Book Review: The Introvert’s Edge

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

The Introvert’s Edge: How Quiet and Shy Can Outsell Anyone
Author: Matthew Pollard with Derek Lewis
2018 Amacon
Price $ 17.95

This new book by Matthew Pollard banishes the notion that only extroverts can sell. Gone is the idea that the back-slapping, glad-handling, joke-telling method of selling is the only way to go. This is a book for all the other salespeople who are shy but thoughtful, slower-talking but pensive, quiet but methodical. In other words, the introverts. Those who almost never get chosen for sales jobs because of their “lack of personality,” or so we think.

If you are one of these people, or you have some on your team, this is a must-read for you and anyone who feels they do not have the characteristics it takes to be the next Professor Henry Hill. As this book points out, you don’t have to be a Henry Hill to succeed in sales.

Truth be known, introverts make the best salespeople in the end because they are willing to work. They are willing to plan, and they are willing to do what it takes to win that order, which means following the plan. Introverts do the homework rather than just wing it like extroverts do.

In this book, Pollard lays out a seven-step process designed to make the introverts (anyone, for that matter) who follow it successful in sales. So, there is hope for those pushy extroverts as well.

1. Set the stage: trust and agenda
2. Mine for gold: ask probing questions
3. Speak to the right person: qualification
4. Don’t sell, tell: story-based selling
5. Don’t argue, augment: dealing with objections
6. Take their temperature: trial close
7. Ask without asking: assume the sale

As these steps of the process demonstrate, they are custom-made for an introverted person who wants to succeed in sales and a sales manager who wants to coach his sales team. This is one of the most important sales training books of the year or maybe the decade.

Find it in Amazon