Sales is Influence: Applying Discovery Skills to Your Personal Relationships

Sales is usually associated with pitching, persuasion, negotiation, and closing. However, some of the most important skills that salespeople can possess have little to do with convincing a person to buy. They have to do with people understanding.

A good salesperson will not begin a discussion with a pitch or an attempt at closing. They will start by asking questions and listening to answers, learning about the other party's motivations and interests. The same skills can be surprisingly useful in personal interactions.

Sales influence does not imply manipulation. It implies understanding people well enough to make your communication take into consideration their perspective. Discovery, active listening, empathy, and rapport can help one navigate everyday communication and relationships.

This is why sales skills are considered universal life skills – the capability to understand the other party before trying to influence them can be applicable anywhere people interact.

Discovery is About Understanding, Not Interrogating

Professional sales include the discovery of what a prospective buyer wants to achieve. A salesperson asks questions about the problem, its consequences, the desired outcome, and the criteria that determine a particular solution.

The same concept can be used in personal interactions.

Instead of assuming that you already know why a person is angry, you can ask them why it happens. Instead of trying to figure out what they need, allow them to explain their feelings and problems to you. Instead of trying to interpret the reaction through your assumptions, become interested in their perspective.

It does not mean that all your personal discussions should be transformed into interviews.

Discovery is a conversation that allows a person to speak freely about their thoughts, needs, feelings, or expectations. The idea is not to gather information to use it against the person. Rather, it is about understanding them better.

It is crucial for the discovery to be done in such a way, since assumptions can lead to misunderstandings. Your response can be based on what you think a person means rather than what they really say. Questions can help you avoid these assumptions.

Stop Solving Problems People have Not Asked You to Solve

A frequent mistake in sales is offering a solution without discovering a problem first. The same mistake occurs in daily life.

A person tells about a challenging experience, and the response is advice. Someone complains, and we try to explain how they should have handled the situation. Someone talks about a problem, and we provide a ready solution.

The intentions are well-meant, but the response does not meet the actual need.

Maybe the person did not ask for advice. Maybe they want to be heard. Maybe the problem is not what it looks like. Or maybe the proposed solution was already considered by the speaker.

Discovery is the way to start right. Before solving the problem, diagnose it.

Questions like what happened, what bothers you most, and what do you want to see happen will give you an idea about the actual need of the person.

These are basic discovery skills for sales. The quality of the diagnosis defines the quality of the solution. Personal communication does not change anything.

Sometimes, the best response that you can give is not an answer, but enough attention for a person to come to understand themselves.

Active Listening Changes the Conversation

Ask good questions, but that is only one part of discovery. The second part is listening to the responses.

Active listening means paying attention to what the person says, not preparing the response during her speech. It is about paying attention to words, to concerns behind them, to the context of the conversation.

Active listening in sales helps sellers discover more information. The buyer may mention a problem on the surface level, but listening carefully reveals the deeper business concern.

The same things happen in personal conversations.

Someone says that they are frustrated because of something, but after a closer conversation, it appears that the actual problem is not that at all – the person feels neglected, misunderstood, or unappreciated.

Active listening opens the possibility to reveal that difference.

At the same time, it can make people open up more about the topic. When the person feels that their perspective is being respected, more details appear, and defensiveness disappears.

Thus, active listening is a key element of sales influence. Influence becomes easier when the other person feels understood rather than managed.

Ask Better Questions Instead of Making Faster Assumptions

Questions are one of the most useful tools in selling as well as in life.

People normally stop communication with a conclusion in a statement. On the other hand, asking a good question may help start one because people may use it as an opportunity to speak out.

People need not make an assumption about why someone decided to do something but rather ask what factors influenced the person in the first place. People may also ask what a person really wants from them. People need to find out not only why people have disagreements but also what worries them.

Questions such as “What is most important to you?” or “What concerns you most?” can uncover the underlying motivations of individuals.

However, this does not mean that any conversation requires specially designed discovery questions.

Communication should not be forgotten. All people need to replace unnecessary assumptions with questions.

In the case of selling, it will help salespeople better understand the buyer. In the case of everyday communication, it will help people better understand each other.

Thus, asking questions is a very helpful tool of persuasion. Before trying to change someone's point of view, people need to understand why someone thinks like this.

Rapport is Built Through Relevance and Attention

Sometimes rapport is considered to be charisma, entertainment, or charm.

However, usually, great rapport is established just by showing people attention. Salespeople establish rapport by understanding the person with whom they are communicating and reacting to their concerns. It is not necessary to pretend to be someone else for this.

The same applies to building rapport in personal relationships.

For instance, remembering some information about the person, finding out what worries the person, asking a good follow-up question, or giving the person attention can help create rapport.

Rapport is created when people feel that it is real.

It is especially significant because influence without rapport feels like pressure. If people think that someone is trying to persuade them but does not care what they think, people get more resistant.

In the case of attention and respect, influence becomes easier. The message from sales is not that rapport should be established artificially. It is that trust builds when people feel understood and respected.

Influence Works Better When It Starts With the Other Person

Influence is typically looked at from the viewpoint of the one trying to persuade.

What argument should I make? What should I say? How can I persuade them?

A more effective approach starts with the other person.

What matters to them? What are they seeking to accomplish? What influences their position? What experience shaped their outlook?

This is a key principle in sales communication. The seller who knows the customer will present the concept in the terms that matter to the customer. But this principle works in areas far beyond business.

If you hope someone will view a situation differently, restating your case will not necessarily get the job done. Knowing their side will enable you to influence in a more relevant way. It is not manipulation.

Ethical influence does not rely on hiding your agenda or taking advantage of a weakness. It recognizes the reality that people have varying experiences, priorities, and motivations.

Your goal is not to control the other person's decision-making process. It is simply to gain enough understanding for both sides to have a better discussion.

From Winning Arguments to Creating Understanding

Many debates become hard to resolve as both sides try to prove their point rather than understand the problem.

Each side is busy formulating his own response while the other is talking. Facts become ammunition. Debates become contests.

Discovery can shift this dynamic. Rather than challenging someone's position right away, inquire what made him adopt it. Instead of firing off a response to a statement, explore the concern behind it.

It turns out that even those who seem entirely on opposite sides of an issue can actually share the same basic objective.

Say, one is looking for fast results while another wants to play safe. The debate then is not so much about the objective but about achieving it.

Questions can unearth such distinctions.

This is where active listening and influence become especially important. Understanding does not mean accepting every word the other person says. It means gaining enough understanding of the position before responding.

That alone helps dispel unnecessary defensiveness, moving from debating to solving the problem.

Conclusion: The Best Sales Skill May Be the Ability to Understand People

What will work best outside the world of sales is not the knowledge of how to sell effectively. Rather, what works best is how to understand people.

Discovery is a lesson that we need to ask questions before making assumptions. Active listening teaches us to listen first before talking back. Rapport teaches us to connect to build trust. Ethical influence teaches us to persuade people more effectively once we know how to understand their needs.

These skills will work well not only during customer interactions.

They can make our communication with friends, partners, family, colleagues, and everyone else more effective. The process is simple:

Ask. Listen. Understand. Connect. Influence.

Using sales skills in personal relationships does not mean seeing people as prospects.

This implies that human skills which allow one to succeed in sales can help one to become a better communicator. This is the reason why sales is one of the universal life skills.

The greatest influence never starts with having a convincing argument or a great presentation.

It starts with being curious about others and the desire to understand their interests and values.