9 Sales Tips for Introverts [Outsell Those Extroverts!]

If you’re not a naturally “outgoing” person, it can be easy to feel like a fish out of water in sales. But guess what? Being an introvert can actually be a huge advantage to selling…

So what if people don’t typically describe you as having the gift of gab? Maybe you really don’t relish social situations at all.

Don’t worry—many top performers in sales are introverts at heart.

In this video, I’m going to show you 9 sales tips for introverts, so you can outsell those extroverts every single time. Check it out:

1. Know that extroverts have a massive weakness.

As an introvert, you have a huge advantage over extroverts. Mainly, your advantage is that extroverts naturally want to talk, talk, and talk some more. This is a massive weakness in sales because they’re focused on what they’re going to say next, instead of focused on what the prospect is saying.

This means that extroverts are inwardly focused as opposed to outwardly focused.

As a result, extroverts might be really strong when they’re at a networking event, and they’re super comfortable working a room. But you must recognize that they actually have a huge disadvantage when it comes to one-on-one selling—and you, as an introvert, have a huge advantage.

One of the best sales tips for introverts is simply to recognize your own inherent selling strengths as someone who doesn’t just want to talk about yourself, but rather focuses on those around you.

2. Engage your prospects early.

Because you’re naturally introverted, it’s easier for you to engage prospects in conversations. This might sound counter-intuitive, but while extroverts are more naturally talkative, introverts are far better at actually getting other people to talk and open up.

Use your natural inclinations to get prospects talking early on—so that they’re doing most of the talking, and you’re doing most of the listening. Leverage your natural ability to really listen and get them going.

3. Use your introvert intuition to ask questions.

When you were a little kid, if you were stuck in a room with someone, you probably naturally asked that person questions rather than have to awkwardly try to come up with a mouthful to say on your own. Use this intuition to ask prospects questions, keying off what your prospects say to pose thoughtful, relevant questions throughout the sales conversation.

Asking questions really keeps your prospects focused on themselves, which is all they really care about anyway.

4. Really listen to what they say.

Introverts are naturally better listeners than extroverts, because they’ve been listening to others for their entire lives. You were never the motor-mouth in high school or the person at a party who had a million things to say to everyone—instead, you were listening.

You’ve built up the skill of active listening over the years. Now it’s time to use it.

Listen closely to what your prospect says, clarify when things don’t make sense, and make sure you understand exactly what they mean.

5. Dig even deeper…

Building off of the last tip, it’s important that introverts dig deep to truly get to the bottom of what their prospects mean.

Let’s say your prospect uses some type of vague term, such as “operations,” i.e.: “Things have been crazy these days with operations.” The typical extrovert would say, “Oh, yeah, I totally know what you mean, things are crazy over here with operations, too…” and launch into a full-on detour.

But as an introvert, you can easily tap into your instinct to dig deeper by clarifying with questions. Say, “Can you tell me what you mean by that? What do you see going on right now with operations exactly?” and get the prospect to open up and go deeper.

6. Summarize what you’ve heard.

Once you’re active listening to your prospects and prompting them to go deeper by asking questions, you can harness your natural abilities as an introvert to summarize what they’ve said and demonstrate your understanding of their challenges.

Let’s say you’re 20 minutes into the conversation, you’ve asked a bunch of questions, and now you can now summarize what you’ve heard by saying, “All right, George. So if I’m hearing you correctly, this is what I’ve heard you tell me so far…” Share your summary of the conversation thus far and then say, “Is this correct?” The prospect will either light up and say, “Yes, that’s exactly right,” or they’ll clarify that you’ve missed a crucial point. Either way, you’re going to go even deeper.

7. Present only to their challenges.

This is so important—and it’s such a natural skill for introverts.

When you present, be sure to present only to the prospect’s challenges. Whatever you present should be based on real solutions to the challenges your prospect has already mentioned. This means that you’re not going on tangents, you’re not showing everything that you do—you’re tapping into your inner introvert and focusing on the prospect, only presenting to their challenges, and leaving yourself out of it.

8. Keep your presentation short.

As a natural introvert, your tendency is not to talk for an hour straight. That’s a huge advantage over extroverts because, when it’s presentation time, they get so excited to talk about themselves that the prospect ends up tuning out and getting bored.

Keep your presentation really short; be ruthless. Don’t go in with a scalpel, go in with a machete, and cut out any wasted language in your presentation. Keep it as short as possible. If you do a good job of this, your prospect will actually start asking you questions to help lead the conversation around what they care most about.

9. Leverage the skills you’ve honed over a lifetime.

I cannot emphasize enough the degree to which introverts have a massive advantage over extroverts. You have developed the natural skills to listen, to engage, and to really focus on the individual in front of you at any given time. This is absolutely key to selling. The old-school idea of the super-extroverted salesperson who has the gift of gab isn’t actually what prospects want. They want the opposite. And that’s you.

In fact, those super-extroverted types typically make some of the worst salespeople.

Leverage everything you’ve learned over a lifetime to really listen to your prospects and use that to your advantage to beat extroverts at their own game every single time.

So there you have it. Now you know 9 sales tips for introverts to outsell those extroverts. I want to hear from you. Which of these ideas did you find most useful? Be sure to share below in the comment section to get involved in the conversation.