Introverted salespeople seems like a typo. Taking a deeper dive, the fact is that introverts have a special set of innate skills comparable to superpowers that can be leveraged to not only compete with but greatly surpass extroverts in a sales setting.

On this episode, we bring you the Founder of Rapid Growth Coach, Matthew Pollard. We immediately knew this had to be a 2 part series and couldn’t be more excited to showcase this incredibly insightful topic of introverted salespeople. We explore Matthew’s first book, The Introverts Edge, that covers;

Set the Stage – Step 1: Trust an agenda
Mine for Gold – Step 2: Ask probing questions
Speak to the Right Person – Step 3: Qualification
Don’t sell – tell – Step 4: Story-based selling
Don’t argue—augment – Step 5: Dealing with objections
Take their temperature – Step 6: Trial close
Ask without asking – Step 7: Assume the sale

Matthew Pollard is responsible for five multi-million-dollar business success stories, all before the age of 30. His humble beginnings, the adversities he faced, and his epic rise to success show that anyone, with the right motivation and the right strategies, can achieve anything they set their mind to.

Today, Forbes calls him “the real deal,” Global Gurus lists him as a Top 30 Sales Professional, Top Sales World Magazine named him a Top 50 Speaker, and BigSpeak lists him as an international Top 10 Sales Trainer. He’s also the bestselling author of The Introvert’s Edge, which hit the Amazon charts as the 8th Most-Sold Book of the Week, appears on HubSpot’s list of the “Most Highly-Rated Sales Books of All Time,” and was selected by BookAuthority as the #2 “Best Introvert Book of All Time.” His soon-to-be-released second book, The Introvert’s Edge to Networking, has already received endorsements from Harvard, Princeton, Neil Patel, Michael Gerber, Dr. Ivan Misner, and Marshall Goldsmith.

Join the conversation in the Conquer Local Community and keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

Introduction

George: Get ready, Conquer Local Nation, we are bringing you a guest this week. We met him a number of months back. Matthew Pollard is the Founder of the Rapid Growth Coach and a two-time author, and today we are going to bring him on the show to unpack his best-selling book. The Introvert’s Edge was written back in 2018, it hit the Amazon charts as the eighth-most sold book of the week. It’s been on HubSpot’s list of the most highly-rated sales books of all time, and it was selected by book authority as the number two best introvert book of all time. Matthew is a top 50 keynote speaker last year and responsible for five multi-million dollar business success stories before the age of 30. Forbes has called him the real deal, and he was ranked in the top 30 Sales Professionals by global gurus. We’re looking forward to learning all about introverts, which by the way, is half of the population on the planet. Matthew Pollard coming up next on the Conquer Local Podcast.

Matthew Pollard joining us, the founder of Rapid Growth Coach, and a good day Matthew, I’m excited to have you on the show.

Matthew: And I’m excited to be here. Thanks so much for having me on.

George: I was talking to my wife before we were doing the show and she says, “So you are going to do an interview with an author, that’s an expert on introverts. So learn some things while you’re on that episode.”, because my wife is an introvert and I am an extrovert. So I’m excited to learn about this, but first maybe what we should do is, I have tried to give a bit of context on Matthew, but nothing better than hearing from the man himself. So if you wouldn’t mind giving us a bit of an overview of your biography and then we’ll start to learn about The Introverts Edge.

