This might be best summed up by the famous quote by Theodore Roosevelt: "No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care."
I'd like to explore my understanding of this verse a bit. To do so, I would like to explore how it relates to sales.
Sales
I have been in sales all my life. So have you. I didn't know it; in fact, I would have denied it fiercely at times, but it is true!
When I was a child, I was constantly selling my parents on letting me go play with my friends. I was constantly selling my friends on what I wanted to play. And every night, every single night, with persistence and without discouragement, I would try to sell my parents on letting me eat something after or as they were putting me to bed. It never worked, but somehow I never got discouraged either! I just kept right on selling!
Today, my biggest and most important sales job of life is being a Dad! I am constantly selling! I am selling my children on desired behavior. I am selling my children on ideas of all sorts! I am selling my wife on things I think would be good for them! I am constantly selling.
Case in point: while writing this I told my daughter it was time to sit on the potty. She said, in an attempt at monotone: "No, I can't. I am a robot." I responded in monotone: "Robot, it is time for you to sit on the potty." She said "okay," and went and sat on the potty. Sales!
I also sell at my job. I program a web application. I have no leadership role in the company I work for, but I am constantly selling. I am selling other developers on what I think is good design; I am selling other team members and managers on what I think is good software development process; I am selling product managers on how I think something in the product could be improved.
In short, any time we wish to exert influence, we sell. Facebook is perhaps the largest sales engine in the world! It's all about people spreading ideas and influence. This is sales.
In the last year, I have become actively engaged in professional sales. I know, I know, I said my job was programming. But in the last couple years, I have found an idea that is much more meaningful for me to sell.
When I began, I claimed no sales experience. That's pretty ridiculous in light everything I stated above, but I didn't understand that at the time. It took me a year of learning and growing before my first sale closed, that is, before someone bought into the idea I was sharing sufficiently to pay money to live it.
Since then, I have closed numerous sales, and I have learned a number of things along the way. Here's where I begin getting back to that verse in Corinthians. Hopefully by the end of this, it will all tie in nicely.
Belief
Successful sales requires belief. Belief in yourself and belief in what you are offering.
Belief in Yourself
I have never been a professional motivational/inspirational speaker, but in my experience of listening to them, it seems they have one core objective: to inspire one's belief in self. If you have no belief that you can do something, you will never have the faith to do it! Faith, or action, can be based only on belief.
I recently read that "23 million dollars a year is spent in one zip code in Southside of Chicago on lottery tickets. People are spending more money on luck than on their own potential." I agree with this writer's assessment. To me it is sad evidence that these people believe more in luck than in themselves. Indeed, our world is in great need of self-belief.
It is my belief that the best way to develop this self belief is through growing closer to God combined with doing things outside our comfort zone, i.e. exercising faith. More could be said on this, but I don't want to go on too big of a tangent here. Suffice it to say that not everyone with a high sense of self-belief has a strong relationship with God, but I believe that a meaningful relationship with God will gestate a firm foundation of self-belief.
Belief in Your Offering
Whether you are a parent selling your child on going to the potty, a missionary selling an atheist on your religion, or a peddler selling goods door to door, a key component is believing that what you are offering will bless the people to whom you are selling.
This is pretty easy when you're a potty-training parent! As an adult you have personal experience in knowing that it's a great thing to be potty trained! That may sound silly in this context, but having personal experience with what you are selling is key. It's awfully hard to sell something you don't believe in enough to have for yourself.
If you are a missionary, having a personal testimony is crucial. Personal experiences where your belief and religion have blessed your life are indispensable. These provide you with continuing motivation and purpose, and also are valuable to others as you share those experiences in ways that can connect with them.
And, of course, if you are selling wares, you best be a product of the product yourself. Can you make some sales without it? Yes, certainly. But believe in it enough yourself to be a card-carrying member, a product of the product, and you will be ever-so-much more effective.
Reverence
I am going to guess that when you read the word reverence above, you either weren't really paying attention, or you thought something like: "say what? Reverence? What the..."
