• Google Founders: Two researchers who built a search engine that became a household name.

The speaker quotes Steve Jobs: "Those who are crazy enough to believe that they can change the world are the ones who do it." This underscores the power of belief in bringing "unsold" ideas to fruition.

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Invisible Truth 3: Conflict Resolution - The Ultimate Sales Skill

The third invisible truth identifies "conflict resolution" as the ultimate sales skill. Conflicts are pervasive, occurring between spouses, siblings, nations, and companies. Effective resolution requires someone to "step in to cool heads down, understand each other and resolve with a solution that's acceptable to both." A solution that leaves one party feeling short-changed is merely a "temporary pause," not true resolution.

Case Study: Speaker's Multi-Million Dollar Deal The speaker recounts a multi-million dollar deal that began to unravel within three months. The customer complained, "Your people do not understand what I'm trying to achieve," while his team countered, "The customer keeps changing his goalpost." To resolve this, the speaker flew out to meet each party separately, aiming to "understand their perspective" and concerns without validating one side over the other. He then devised a solution. He highlights the difference between one-to-one selling, where both parties work towards a common objective, and conflict resolution, where two parties are often at odds, each believing they are right. The salesperson's role in conflict resolution is to "sell that to both of them."

He supports this with a quote from Ronald Reagan: "Peace is not the absence of conflict. It is the ability to handle conflict in the peaceful way."

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The Paradox of Sales: Hated Yet Essential

The speaker ponders why salespeople are often "hated so much." He illustrates this with an anecdote: a team member's sales call to a CIO was met with a rude rejection ("I don't want to be sold anything"). Moments later, the same team member received a sales call from the same company and rejected it. This highlights a paradox: "Everybody needs to sell. But people don't like to be sold."

People Don't Like to Be Sold, But Like to Be Helped The speaker uses the analogy of a departmental store: people avoid aggressive sales pitches ("offer on a perfume"). Instead, they prefer a helpful approach, like a sign saying, "I'm here to help with an offer if you want," which attracts "genuine buyers and more qualified buyers."

The Doctor Analogy Doctors are presented as the "best salespeople." They don't aggressively push medicines or treatments; instead, "They hear you. They understand you. They understand the problem and then they tell you something and you trust." This exemplifies how trust, built through understanding and genuine help, drives acceptance.

The Danger of Manipulation: "Snake Oil Salespeople" Sales often gets a bad name due to manipulation, such as inflating deal sizes or selling unsuitable solutions. The term "snake oil salespeople" originated in the 19th-century Wild West, where unscrupulous individuals sold mineral oil as a cure-all "snake oil" to "gullible villages." However, today's customers are "well-informed" and "well-researched," making "gimmicks" ineffective. What truly sells now is "authentic value."

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The Enduring Human Element in the Age of AI

The speaker acknowledges the significant role of AI in modern sales, handling automated emails, messages, lead qualification, and even inbound/outbound calls. However, he asserts that "What doesn't change is the trust factor." He emphasizes that "Humans will buy from humans. Humans will trust humans."

He connects this back to his three invisible truths:

1. Trust: "Trust is a human thing, not a bot thing."
2. Belief (Selling the Unsold): "Belief is a human thing, not a bot thing."
3. Conflict Resolution: "You need humans to sell conflict." He poses a rhetorical question: "Would two prime ministers who are firing missiles at each other go to a bot and ask to solve their problems? No, it's a human."

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Conclusion: To Sell Is Human

The speaker concludes by quoting Daniel Pink: "To sell is human." He ends with a simple, encouraging message: "Happy selling."