Behind The Introvert’s Edge

Matthew: Yeah, absolutely. So I’m known as the rapid growth guy and predominantly what I do is I spend my time helping introverted, predominantly service providers, who realize that they’re not second class citizens, their path to success is just different to that of an extrovert and really helping them realize that the reason why they’re stuck in this constant hamster wheel of hustling to find interested prospects, trying to set themselves apart and make the sale, really is because they don’t spend the time focusing on really the three important steps outside the scope of the functional skill, which most service providers are amazing at, which is how to truly differentiate how to niche and how to create a great sales system. And, it’s interesting, which led to these books is originally when I first started talking about these three steps, which is what led me to creating five multimillion-dollar success stories. After I mean, I was really introverted kid and we can get into that, and it was 93 doors before my first sale, selling door to door, I used to talk about differentiation, talk about niche marketing, and then go into talk about sales systemization. And before that, I told my own personal journey and people would always come up to me afterward and say that “I had no idea my, as an introvert that I could sell, that I could network, that I could achieve any success. Really, I always thought that I’d have to accept subpar performance of myself.” And that really pushed me to not write the book, The Introvert’s Edge, but tell everybody else in the world that somebody should write it because I had pretty significant reading and spelling disabilities. And, eventually, everybody said to me, “No one’s gonna buy a book on introverted selling.” And I ended up partnering with a ghostwriter after a really successful coaching session, a series of sessions, where we got him from making no money really at all to making, some really high six-figure incomes. And all of a sudden he was like, “Matt, you’ve got to write this book.” Which, working with a ghostwriter is interesting. It takes a lot of work to get a book done still, but literally, we launched the book in 2018, it’s sold over 45,000 copies and it’s now been translated into 14 languages. It has been listed as the number two book ever written for introverts and one of the most highly-rated sales books of all time. And the new book, The Introvert’s Edge To Networking, it’s won a bunch of awards already, it already sells thousands of copies. It’s actually outperforming the first one, which we’re excited to see. It’s just, it’s helping so many introverts really understand that they don’t have to hide in the shadows, they don’t have to hide under a bridge, which is what a lot of extroverts think that somebody, that’s introverted, they shouldn’t be doing interviews like that, or they like this, or they can’t. It actually just shows them that there’s a system for each one of those so-called extroverted arenas.

George: What I remember hearing you say once online is that half the people on earth are introverts. So you’re telling me that they can’t sell, I think that’s, I’m putting words in your mouth, but you’re saying that that’s not true and we all know that, but that can’t be true. So, I really wanna understand, and if you could give us just an overview of The Introvert’s Edge, and maybe let’s start with that, like an introvert, what is, some people out there might not even know that they are introverted.

Matthew: There’s this big stigma around introversion about whether they can succeed or they can’t. So if, firstly, if you’re wondering whether or not you are an introvert or not, Leith I mean, it’s really easy to answer that question in my view. Now, don’t get me wrong, you can really over-complicate it. Like psychologists and psychiatrists have been confusing this for the longest time, which leads the Average Joe saying, “Well, I don’t really know whether I’m an introvert or an extrovert.” But to me, we can keep it really simple. Which is, where you draw your energy from. So if you draw your energy from being at home by yourself, or maybe with your husband and wife, then you’re absolutely an introvert. If you draw your energy from hanging out with people, then you’re an extrovert. I know for a fact that Jim Cathcart is a great friend of mine. He’s known as one of the most reward-winning speakers in the world. And, he came and spoke on one of my stages, I run an event called Small Business Festival, we put up that 100 free events across the country every year. And for the first event, he was our closing keynote. And I remember he was in and around the event for three days, I was in around the event for three days. The difference was at the end, he was charged up and he wanted to, go and conquer Rainey Street in Austin and really enjoy the live music capital of the world. I was exhausted, I wanted to go home and put on a hoodie and watch nothing but Netflix with nobody around for a few hours before I passed out. It didn’t mean that either of us, you couldn’t notice the difference on really how we were behaving inside the room. You probably would have considered both of us extroverted. The only difference was, I was, my energy was depleaded and he was fully charged at the end of the event. So it really does come down to where you draw your energy from. Now, for those people that believe, no, no, but that’s fine, okay, I draw my energy from being myself, by myself, which means I can’t sell. Well, hang on a second, you’ve got to think about people like Zig Ziglar, Jeff Blunt, by the way, both of those are introverts. If you think you can’t network, Ivan Misner, the founder of BNI, the world’s largest networking group is an introvert. “Oh, wait, introverts can’t do small talk.” Well, hang on a second, Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah Winfrey, both introverts. Aren’t they pretty good at small talk? So if you think about it, all of the things that introverts think that they can’t do, they truly can. And the whole focus around the first book, The Introvert’s Edge, was really about helping people understand that. And for me, I just got frustrated with so many introverts feeling they couldn’t, and what I realized is what happened. And Susan Cain wrote a great book, Quiet, and it really talked about, it was really the empowerment book for introverts. It was, “Don’t feel bad that you’re introverted.” Now, she talked about being a negotiator in her day job, yet, she also talked about if you wanna be a writer if you wanna be a coder, don’t feel bad about that, we need these jobs. But people heard what they wanted to hear in my mind because all these books afterwards came out about “Poor you, you’re an introvert, let me show you how to survive in an extroverted world.” And my belief is with a great system, forget about surviving, we truly have an edge. We just need a great system that allows us to sidestep out our struggles, our challenges, and actually leverage our strengths. When we do that, we actually can bait our extroverted counterparts hands down. And The Introvert’s Edge, that focuses on sales, which is the first book, was really that system. And, there’s nothing in the book that really you couldn’t get from another book. What it did though, is it put the system together and it removed all the bulldog techniques, and the hard closes that extroverts just don’t feel authentic with and provided a step-by-step system that introverts would flock to and truthfully hold onto.