So often we associate reverence with folding our arms and being quiet in church or during a prayer, but this is not at all what the word means. Reverence means love and respect.
Love
Here we come back to Paul's comment: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." (1 Cor 13:3)
You can know everything about your offering, you can know everything about your prospect, and you can know everything about how to articulate, but if you don't love the prospect for who they are independent of their decision, you're just making noise. The world has enough distracting noise; it is not a scarce resource. Please don't feel that you need to create more of it!
Sure, your noise might sound a little less annoying that another's, and as such you may attract some people to it, but could you imagine following someone who doesn't really care about you? How long would you stick around? You will have a hard time being a leader of people you don't care about, and you won't be able to maintain it long term.
Even more, without charity, the purpose and meaning of your efforts to produce this noise will be hollow. Like it or not, making a positive impact on the world requires relationships. In other words, successful sales requires relationships.
If you want to potty-train your child, do you want it mostly because you're sick of changing diapers? Could you consider talking to your child to assess why s/he might want to do it, and what concerns s/he might have about it? This is showing respect and love, this is reverencing your child.
Respect
Love fosters respect. My favorite definition of respect comes from Webster's 1828 dictionary: "to esteem as possessed of real worth." (source)
Some may say "but what if someone doesn't deserve my respect?! I can love them, but that doesn't mean I have to respect them!"
I would ask, is this person human? May this person have hopes and dreams, trials and difficulties, and joys and sorrows of which you are unaware? Is this person a child of the High King, the True and Living God? If you love them, then will you not esteem them as possessed of real worth? "Remember the worth of [a soul] is great in the sight of God." (D&C 18:10)
If we wish to have an influence on the world, however, it is not enough to simply respect other people: we must also respect their choices.
Do we esteem agency as a gift of real worth? I believe agency is one of the greatest gifts given to mankind. Though let me modify the question just slightly: do we esteem the agency of others as a gift of real worth? It is my natural imperfections that lead me to say I often do and I often don't.
I can make as powerful an invitation as I am able to persuade my daughter to choose to sit on the potty, but in the end, it's her choice! Yes, I could (and admittedly have) pick her up and put her on the potty and hold her there, but if done without her permission, I am not respecting her agency.
Does this mean I let her do whatever she wants all the time? Well, in a way yes and in a way no. Since I have a stewardship over my daughter, I am able to place consequences to encourage the behavior I believe will best serve her.
Let's consider another situation. As a missionary, I may share the most heartfelt, vulnerable, touching testimony of which I am capable. The Spirit may be felt in abundance. My heart may be filled with love for the individual with whom I am conversing. Feeling all this, I invite the him/her to come to church with us.
So what happens? Well let's say the individual is closed off. Through a course of life experiences that we may never know, s/he has chosen to be completely unwilling to open up. The person stands up, thanks me for my time, and asks me not to return. As I begin to ask some questions, hoping to understand him/her and see where this is coming from, s/he refuses to answer other than to invite me to leave.
What now? Am I upset? Am I frustrated? Am I hurt? These things largely depend on my respect for his/her agency. I may make the greatest, most inspiring invitation of which I am capable. I may ask all the right questions. I may do everything "right," but when it comes down to it, do I honor another's choice?
To sum this up, approaching someone with an agenda, an attempt to control, is disrespectful. Approaching someone with an intention, an invitation, is respectful. Detaching my personal self-worth and emotional well being from their response is a sign that I respect their choice.
Conclusion
Negotiations, sales, bargaining, it all seeks the same end: coming to an agreement. However, agreements are not the greatest benefit of successful sales. The greatest benefit of successful sales is meaningful relationships.
It's awfully hard to create meaningful relationships if you don't care about people or if you disrespect them. Charity respects others and their choices. We may not agree with another's choices, but we honor them and detach ourselves from them emotionally. This way of being, one based in respectful charity, will actually foster more agreements than less.
Again, as Paul wrote: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." (1 Cor 13:3)
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