The Power of Vulnerability Sales.

Martin Henley: Before we started recording, you were talking about the power of vulnerability, which I think is counterintuitive to business people. What is that? What does that mean?

Niraj Kapur: The power of vulnerability means wearing your heart on your sleeve, and it’s absolutely vital when it comes to leading people. A good example would be Och. Monday morning first thing in the morning, what the most bosses do in the world of sales. They have a team meeting and say, right, you have to get this, this, this, this. Get out there and sell. Make 40 phone calls. Do whatever you have to do. Say whatever you have to say. Get the target. It terrifies me the number of meetings I’ve sat in in the last six months, where that is how it starts. That is not how you start Monday morning. What you do is you have 1 to 1 meetings with your individual staff members. It’s a much more difficult process, a much more time consuming process, but it’s a way more effective one. And you talk to your team. How was your weekend? Don’t just say it. How was your weekend? And just listen to what people have to say. Get to know your stuff. Listen, these are all the most amazing skills you can have. And then when you’ve listened and they’ve talked. Talk about something you’ve done at the weekend or something you’ve had to overcome at the weekend, and then you go into business. And this is something I’ve been doing now for a while and it makes such a big difference working with companies.

Niraj Kapur: That is a power of vulnerability. Another example of vulnerability is in the post I mentioned on LinkedIn. Once a week I’ll talk about challenges and overcoming the challenges can be in business. Last month, people I did a post a surprise and shock people. I said, You know what? I’ve had no business on LinkedIn for the last three weeks now. Nobody expected me to say that I’ve had the best year of my career. I get constantly to LinkedIn every month and I convert lot of that business. But in November, I generated nothing. And people are like, Oh my God, thank you for being honest. That’s all people said. Thank you for being honest. Thank you for being real. And then people reached out to me privately to say, I really appreciate you saying that. By the way, I know it’s probably a one month, one off month for you not to get any success, but I’d like to have more success. Like, can we have a talk? That is a brilliant example of vulnerability. So a lot of people will brag and show off and say, Look at me. Look at what I’m achieving. But I will say, you know what? I’ve had a tough month this month. It’s been really difficult. That is how people relate to you, and that is a power of vulnerability.

Martin Henley: Okay, good. Because I suppose the thing that happens in sales is that nobody fronts the challenges. You know, nobody. Like if you’re failing in sales, it’s because you’re a failure. It’s not because there’s an issue with the quality of leads. It’s not because there’s an issue with the value proposition. It’s not because there’s an issue with the product not being the right fit or it not being the right time or the pricing not not quite working. It’s your fault you’re failing. So if you’re not doing your sales number very often it’s because of that. And the issue I have with that is all of those things are actually really easy to fix. You know, as long as you are fronting up to the fact that these things are challenges, they’re not insurmountable problems. You know, you can make adjustments to your pricing, you can make adjustments to your targeting, you can make adjustments to the value proposition. All of these things can be fixed. You can tweak the product so it actually fits the the needs or wants of your customers. But you’re right, it’s very often it’s like rah, rah, rah rah, go out there and do it. And if you don’t do it, it’s because you’re a failure. So. Yeah. So I think. If you’re going to be a problem solver, a solution provider, then I think it is important that you demonstrate that you are finding solutions and you can’t find solutions without having challenges.

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