And if you think about, I mean systems, I mean, this isn’t new stuff. Brian Tracy said the top 10% of all sales performers have a plan presentation, the bottom 80% just say whatever comes out of their mouth. And of course, extroverts are better at that. However, if you think about following a plan process, introverts are better at that, which is why a lot of the top performers happened to be introverts and a lot of the absolute bottom performers, because they can’t just wing it, also happened to be introverts. The thing is, that while this system can actually work for extroverts as well, introverts hold onto it for dear life because without a system we’re terrible at sales. Extroverts actually find it difficult, ’cause they love winging things. They love just flying by the seat of their pants, they love getting a phone call with their boss. We were just talking about this just before a sale, going, “What’s the hook for this? Okay, I’ll just go in and do that.” The problem is that when you wing things, you can’t recreate them. And just like, when you’re working on a production line, you can’t perfect things, if you’re always doing it in a dynamic way every time.

George: So the methodology and the process lend more towards an introvert than an extrovert in what I’m hearing from you?

Matthew: Yeah, absolutely. And you’ve got to think about it. Introverts have these amazing skills like they have the ability to actively listen. So, there’s studies that highlight that introverts create few, but deep relationships. Extroverts create lots of shallow relationships. So if you think about our ability, why is it we create deeper bit deep relationships? Well, the answer is, that we ask questions because we’re genuinely interested, and then we listen for the answers and we actually empathize. These are superpowers. Now the problem is when we go to a networking room or when we go to a sale, we struggle with that initial bit and it just feels uncomfortable. 

Now, if we learn how to systemize that, we get to leverage these amazing strengths. Now it’s not to say extroverts can’t learn these strengths, but they have some hurdles. Firstly, they don’t like holding onto a system, they don’t like following the system. They like it to be dynamic. They pride themselves on being able to wing things. And some people might actually say that extroverts aren’t the best listeners in the world. They’re not the most empathetic, but here’s the difference. They can go and learn those skills just like introverts naturally have them in kind of a one system, they can go and learn a system and learn those skills. The thing is, that, and this is what always frustrates me. HR departments will go, “Oh, Johnny is an extrovert. Johnny is not that great at listening. So we’ll send him to active listening classes. We’ll send him to emotional intelligence classes to become more empathetic because we know that that’s a learnable skill.” So Johnny, this person with a natural ability, learns to listen, learns to empathize. Little Trevor or little Sarah, because she’s an introvert, we don’t really think that she can do it. So we don’t send her to sales training, even though she’s got this amazing empathy and an amazing ability to actively listen. So the reason, why I suggest that introverts have an advantage, is we have these skills in-built, and once we learn a system that we can utilize day in, day out, we hold onto it, which holding onto that system is actually one of the biggest drivers of success in sales that you focus on a systematic approach. Because the other thing that it does is it makes it an external process. So instead of we as taking it on, as when we get rejected as a personal rejection, we’re like, “Okay, there was something wrong in the process.” It allows us to treat it almost like a scientist and work out what we can improve. And as an introvert, we go, “Okay, well, we’re only meant to change one thing at a time, so let’s focus on changing just that and seeing if it improves our results or decreases our results over time.” An extrovert will say, “Let’s change this, let’s change this, let’s change this, let’s wing it.” Well, of course it blows up in their face, right? If you’re winging things, you never know what’s causing it to go up or down, which is why an extrovert’s sales ability tends to look more like a rollercoaster ride. “We’re doing really well, let’s truncate things. Let’s not tell stories. Let’s just go with it. Oh wait, I just had a fight with my wife. Now, all of a sudden my sales are gone and I don’t remember what to say, and I’ve got to rely on my emotions and my ability to soar in that networking room or in that sales activity, but I’m just not there as much as they should be.”

