Sales Principles We Can Learn From the Air Force

Colorado’s Madison Marsh has been crowned Miss America. 

The real story? The win made history as Madison becomes the first active-duty military service member to win the title in the pageant's nearly 100-year history.

Marsh is a second lieutenant in the Air Force and recently graduated from the Air Force Academy in Colorado. She is also an astrophysicist and currently enrolled in courses at Harvard. 

If I have ever flexed anything, I take it back because it’s so painfully lame in comparison.

Now most of us know that the Air Force is known for producing some of the highest performing leaders in the United States. 

But I wanted to know how they do it.

And what I found was that the Air Force defines leadership as “the art and science of influencing and directing people to accomplish the assigned mission.”

I wish I could tell you more but I stopped reading because that sounds an awful lot like sales. 

We can’t fly a military aircraft. But we can sell.

Here are 3 of the simplest* things that you can do TODAY (like.. starting right now) to display Air Force level leadership in your conversations at work and at home:

1. Keep the focus on them

   Stop saying ‘I’… Seriously, just try it. You have your own interest in mind. And so does everyone else. You aren’t selfish, you’re human. Influential leadership, and selling, start with working against our own human nature (the desire to talk about ourselves) in order to speak to the other person’s interest.  

2. Keep the language positive

   “Don’t fumble” vs “get in the end zone”

   “Don’t strike out” vs “get a hit”

   “Don’t blow it” vs “execute”

   The human brain literally can’t process a negative command. All it heard was FUMBLE! STRIKE OUT! BLOW IT! When talking to others (and yourself!!!), keep the language positive and you’re more likely to get the desired result. 

3. Find out what people really care about

   Maybe all Air Force pilots care about completing the mission to make their commander proud. But I kinda doubt it. Just like your client probably doesn’t care about how you offer bi-weekly calls. To be influential and use persuasion for good (we write a book about that), you should find out what really matters to each person. Then show them how your product or service can give them that. Showbiz, baby.

^{*Notice it says simple and not easy. The only thing that’s easy is to NOT do these things.} 

Salesgirls everywhere thank you for your service, Madison. Both literally and figuratively.

Xo, The Salesgirls