How to “Sell” to Introverted Leaders

“There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.”
― Susan Cain

We are seeing more and more introverted leaders emerge within our organisations. Corporations are starting to understand the power of thoughtful thinkers when it comes to strategic decision making. The days of people who are overtly quiet being told they need to “come out of their shell” are, thankfully, being challenged.

I count myself to be among those leaders as an introvert who has found his way in a world of energy sapping, socially orientated, rituals. I was very lucky to come across people who spotted my abilities and, not only allowed them to shine, but helped me develop them into the leadership skills I have today. From a software engineer, languishing in monotonous code I didn’t care about, to becoming a director of product management in just 3 years of incredible growth.

As someone responsible for strategic decision making in a large multinational I often get “cold call” type requests via different mediums, LinkedIn, email, etc. 99.9% of these I turn down right away, and it made me think about my own customer outreach and the test and learn strategies I employ to get their buy-in to our products. I wondered why most of the requests I get end up making me roll my eyes and scoff at another message that meant nothing to me.

Almost every message is about a product that my organisation could benefit from. The problem is every single person asks for my time and, to an introvert time is a valuable resource. Asking me to hop on a “quick” call with you to discuss my organisation’s needs is the equivalent of asking me to dedicate around 1.5 hours of my time and energy. It isn’t something I’m going to be interested in. So, here is some guidance about what does work that will benefit both those trying to engage with introverted leaders:

Show, Don’t Tell

“Hey Donal, I have this great product that will let you do X, can I get 30 minutes of your time tomorrow?” — All Salespeople

I never respond to messages like this because they offer no evidence that the product or service will provide me any value. Instead of asking for my time, which is extremely limited, the correct way to get my attention is to tell me how I can test out your service/product for free.

Introverts are thoughtful thinkers and we need to see that there is value in something before expending energy on any social interactions that surround it. The best way to tap into how we work is to get out of the way and let us test your product for ourselves. If it is easy to access for free and test it out in a manner that allows us to build a proof of concept, then there is your hook to locking us in.

Once we have a prototype that demonstrates there is real value to us using your service then we can talk. It gets even better when you think about how this will lead to the prototype being demonstrated inside the organisation, providing you will free socialisation of your offering within the company.

Text Speaks Louder Than Words

With developers, a traditionally somewhat introverted group, now responsible for up to 66% of decision making according to Stackoverflow, it is important to know how best to demonstrate value to this group.

Introverts like to take time to explore what is available and learn in a manner that makes then feel empowered by the knowledge they are gaining. As per the last section, you cannot just tell an introvert that your product is useful to them, it isn’t even affective for you to demonstrate it, you must give them the tools and guidance to figure it out themselves.

As such, it is important to direct a potential client to your documentation as early in the conversation as possible. Ensure it is extremely high quality, publicly available, and comprehensive. Even if there is something you need to limit someone from using, as they build a demo from your sandbox, it should be outlined what is eventually possible in documentation.

Finally, an introvert isn’t going to propose to their leadership, or peers, that they use your product without knowing how much it costs. Make sure pricing, at the very least getting started pricing, is available without having to contact you.

Asynchronous Communication

With developers, a traditionally somewhat introverted group, now making more decisions when it comes to what software and services are used for building solutions, you need to use a mechanism for asynchronous communication. Basically, never end your introduction with “can I grab some of your time for call over the coming days?”.

As per the previous advice, drop everything your potential lead needs to know, make it frictionless for them to figure out all they need to know, and then do the same for enabling to get back you.

It is highly likely you have reached out via an asynchronous medium to start with, such as email or a social site like LinkedIn, just stick with this until the time is right to seal the deal.

Summary

I just checked and on average I get three messages a week on LinkedIn that I ignore because of the reasons I have outlined. I’m a director at a large multinational financial company so I would guess this is even a low average compared to other introverted leaders.

Just with any type of sale, knowing your audience is a key part of getting them to buy, don’t waste your time with tricks that work on extroverts when you are reaching out an introvert. Do your research in advance to figure out who you are talking to, it will work wonders for you when you show you have made an attempt to understand the person you are talking to, regardless of if they are an introvert or extrovert.