So what I find is that extroverts without a system, their ability to sell is largely depending on their mood. I had one extroverted salesperson when I first started that bought a brand new car,  it’s the first time he had a big payment. It freaked him out, his sales plummeted. He literally thought about selling the car, just so that he could get his sales back on track, which he could absolutely afford if he had his sales back on track. Introverts were terrible at selling when we first started. Right, we’re all arms and elbows, we get stuck in our head, but you give us a system that we can follow in a way that we can practice it, ’cause I don’t want you to sound robotic like you see those telemarketers at eight o’clock at night., I’m talking about a systems, by the way, scripts, if you think about your favorite movie, maybe you saw Gangs of New York. I, Leonardo DiCaprio was amazing in that, he’s reading off the script. He just spent time learning it, practicing it, embracing it. As salespeople, as introverts, we don’t have to learn to be somebody from the, for years and years ago, we just have to learn to present the best version of ourselves. And that’s actually really, really simple as long as we know the steps to graduate from. And what you’ll find is even, it doesn’t matter what system, I mean, sure, I’ve got a system in my book, it really doesn’t matter which system you go with, as long as it doesn’t have bulldog techniques and hard closes, ’cause you won’t feel comfortable with that and that you constantly try and improve it one step at a time.

Taking the Steps

George: So in the book, there are a number of steps around this. We talked about the system, you had me at system by the way, and I learned a lot about introverts in that last few minutes. So thank you for that. I’d really like to understand this system now that you’re speaking of and let’s unpack that.

Matthew: Yeah, absolutely. And look, I’d love to unpack every single step, we, it would take, a considerable amount of time to go through that in the most effective way. So there are ways of systemizing the report at the beginning, and obviously, you do need to do that. You need to do qualification questions to make sure you’re speaking to the right person, but to make things easier, one of the things that I do in the first chapter of my book, which everybody can download, my publisher hates me when I say this, you don’t need to buy my book. You can go to The Introvert’sEdge.com, there you can download the first chapter of the book and I will give you the full seven-step process in there. I’ll help you overcome your belief that you can’t sell as an introvert and give you the full seven steps. And if you do nothing more than grab what you currently say, put it under those chapter headings. First thing you realize is there’s some things that do not fit. Throw that out, you shouldn’t be saying that to customers. Then you’ll realize there’s some things out of order, fix that. And then you’ll realize there’s some gaping holes, usually around asking great questions and then telling great stories. Now, if you do nothing more than do that, you’ll double your sales in the next 60 days. So, what I would suggest is instead of unpacking each one of the steps, which you can get out of that book, let’s spend the time talking about what I call the heart of the sale, which is really around telling great stories. Because one of the things that I find, especially with introverts is when somebody asks them a question or try or ask for advice or they’re in a sale, what they tend to do, is open up this fire hose of information. They do this in networking events, they do it in consulting. I had this client, Alex Murphy, and, he was, I mean, he was a videographer and to make things worse, he had a chronic stutter, which was exacerbated when he was uncomfortable. And, for him, he just graduated out of college and he made this decision that he was gonna start his own business. “Anyway, you know what, I’ll figure it out. Like, sure, I don’t know how to sell it. I know how to do this, I don’t know how to do that, but I’ll figure it out as I go.” So he maxed out his credit cards, borrowed money from his dad, started his own business. And he actually found that getting appointments was actually not that hard, which was actually impressive considering his chronic stutter. But when he got into the sale, somebody would then start talking about what they were looking for and he’d get excited and say, “Oh, you can do this and you can do this and you can do this and you can do this.” And then all of a sudden they’d ask for this massive proposal and he would then go away. And sometimes he’d spend up to six hours writing the most in-depth proposal period. He then sent it to them and then he’d wait and he’d wait, and he’d just never really hear back from the person. The problem is that eventually he’d pick up the phone and call him and be like, “What did you decide to do?” And it was always, “Oh, we decided just to leave it for now” or “we decided to go with someone else.” Now, his wife said it was just a miserable place to be because he watched, like, it was just horrible to watch her husband kind of go through this, thinking that that deal was a done deal and then finding out after hours of work, that nothing was going to come from it. So, I helped him unpack the sale, and he started explaining to me what happened, and then they asked him, that he found the initial elements about building rapport uncomfortable, which of course you can fix by, handling it in a structured way, but then they talk about the outcome they’re trying to obtain, and he would then open up that fire hose of information. And I said, okay, at that point they’re asking for a proposal, right? He’s like, “Yeah, they’re out then.” I said, here’s the problem, you’re confusing the customer, which is causing you to lose the sale. You, the devil fuel is in the detail. What you need to do is you need to instead tell a story.

