Sales Skills For Introverted Audio Engineers

To a certain extent, all of us engineers are actually a little introverted, right? I mean we sit in a darkened room in our spare time and work on balancing, eq’ing, and compressing songs while everyone else has gone to bed.

So how do you now SELL the skill that you’ve been working on in your pajamas for so long? It’s not that easy right?

I just watched a Chase Jarvis YouTube video (check him out – he’s rated PG though) and he gave some advice the I thought was helpful for me and it might be helpful for you too.

When you are at a gathering, a party, or just around someone you don’t know, here are a few things he says to do before you try and “sell” your skill.

1. Break The Ice

You have to get the person you are talking to to talk about themselves – This is the subject THEY are the most comfortable with. Some sample questions you can ask is for them to tell a story about … whatever…. “tell me how you got here tonight”, “so you are into music.. tell me how you got into music”… just get them talking about themselves.

2. Be Interested

Be interested in what they are saying – Smile and listen. Don’t be creepy though. In order to be Interesting you have to be Interested

3. The Triple Nod

Chase talked about a method he learned from Vanessa Van Edwards on her talk about body language. All you do is tilt your head sideways and nod three times when someone is finishing up a statement. He says it’s freaky how predictable the result is… the person keeps talking. So if you are really interested in what they are saying (step 2) then you will definitely hear a connection point that you can use in the next step

4. Tie their story to your skill

At some point in the conversation, the person you are talking to will ask you “So what do YOU do?” If you’ve done things right, you will know exactly how to loop what YOU do into what they do. Be careful here though, you don’t switch into salesman mode. You are still trying to see if what you do and what they do will mesh. If it will, tell them you’d love to help.

Every amount of work I have ever done has begun from a relationship. The steps that are listed above will help to build relationships. Go build relationships. It will serve you well.