Is Sales Art or Science? – Subjective vs. Objective

Postmodern businesspeople focus on the art of selling. Science seems cold and impersonal. In one experiment that spanned more than a decade we asked over four hundred sales managers and recruiters to create a simple list of behaviors that make a successful salesperson. There were almost as many different answers as there were people answering the question. But 97 percent of the answers had one thing in common: they were subjective and not objective terms. The most frequent answer was that sales success required “persistence.” Other attributes in the top ten included “positive attitude,” “belief in what they sell,” “self-confidence,” “strong product knowledge,” “integrity,” and other words one might find in the glossary of any self-help book. These are mental and emotional constructs open to interpretation, unlike fact-based attributes, such as “making twenty prospecting sales calls per day,” “meeting or exceeding sales targets,” or “asking questions.”

This evidence suggests that most recruiters have been unwittingly brainwashed to think of successful salesmanship as something almost entirely subjective; as art outside the realm of science. If selling is metaphysical, companies should hire shamans and spiritualists, and many do.

One enormous problem with relying on subjective measures of success is that you never know when you have succeeded. Without objective benchmarks, it’s all open to interpretation. One rep’s perseverance may be another’s stubbornness. How does a recruiter know if one salesperson’s attitude is more positive than another? How do you measure belief? Subjective definitions are fleeting fashions that can change from day to day, from minute to minute. How can we quantify the ephemeral in any meaningful way?

Please do not misunderstand. We are not saying that there is no art to selling. Sales craft is highly creative. But like any artist, you cannot practice the art without first mastering basic skills and knowledge. Architects design form to follow function. They work with the science of physics before they can responsibly tackle the aesthetics of design. Although some artists can literally throw paint on a canvas, give it a name, and find people gullible enough to pay for it, this is not a sustainable business without someone who understands the psychology of media and the sociology of marketing. Musicians must know music theory, or else their improvisations soon become predictable.

Talk of the art of sales is most appropriate when discussing the conversation of the salesperson with a customer or prospect. Creativity, nuance, and style make sales uniquely expressive. But before one can practice the art of conversation, the salesperson must have someone to talk to. What good is the ability to carry on an engaging sales conversation if salespeople don’t get in front of enough prospects to reach their sales goals? Here’s a Hire Performance foundational principle: in sales, science precedes art. The salesperson earns the right to create art by paying attention to the science.

This principle holds true for recruiters and hiring managers tasked with building a sales team. Most managers enjoy the sophisticated analysis of personality and high-level conversation so much more than the grind-it-out practicality of writing ads, reading résumés, and doing those initial phone interviews. The subjective art of sales is rewarding and enjoyable precisely because there no accountability for art. Something “means” whatever the artist wants it to mean. But science is a taskmaster, insisting on inconvenient facts and keeping score.