Now, everybody listening probably thinks they tell their customers great stories. The truth is it’s always customer wanted this, so we gave it to them. It’s like a CNN report, it’s the most boring thing in the world. When I talk about telling stories, I mean more like a story about how you met your husband or wife, your significant other, right? Think about that story for a second, when you first told it, it was probably a little bit bulky. You might’ve said some things to someone and realize that they kind of got bored at certain elements. You’re like, “You know what? I might gloss over that next time.” And then you tell it next time. And I’m like, “Wow, George really got excited by that element, I might embellish a little bit on that next time.” Over time, it becomes this theatrical masterpiece. I say this, my wife says this, we say this together,  we hold hands, we look at each other and we’re like I said, “That’s how we met.” The problem is no one tells stories like that in a business framework, no one does. And because of that, they use the customer, right? When they think they tell stories, they’re just basically opening the same fire hose of information of logical data that happens to be put together and in some type of story. And that doesn’t work. When you tell stories the right way, some amazing things happen.

First thing is studies out of Princeton highlighted what they call the reticular activating system of the brain. What that actually does is it creates artificial rapport, our brains synchronized. And that allows an introvert to turn it into real rapport, a deeper relationship. Also, people remember up to 22 times more information would embed into a story. Which is super powerful because when, I remember when I used to go out selling telecommunications and, I was terrible, I should never have been in sales, right? I only fell into it after losing my job just before Christmas, but when I started to realize the power of this, it was like, it was huge like I didn’t realize sometimes, I’d be out selling telecommunications that I’d seen 10 brochures from other providers sitting on their desk, and I knew they’d remember more of what I told them that all of them combined if I embedded it into a story. Now, a lot of people struggled to believe that, and I’m like, all right, well, let’s think about it. Three random items, chairs, porridge, beds. Remember that, don’t write it down. I’ll ask you again in a year. What do you think your chances are? No one thinks they’ve got a chance. “Oh, I’ll write it down. That’s the only way I can do it.” “All right, tell me the story of Goldilocks and the three bears.” “Oh my gosh, you’re right.” She sat in some chairs, she ate some porridge, she slept in the beds.” All of a sudden we read, and we remember the order, instant recall because it was embedded into a story. So when we’re trying, even, especially when we’re going through the proposal phase, right? We can shorten sales cycles substantially because what happens is people go, “You know what, you’re the first person, I feel this tangibility, and I can actually explain that to my boss. But skip the proposals, this is the career I want.” And all of a sudden things move much, much faster. So having that understanding is powerful, but it’s not as powerful as the fact that stories when told the right way, short circuit the logical brain and speak directly to the emotional brain. Now the logical part of the brain is the part of the brain that says, “That’ll work for me, that won’t work for me. Maybe on, oh, look, I don’t really have time for this. Thanks for your time.” They’ll hang up, they’ll, they’ll say, “Send me a proposal or whatever.” The emotional part, when they hear a story, it short-circuits the logical brain and the brain literally go to storytime and it just listens. And it hears all the details, this is the cool thing, it assumes all the detail and the story is a fact. It doesn’t question whether it would work for them, it just worked for that person, that’s what they believe. And then when you get to the end, all they do is listen to the moral. And if the moral of the story is, “I worked with the customer just like you, or that had the same problem that wanted the same outcome. Here’s what we did and we delivered this amazing result. And more importantly, here is the emotions that they had at the end.” The transformation. Did the person get a promotion? Did the person, all of a sudden start making more money? What was it? Did they feel less pressure? All of a sudden they’re going to want that same transformation. That’s what makes such a substantial difference to everybody when you tell a story in that way, that is what’s powerful. Now, most people don’t tell stories that way. And Alex didn’t either. So as soon as I said, “Okay, go about learning it this