Can an analyst be good at sales?

“It was impossible to get a conversation going. Everyone was talking too much!” -Yogi Berra

“You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.” -Sherlock Holmes, in The Man with the Twisted Lip, by Arthur Conan Doyle

Analysts, programmers, accountants, and other detail-oriented people are skilled at many great things, but public speaking and “sales” don’t come naturally.

In my work helping companies get the most out of industry and academic conferences, I would coach employees -- analysts, researchers, finance people, project managers, etc. -- to present the company and their work effectively. Their instinct was generally to not give their pitch much thought and simply to launch into talking about every detail of their projects, or all the great things their company did. Pretty quickly, however, the person they were talking to at the conference would just tune out, eyes looking around, itching to get away.

My advice was simple but counterintuitive.

I would tell them to start by asking the other person about their interests and then to be quiet.

The word “conversation” starts with the Latin prefix “con” meaning “with,” or “together.”

Parents talk to.

Bores talk at.

Connectors talk with.

The secret is to make people want to talk about themselves, so you can understand what they need. It's not hard to do because nature abhors a vacuum, and they will fill the silence with all sorts of valuable information...if you let them.

Yet so few people actually harness the power of silence.

Entrepreneurs pitch their features and benefits, as if from a script, without first knowing if their product will even help the other person.

Executives talk to hear themselves talk.

Eight in ten proposals fail.

When the young analysts, researchers, finance people, project managers, and others I coached started using the power of a question followed by silence, they could learn what the other person wanted or needed, and then tailor their speech or pitch to make it clear how they can help the other person get their needs met.

Talk then flowed naturally, and they would return from conferences with business cards, opportunities, and new ideas.

You can't learn anything if you're the one talking.