way.” Of course, he said, “Well, I don’t want to sound scripted.” I said, “Well, that’s okay.” Told him the example of learning like an actor, explained to him the power of doing it that way, and I mean, he drove his wife nuts, learning these three stories. ‘Cause I always suggest people learn three stories for the three major outcomes they deliver or the three major problems their clients have. All of a sudden they started going out in the sales. Literally, he went from struggling to make a six-figure income between him, his wife, his dad was in the business and office, and a staff member to nearly a million-dollar business within the space of just seven months. Everything transformed. If a guy with a chronic stutter can do this, you can too. Stories you can mess everything else up in is, in a sales system, but still tell a great story and people are, “Oh my gosh, I want what Alex has.” Because their logical brain is off, and their emotional brain, which is by the way, the part of the brain that wants, that pushes you to buy anyway, goes, “Oh my gosh, I need that.” And all of a sudden everything is different. So telling stories is by far the most powerful driver in any sale.

George: So if I hear correctly, Matthew, what you’re saying is the two components that introverts really struggle with, are that needs analysis portion, where they have to kind of come out of their shell and ask questions, which may be a little bit uncomfortable, and then the second piece is become that prolific storyteller.

Matthew: Yeah, absolutely. So I would say everybody really struggles with asking great questions. I think extroverts say, “My boss told me to ask questions, but I really wanna get talking about what I wanna be talking about”. So asking the right questions and having a plan of what questions to ask, I think everyone struggles with. The introverts especially need to know what those questions are because otherwise, they’re just scared to be having a dialogue, they’re stuck in their head trying to think of what to say. Now, our ability to empathize is powerful if we have an agenda, but if we’re stuck in our own head, it’s actually the opposite, it’s our Achilles heel. So knowing, having a plan of a set of questions, is really, really important. But then you’re right, becoming that powerful storyteller because an introvert goes straight into logical fact and data. And the problem with that is it overwhelmed the client

Think about it, any industry you’re in, you’ve probably spent years studying it in school, then now you’re out doing it, maybe you run your own business. You’ve spent years perfecting the art before you even started your business, and then you try and download all of that. And in your head you’re like, “Oh, I’m just trying to make sure the customer can make an informed decision.” No, you’re terrifying them into not making a decision. So telling a great story is powerful. So, I mean, there are things that you can do when you think about rapport, when you think about asking the right questions, when you think about closing, that can be planned, prepared, scripted, and practiced, but storytelling is by far the most important. It actually, once introverts have a structured story that they can tell what’s really great is when they ask questions, they empathize amazingly well. They use their active listening, so when they tell the story, their brain is, they’re telling the story, but they’re not focused on what to say, they know what to say. And there are amazing, absolutely mind-blowingly amazing at grabbing elements of the story and applying it to the person that they’re speaking to. Because they’ve listened. So, they’re like, “Okay, so this will attach to this and this will attach to this” and you watch their brains work, and they just, they have this unbelievable ability to not make the story about someone else, but make it, tell them the story about someone else, while making it absolutely applicable to the person that they’re speaking to. And that’s why, yeah, it’s, an introvert’s ability to tell amazing stories is a superpower. I will say, though, a lot of introverts will start telling a story and go, “Oh my gosh, I’ve been talking forever.” So they truncate the story when they’re with the customer because they think they’ve been talking for five minutes, it’s been 30 seconds. And because of that, they end up, even though they’ve practiced and prepared a really relevant story, it sounds like a list of dot points, which doesn’t disengage the logical mind. So again, it comes to practice and it comes to believing in the fact that stories will work for you, because otherwise you won’t, you’ll go straight into telling data points of the story. And then you realize that it doesn’t work. Well, it’s not true, it does. Stories do work, you’re just doing it wrong.

Conclusion

George: Well, I appreciate that context, and also the fact that these steps that you outline in the book are for both, and I agree with that 1000% there’s something to be learned here for extroverts and for introverts. I do find that it’s fascinating because it helps you to relate to somebody. Like I, I’m an extrovert, although I sometimes have introvert tendencies, being able to put yourself in that person’s shoes is really important as well as being able to relate. So, I think there’s something for extroverts to learn as well. We’re going to take a break because I think there’s a lot more that we need to cover. We’ve got a whole other book. So folks spoiler alert, you’re going to get another episode where we’re gonna dig into The Introvert’s Edge to Networking and learn even more about their superpowers that Matthew has been talking about. But Matthew, thank you for this, a first look into your first book, The Introvert’s Edge, and helping us to understand this process when it comes to sales, and then we’ll learn more in the upcoming episode, which will be next week on The Introvert’s Edge to Networking. So standby for that.

Wow, is all I can say when it comes to Matthew’s energy and I’m learning things about introverts every sec, but let’s look at book number one, The Introvert’s Edge, which we spent our time speaking to Matthew about in this episode, and I wanted to cover the seven steps.

The first step is you need to trust an agenda, and Matthew talked a lot about introverts needing to really have a defined process, to feel comfortable in the selling space. Also, learning how to mine for gold and ask those probing questions is step number two, and learning how to figure out if you’re talking to the right person. What are those qualifying questions that you wanna be asking? How do you properly qualify?

Now of these seven steps, and we did touch on this, it’s for everyone. It isn’t just for extroverts or introverts, it’s a sales process that everyone can follow, but we do wanna highlight that that qualification component is a piece that introverts really need to work on, to remove the anxiety that they may have of asking things that might feel uncomfortable. So do it a number of times, realize you’re not gonna die, and then get it to a place where it can become repeatable. Then we have this idea of stories doing the selling. You’ve heard us talk about that a lot on the broadcast, but for an introvert, the idea of trying out a story on somebody might be a place where they would feel very, very uncomfortable. So trying out those stories ahead of time, understanding that story is the way to articulate the value, that’s where sales really happen, is a piece that you really wanna focus on if you’re an introvert. By the way, extroverts, don’t forget about it, storytelling is something that’s vitally important, regardless of introvert or extrovert.

Then we get to that dealing with objections, like, do we wanna argue? Do we wanna have that debate? Do we wanna really understand where the problems are? Again, something that you need to practice, but on both sides, introvert or extroverted, dealing with objections is an important piece. And then taking that temperature, trying the trial close, figuring out if you’ve given them enough information for them to make the determination that your solution is the one they wanna move forward. And I also believe that it’s really important for introverts to understand that that assumption of the sale like we are going to work together. I have worked with all of these different clients that have the same challenges of yours, and then we tell a story that validates that we can solve the problem. Assuming that sale is step number seven of the seven-step process for introverts gaining that edge when it comes to selling.

Thanks to Matthew Pollard for joining us on this edition of the Conquer Local Podcast. We appreciate getting all of that insight and all of that energy on how introverts can use their edge to a superpower, actually, to become very proficient in the sales process. Thanks for joining me on this episode, we’ll bring Matt back for another episode to discuss book number two, The Introvert’s Edge to Networking, next week here on the Conquer Local Podcast. I’m George Leith, I’ll see you when I see you.